We're off to Canberra this evening, after a few days in Sydney mostly spent at the beach, eating vegan yum cha, trying hopelessly to reintegrate into Australian society, and the Royal North Shore Hospital's emergency ward.
The latter was due to C's father having a run in with their normally placid house cat, Freya, and coming off much the worse for it. I'll let C fill you in on that particular disaster in due time.
Getting home was easy enough, though we were rather stupidly over the baggage limit for both Thai and Qantas. Still some sweet talking and a little pleading went a long way to minimising the cost...
Bangkok airport was, as usual, one of our least favourite places to waste time. This particular time wasting exercise was made so much the easier, however, by Thai's insistence of giving us a day room free of charge. Actually insistence may be too strong a word since they didn't actually bother to tell us one was available, even when we asked, and we had to find out from a more savvy and frequent traveller in a suit.
Still, the day room made all the difference, especially for C's insanely long lay over.
Upon arrival, Australian customs, ever vigilant in their mission to protect our shores from evil microbes, took a 30 second look at the box full of mountain bike and shoes that could have potentially posed a threat to national security (but didn't as I had spent what seemed like hours scrubbing the lot with soapy water in a vain attempt to remove tenacious Lao dust) before waving me through. They might as well have said "You know, we couldn't be screwed actually checking to see if you are bringing in any really dangerous pathogens attached to those shoes that have been immersed in Lao dust for 10 months. Frankly, you could have a dozens live chickens just crawling with avian influenza and itching to mate with as many Aussie rosters as possible stuffed in that box and we still wouldn't care. Good day to you sir."
Perhaps it wasn't that bad, but the whole thing seemed somewhat lax. Not that I'm complaining as I had nothing remotely dodgy in may baggage and it certainly meant I got home more speedily, but still...
Okay, I'm off to rack up some more debt on things I don't really need, bar for the fact they are on sale. It's the capitalist dream, and I fell I have some catching up to do after spending close to a year in a communist country.
C's at the office today, so I'm sure she'll use her time wisely and post at least once.
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