One (more) night in Bangkok???

We head off from Laos to Australia for Christmas in Gerroa with Estelle and Scott. This should be a short flight from Luang Prabang, a four hour lay over in Bangkok (time to make use of the airport lounges priority pass gifted to me by my wonderful work colleagues), then an 11 hour flight to Sydney.

As we check in at L.P we are asked for copies of our Australian digital arrival card. For all the planning this is one thing that has slipped through the net, and neither of us has one. They agree we can fly to Bangkok but must collect our bags there and check in again IF we have obtained the right documentation. Visions of Christmas in an airport or more nights in Bangkok flood my mind as we hastily try to apply for a card online with the creaky airport WiFi. The info says it takes up to 72 hours for the application to be approved but it can take minutes. Applications submitted we sit and wait in the departure lounge. Trying to manage the stress we wander round duty free only to find a number of items on display are not for purchase (see photo), because they are not on the system.

In 30 mins, ping an email and Marks Australia entry card is approved. Then we wait again to see what happens with mine. Twenty anxious minutes later and mine arrives too. That was a very stressful couple of hours. All that remains is to check in at Bamgkok. There are long queues at Thai Immigration and it turns out we need new Thai digital entry cards so we hastily do these again and get let in to go and collect our bags. The only problem is we can't find our bags on the carousel! Each person we ask for helps sends us in the direction of another desk. We eventually find them stacked up with a pile of other bags.

A stressful days travel all round but we find ourselves in Sydney on the morning of 22nd December driving down the coast to Gerroa. The ocean looks beautiful and the sun is shining, it was all worth it