clive---shut up, you are nearly argentinian now so your roots don't count anymore...

Bob - of course my roots count. I am Cornish and always will be!!

To answer some of you:

I wasn't traveling for 11 months, I had planned the trip for 11 months. We had only 2 weeks to spend on Asia,the first on a Star Clipper cruise in Thailand, the second in Cambodia. Getting to SE Asia is not easy for someone who lives in Kansas City. Our total travel time from MCI-HKT with flights and layovers was 34 hours. This is not a trip I can make on short notice or a whim.

I did have a plan B-to skip PNH and go to SR for 3 days instead of the 5 planned. Bangkok Airways DID change our tickets, but the day we were to go the BKK airport was still closed. So all plans for Cambodia had to be canceled and we waited it out in Phuket to catch up with our return flights home. We could not extend the trip as both of us had to get back to work.

Since it was the Thai PAD who was protesting, who else is at fault but the Thais? I know not all the Thais were involved, but the Thai people/police/military/gov't did nothing to stop these protestors. And the PAD were on local TV saying if they don't like the next PM they'll march back in and occupy BKK airport again since they got away with it once.

I know Europe can be politically unstable at times too, as seen by what's going on in Greece now (Our cruise in April ends in Athens). I know Europeans frequently go on strike. I know airlines go bankrupt. That's what travel insurance is for, and I did have it for the Cambodia trip (although Travelguard is trying to weasel out of paying on my claim).

No, I could not fly to Singapore to get to Cambodia. The earliest flight I could get to anywhere from Phuket was 6 days later, and it was to KL. I had to get in line with 350K other stranded tourists to get out of Thailand. There would have been no time to get to Cambodia.I'm lucky AA was able to rearrange our flights home as they were award tickets and those are hard to change. And AA didn't even charge us.

I am afraid by the time I get back to Cambodia in 2-3 years it will have become too touristy and overbuilt and the temples will be declining and crumbling from the increase in tourism.It's part of the reason I wanted to go now.

As to the protestors doing it to make Thailand a better place to live, they shot themselves in the foot. Because of the huge drop in tourism from their sit-in, a million Thais in the tourism industry will lose their jobs. Protests that hurt the middle, lower class people don't make life better. The rich Thais and politicians won't be impacted by this at all. The little Thai guy is the one who will suffer.

Be persistent with Travel Guard. They once denied one of my claims , but I was persistent and resubmitted it and the second time it went through. I've used them for years. Happy Travels!

susie---did you have a good time in phuket??

Not really. We're not resort people. The hotels we stayed at were lovely, we tried 2 different ones. But because we had to spend 2-3 hours each morning on the phone and internet trying to change our flights trying to get to Cambodia and out of Thailand, half of a day was used up. We took the local bus to Phuket Town one day. Got massages a few times. And we hired a driver for a 6 hour tour around another day. But I got horrible food poisoning from the place he took us for lunch and spent the whole next day either in the bathroom or sleeping it off.I have no desire to ever go back to Phuket, it's not my kind of place for a vacation. If I want a beach resort vacation, the Caribbean is much closer for us. traveling for 34 hours to go to a beach is not my idea of fun.

Forgive me for asking, but why was Phuket on your original plans then if you are not really beach people?

Sorry you had a bad time, we had our plans disrupted too due to the airport problem, so we extended our time in Penang and flew home a different way and my BF had food poisoning too! ( we flew via Singapore which has so far cost me an extra £1150 - which my insurance wont pay for) but i am going to chalk it up to one of those things. Yes its hugely inconvieneient (and expensive) but i still love the Thai people and Thailand, so i will be back.

Best wishes
S

Ok, let's blame the Spanish. Just don't tell anyone on the Europe forum.

MRW mums the words!!

We were in Phuket because that's where the Star Clipper cruise began and ended. We arrived there at noon and boarded the ship the same day at 4:00pm Nov. 22. When the ship returned to Phuket Nov. 29 we were supposed to go right to the airport and fly to Cambodia for the main reason for taking this trip. The cruise was secondary. We had mostly wanted to see the temples at Siem Riep and decided to go somewhere else in this part of the world since it takes so long for us to get to Asia. I would never choose to vacation in Phuket. Not my kind of place.

Such a pity you didn't get a chance to log onto a forum whilst you were there as you might have gotten some good suggestions as to somewhere to stay that you would have preferred, but which was still within a reasonably short drive of phuket, e.g. khao lak or krabi. I'm not a big fan of phuket either but there are lovely places on that coastline.

Oh Dear, if the cruise was secondary, why didn't you make it so.
You didn't miss Cambodia because of the Thais...... you missed it because of your own actions. You chose to do the cruise first.
Travelling is not like buying a big mac....thank god !!
Sometimes.....you have to work at it. Often the very best experiences appear from adversity.....if you apply yourself.
And YES, I have experienced some very difficult times in this part of the world, but then, also some unique times.
Suspect we will see a similar post on the Europe board or Africa or Middle East Or America. Stuff happens.

Sorry, travelling wimp....IMO !

Hello Susiesan,

As someone who was in almost your exact same position, I want to let you know I understand and empathise with your feelings.

We arrived in Bangkok 48 hours before the airports closed on 11/26. We were supposed to fly to Siem Reap 11/27 and to Phuket on 11/30. The Siem Reap>Phuket flight, of course, went thru Bangkok All our flights were cancelled and we could not get to SR without an overland trip of 6-7 hours EACH WAY, and we would still have had to get down to Phuket from Bangkok - that was another 10 hours drive!

I know some suggested to you that it would have somehow been easy to hop on a flight from Phuket to somewhere else to SR, but that was not easy at all!! Flights were fully booked out of HKT every day after day due to so many people trying to get out of Thailand any way they could.

Not knowing what was going to happen, we also were wary of leaving Thailand in the event we had trouble getting back in. We were honestly expecting violence based on what was happening at the time.

Like you, we got our tickets to BKK in December of 2007 and were REALLY looking forward to seeing the temples. Ponheary was to be our guide, so we left her in the lurch too. There is no way we can get back soon either, and the 30ish hours travel time to SE Asia is a bear.

We were terribly disappointed in the turn of events but mostly I feel very very sorry for the Thai people. So many are going to have hard times based on these events. Tourism is crashing based on what I read.

We ended up staying at the JW Marriott Resort on Phuket for 9 days instead of our scheduled 5, and spending an hour or two each day at the business center or on line making and changing getaway plans. We ended up spending $700.0 for the two of us to get to Hong Kong where we could pick up a NWA flight.

Luckily, I loved the resort and while I would not have planned a trip to Thailand just to go there, I did enjoy the time I did have.

So anyway, based on some of the replies here, I just wanted to let you know I was sorry for what happened to you. It is too bad that civil disagreements could not have been resolved without affecting so many others. For us travelers, a little expense, dissappointment and inconvenience. For others, their jobs and livelihoods are gone, hard times indeed.

I read an IHT article about the protests. There were anti-gov protests at the airport and also pro-gov protests.

The anti's were, according to the article, "urban elites and middle class" who were alarmed at the gov policies that were "empowering the rural poor". So it wasn't a group seeking justice for all Thais. It was just one group of Thais trying to protect their slice of the pie. The military sided with them.

MrW, The situation is really quite complicated.

Clearly, the writer of the IHT story was sympathetic to the pro-government group. But if you read articles from the other side, the concern was that the government then was just a puppet of Taksin (after all, the PM was then the brother-in-law of Taksin), the previous PM who was convicted on corruption and abuse of power charges and fled the country. Those articles say that the middle class and the educated (I guess that means the "urban elite&quot were concerned about Taksin's vote-buying in the poor rural provinces. If you believe this side, you wouldn't call buying the votes of poor rural people "empowering." Taksin bled the country of millions and millions of dollars, also not empowering.

The approach of the PAD to trying to prevent the purchase of votes is concerning, as it appears to disenfranchise poor rural voters. Also not empowering.

So certainly neither side is "right" or virtuous or not motivated by self-interest.

to Leigh:
Yes, it's my fault for doing the cruise first and not having the foresight to anticipate the largest airport in Asia being shut down for 8 days. If we had gone to Cambodia first, then we'd have been stuck there for the whole time and would have completely missed the cruise. From a financial point of view, the cruise was already paid for, nothing in Cambodia was except the Discovery Airpasses.So I'm out less money if the insurance doesn't pay on the claim because Bangkok Airways has already given me a refund.

to happycheesehead:
I like you was afraid that if we went to Cambodia overland we'd never make it out on time to hook up with our return tickets home that had already been changed.The option to stay on vacation longer until it all blew over was not one we could take; we both had to get back for work.I figured Thailand would be easier to leave from than Cambodia.

I am not a travel wimp!!