Shrek

Have you gone yet ? Still need help ? I know this area quite well.

We stayed in the MJ after checking out Phu Phan Palace and Akkarasom (very quiet setting, too quiet for us) which was surprisingly good.

See

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g2...phoe_Muang.html

when were you there we were in the MJ from 23/11/07 for 2 weeks just over family are from don mafai we have some land near SN airport

Have you gone yet ? Still need help ? I know this area quite well.

I have two Farang freinds who are driving their truck from Khon Kaen down to Bangkok for a few days, but do not want to drive around in Bangkok...

Anyway, they would like to know if anyone can recommend a good driver for their truck who speaks some english and knows Bangkok... Basically looking to hire someone on a daily basis for their time in the Big Smoke...

Any suggestions / names and numbers would be greatly appreciated...

Pianoman

You need 'Ken'

17/6 Mu.1 Soi Chumthong 19

Chumthong Rd

Bangkok

0-2468-9748 house

08-1868-5002 mobile

met him last time in bkk

60 year old thai guy speaks every language gets work as an interpreter for big japanese companies

spends his day times driving farang round bkk

top guy cheap honest and reliable

Hi Shrek,

Some of the responses are baffling to say the least.............Obviously people who haven't travelled with small children.

I flew to Manchester with Emirates a couple of months ago with my wife and 2 children. No issues on the BKK-MAN leg, but on the return the plane was delayed out of Manchester by a couple of hours, which meant we missed the Dubai-BKK connection. There was a bit of a bunfight at the transfer desk, but when I got to the front of the queue we were given 2 hotel rooms, 3 sets of food vouchers and booked on to the Thai airways flight 14 hours later.

The whole experience was absolutely stress free, the hotel fantastic with great food. I had a big meal, then slept in a lovely room for 8 hours, down for another big meal (amazing Tikka Masala amongst other things) then back to the airport and on to the flight. All this was of considerable importance the children were travelling as well. My sympathies to you on what must have been a nightmere.

Of course planes are late, blah blah blah, its how the airline deals with these eventualities that are at issue here. Top marks to Emirates, bottom marks to Etihad. I will never fly with them on account of your testimony.

Cheers.

thanks very true of course delays happen but etihad made a crisis of it

I cannot understand why some posters (actually only 1 or 2) were so cynical.

We really struggled with this journey, total 45 hours from sakhon nakhon, with 2 kids aged 8 and 6 and my only reason for posting was to warn others about the perils of risking being stuck in the middle east with people who simply disregard you.

I have filed complaints etc separately so this posting was of no personal gain.

Seems on this site no matter how well intended your efforts are there are one or two willing to have a dig

I recall my first posting about 3 years ago about falling in love with my wife....forget it...shes just after your money...you stoopid farang blah blah

K and the kids have been in england 3 years now

they came speaking no english at all with a carrier bag of clothes

they are now totally fluent in both languages so my stunningly cute 6 year old daughter will never have to work on her back

we are blissfully happy so its one finger for the smart assed cynics

<URL Automatically Removed> from now on

hey ! I got censored just for mentioning another forum ! Myanmar !

Hi Shrek,

Some of the responses are baffling to say the least.............Obviously people who haven't travelled with small children.

I flew to Manchester with Emirates a couple of months ago with my wife and 2 children. No issues on the BKK-MAN leg, but on the return the plane was delayed out of Manchester by a couple of hours, which meant we missed the Dubai-BKK connection. There was a bit of a bunfight at the transfer desk, but when I got to the front of the queue we were given 2 hotel rooms, 3 sets of food vouchers and booked on to the Thai airways flight 14 hours later.

The whole experience was absolutely stress free, the hotel fantastic with great food. I had a big meal, then slept in a lovely room for 8 hours, down for another big meal (amazing Tikka Masala amongst other things) then back to the airport and on to the flight. All this was of considerable importance the children were travelling as well. My sympathies to you on what must have been a nightmere.

Of course planes are late, blah blah blah, its how the airline deals with these eventualities that are at issue here. Top marks to Emirates, bottom marks to Etihad. I will never fly with them on account of your testimony.

Cheers.

thanks very true of course delays happen but etihad made a crisis of it

I cannot understand why some posters (actually only 1 or 2) were so cynical.

We really struggled with this journey, total 45 hours from sakhon nakhon, with 2 kids aged 8 and 6 and my only reason for posting was to warn others about the perils of risking being stuck in the middle east with people who simply disregard you.

I have filed complaints etc separately so this posting was of no personal gain.

Seems on this site no matter how well intended your efforts are there are one or two willing to have a dig

I recall my first posting about 3 years ago about falling in love with my wife....forget it...shes just after your money...you stoopid farang blah blah

K and the kids have been in england 3 years now

they came speaking no english at all with a carrier bag of clothes

they are now totally fluent in both languages so my stunningly cute 6 year old daughter will never have to work on her back

we are blissfully happy so its one finger for the smart assed cynics

<URL Automatically Removed> from now on

I want to do London to Bkk overland next year, possibly to raise money for people with TB - just trying to get it orgainised. Rinrada would you say the route by train via Moscow-Beijing-Hanoi-Ho Chi Min is a good one? And how to get to Bkk from Vietnam? (I saw a post in another thread where I think you did this trip)

Any other ideas about London-Bkk out there would be appreciated

given my experiences in the above post can I come with you please

Seems like the OP has calmed down now, perhaps hes never had an ear drum burst or a tooth abbcess, or a kidney stone, even a gall stone on the move, or diagnosed with luekemia or cancer, and you had to wait 13 hours for your flight home? oh dear, how sad,, never mind,

hey just noticed you are in isan

we can meet up some time for a beer am very near you twice a year

went quiet because i go to work in the day stoopid

why do 1 or 2 people just spoil it

Seems like the OP has calmed down now, perhaps hes never had an ear drum burst or a tooth abbcess, or a kidney stone, even a gall stone on the move, or diagnosed with luekemia or cancer, and you had to wait 13 hours for your flight home? oh dear, how sad,, never mind,

explain

I'm sure there are horror stories concerning every airline. Myself and my wife fly regularly from Bangkok to UK and we find Etihad to be the best, but having said that we are fortunate to have never missed a connection in Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi airport seems pretty basic and so I guess if there is a problem then it spirals into a horror story. That's the big advantage of Heathrow, even though I hate it, if you miss a connection there are lots of alternative flights they can put you on.

how true

the plane was comfy and clean...and most of the tellies worked

toilets clean in fact in flight hard to complain about anything

not thai or chinese service but still good

but boy oh boy are you dependent on no delays if you are going thru abu dhabi

Have a good read yourself matey,thats the first complaint in this post is it not? and things snowball from there. If i ruled out every bad experience in the last 20 years I would probably be only flying Concorde. Well maybe not.. I have been inconvenienced by some of the worlds best airlines including Qantas, Singapore air, Lufthansa and have been left stranded for 20 hours in a hot smelly airport. So which airline that is perfect do you fly with at a competitive price that never lets you down by choice? cant wait to book my next flight

Well I have, and actually his comment about the 3 hour delay is a statement of fact not a complaint.. Not one of his complaints is about an operational issue, especially one outside their control like a delay. His complaint is what happened after that, ie taking 4 hours to be processed when you are 7th in the queue and being messed around by the almost non existant staff who didn't have their ducks in a row. Now any airline worth their salt would have known that the passengers would miss their flight (afterall they had the 8 hours or so it takes the flight to get from BKK to Abu Dhabi to work that out) and have already started making what ever alternative arrangements could be made to accomodate them, clearly Ethiad didn't do that. I have had Qantas on 2 occasions know I was going to miss the last flight SYD-CBR after a delay and on arrival they have someone at the gate with your name with all the details for the hotel that they have already booked you into and details of the flight they are going to get you home on. Now that is customer service. So the question is why have so many attacked Shrek for complaining about the poor service he received and bringing his personal experiance to our attention. That is what a discussion board is all about I thought.

Now as for the post overall, I will agree with you that if i refused to fly every airline I have had a bad experiance with then there wouldn't be many left, the difference is I didn't attack Shrek for making his feelings know, whereas others here did. I have to ask the question why? I personaly like to hear of companies that give poor customer service so that when the time comes for me to make a choice I can weigh up the benifits and make my own mind up.

thank you

i know there are delays we have all had them

every single incident that followed was avoidable if anyone at etihad had taken ownership or cared

if it had just been me and kung ok we have travelled the world for many years but the kids are 8 and 6

the whole experience was 'anonymous'...i think people shouted because there was noone to shout at !

Interesting perspective now let me add mine

For £2000 I expect to be transported from A to B as promised and be afforded a modicum of good service and pleasantness.

19 intelligent replies to 1 moron...about the usual ratio I suppose

By the way shreck I also have a commercial pilots licence but I guess any "moron" can get one of those. There are many many reasons why you were delayed, to many possibilities to list here but feel free to pm me if your intersted. A good/sad example is the one to go crash ( he was warned about wind shear). The pilot was more concerned about his schedule than he was for the safety of his pax. A divertion back to Bkk would have caused a 2-3 hour delay for all flights already booked on that aircraft for the rest of the day. 3 hours for a life is surely a small price so be happy shreck you arrived frustrated but you did arrive

Maybe you and others should read his post more carefully. He wasn't complaining about being delayed, sometimes shit happens. But read his post and you will see he was complaining about how the delay was handled firstly in the UK (promises of hotels etc) and then how it was handled in Abu Dahbi and then the lost baggage issue. Having been a passenger in the back of more planes than I can count and been delayed many times, I can tell you I won't fly airlines that handle situations badly by choice, but those who handle it well I will happily fly. That has nothing to do with safety, that is to do with customer service. I guess a pilot doesn't need to worry about that, afterall their job is to drive the plane safely and as efficent as possible.

spot on thank you

it was coming back so substitute bkk for london but you hit the nail on the head

You are flying in a highly compressed aluminum tube at 39000ft at -65c temp and at the mercy of the elements with 300 people and a ton of luggage. snugly watching a latest release while gulping on your beverage of choice. Of course occasionally there will be delays it ain't brain surgery so get over it and be happy you don't have to paddle your canoe

Sangsong ?

Try more soda.

Interesting perspective now let me add mine

For £2000 I expect to be transported from A to B as promised and be afforded a modicum of good service and pleasantness.

19 intelligent replies to 1 moron...about the usual ratio I suppose

You are flying in a highly compressed aluminum tube at 39000ft at -65c temp and at the mercy of the elements with 300 people and a ton of luggage. snugly watching a latest release while gulping on your beverage of choice. Of course occasionally there will be delays it ain't brain surgery so get over it and be happy you don't have to paddle your canoe

Sangsong ?

Try more soda.

I flew Ettihad Jeddah - BKK return in September: surly cabin staff, 3 hr delay in BKK with unhelpful bovine ground staff, luggage ended up at the Jeddah haj terminal that took them 3 hours to retrieve...

never again...

yep...can associate with that except we get it at all 3 airports !

Best trip ever was manchester - amsterdam then china airways to bkk direct. Faultless. Thats how we will go from now on.

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience with Etihad.

In 6 full round trips with Etihad I had 1 delay of 3 hours in BKK but they made sure they held the plane to Manchester at Abu Dhabi so we got our connection.

No fun to lose you baggage either. That can be infuriating on top of everything else.

Maybe a bad day? Don't all airlines have those?

Thing is, if we want to travel long distances we sometimes have to put up with these mishaps. Doesn't make us feel any better though especially when the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing and being shoved from pillar to post while being told umpteen different things that never agree with what we were told in the first place.

True enough but as Etihad cut their fares complaints due to 'matters not in flight' ie baggage, delays, information, support, transfers' seem to be growing.

You can cut the chances of avoiding these issues by simply avoiding the middle east and just going straight from BKK to england or western europe, where you can easilly get to manchester. leeds or even sheffield.

They wouldnt hold our flight from AD to manchester. Irony is we only missed it by 15 minutes ! Caused a knock-on 13 hour delay

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience with Etihad.

In 6 full round trips with Etihad I had 1 delay of 3 hours in BKK but they made sure they held the plane to Manchester at Abu Dhabi so we got our connection.

No fun to lose you baggage either. That can be infuriating on top of everything else.

Maybe a bad day? Don't all airlines have those?

Thing is, if we want to travel long distances we sometimes have to put up with these mishaps. Doesn't make us feel any better though especially when the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing and being shoved from pillar to post while being told umpteen different things that never agree with what we were told in the first place.

True enough but as Etihad cut their fares complaints due to 'matters not in flight' ie baggage, delays, information, support, transfers' seem to be growing.

You can cut the chances of avoiding these issues by simply avoiding the middle east and just going straight from BKK to england or western europe, where you can easilly get to manchester. leeds or even sheffield.

I suppose if I was already booked I would offer the following advice....if you are in bangkok and the flight back to AD is delayed and they start talking reflighting, hotels in AD etc DONT.....a few lucky ones with us at the front of the queue insisted on being switched to Thai international and got it but there were only a handful of empty seats...some others insisted on a hotel in BKK and going the following day as opposed to being stuck in AD. Good idea to get right to the front of the check in at BKK if you are going to switch airlines its first come first served. We have had bother with airlines using the UAE twice...last time we were at the front of the queue and got an entire new flight with Emirates straight thru. In flight really not bad at all its how they handle issues such as delays and missed connections that lets them down badly

Oh thats great, I just booked with them and paid to come out in a couple of weeks time.

Thai wanted over 800 GBP for cattle class and I thought for the first time ever, I will tell em to shove it and try something else. 'sigh'

Skytrax site makes interesting reading they either get it together and are very good or awful

In flight they were quite good, planes new-ish very comfy, little tellies and games in every seat, but the infrastructure supporting them...the airport at AD, ground staff, is non-existent so if you do have a delay you will encounter real problems...AD has so few flights to europe you will be stuck there for ages. As for my gripe with arabic people thats hardly etihads fault...they just dont want us in their country full stop. They dont need our money and we are considered the lowest of the low (possibly with the exception of those speaking hebrew !)

Read my new posting about flights through the UAE in particular Etihad

If you take my advice I would avoid it like the plague get direct to london or amsterdam or frankfurt

Need to share this in case anyone is weighing up their options on flights to BKK.

My self and my wife and 2 small kids came back on EY401 from BKK to Manchester via Abu Dhabi on 15/11/07.

The flight out of BKK was 3 hours late so everyone missed their connection in Abu Dhabi....so check in took me 4 hours and I was 7th in the queue. This was followed by a 8 hour wait in the lounge at AD (were promised a hotel in AD bu BKK staff but when we got to AD they refused one).

We eventually got rerouted to Heathrow and then to Manchester 13 hours late.

Etihad staff were non existent at each airport on the way. Their paperwork was not done so staff at the next airport knew nothing of the problem, causing more delays.

Baggage was lost for 24 hours and then cases damaged.

Bottom line is you can get to AD but you cant get any further...there were only 6 departures scheduled all night, 3 of them cancelled, and none were to western europe.

I have to say also that I find the upper class / businessman person type in UAE the most arrogant and ignorant in the world. 2 years ago they asked my thai wife to leave a restaurant at AD airport as she was female and this time they excelled, from insisting on smoking cigars the size of cucumbers whilst my kids were eating breakfast to ignoring all queues and walking straight to the front. Annoyingly the airport staff and etihad staff just let them.

Do youselves a favour go from either london, franfurt, amsterdam etc to bangkok where regardless of flight delays you can easilly get home; and where the locals at least have a granule of liking and respect for non-arabic visitors.

Thanks everyone will use one of those

Liked the look of secrets but I have my wife Kung with me and from the look of the staff I'll get my nuts chopped off at check in !!

see you there I'll be the 50 year old english guy with a beer belly and a beautiful thai wife 20 years younger than me...watch out for me !!!

Anyone know how to contact them ? Highly recommended but cant find a contact for them to book !

OK found it thanks

Anyone know how to contact them ? Highly recommended but cant find a contact for them to book !

I believe Secrets Hotel is around Baht 900...

great but cant find any way to look on line or book room

sorry forgot to add very clean too......excellent!.....

cheers

not bothered about a pool cant swim !