The Back Door to Thailand

As fate would have it my Air China Flight from Chiang Mai to Dusseldorf via Wulan and Beijing was potentially the biggest disaster I have ever had on any Asian holiday. This however was luckily averted due to quick thinking on my part and staying calm and relaxed. This is how it happened. I checked in my bag at the airport well in time (luckily) only to be told I could only be checked as far as Wulan in China. I had a connecting flight 3 hours later to Beijing and from there to Dusseldorf. This would mean collecting my bag at Wulan and checking back in again for my flight to Beijing.

On the way to immigration I realised this was far more serious than just having to collect my bag. I would have to enter China which means applying for a visa and supplying all the paper work. In fact I found out later on it is not possible to get a visa on arrival so I would have been stranded there!

So I went through Thai immigration, submitted my passport with immigration slip, received an exit stamp and then proceeded to the departure lounge. There were some staff at the gate who I asked politely to explain to me what would happen when I arrived in Wulan. At first they were of course a little perplexed and didn’t fully understand my question. When I told them I had no boarding pass for Beijing or Dusseldorf they began to understand the severity of the situation.

They wanted to know why I had booked this flight and I explained that my original flight had been cancelled by Air China and I had been given an alternative route and even, luckily, still had the original flight documents to show them. They told me to wait while they made some inquiries. 30 mins later I went back to the gate to find out any news. They weren’t so happy with me and asked why I hadn’t booked the flight on 30th instead of 29th which would be a direct flight to Beijing. I told them because there wasn’t one to my knowledge. They insisted there was and they were going to put me on it. The reason being they were not permitted to put me on a flight to China without a visa in my passport.

They wanted to know if I had a hotel I could go to. Of course, but the problem was that my baggage was checked in and my passport already stamped.

That was no problem for them. First they got my bag back within 10 minutes after I told them what colour it was. Next, the Air China staff member, Mon, escorted me back to immigration where I had been an hour earlier and explained to the lady there that I had to go back to Thailand for one more day. She simply stamped CANCELLED in red ink over the exit stamp and I went back into Thailand through the back door! The next stop was the Air China office where I received my flight confirmation for 30th March leaving Chiang Mai at 23:45 and arriving Beijing 05:00 the following morning.

I took a red van back to Neo Court and was offered free accommodation! It was a very strange feeling to back so soon after having left as if I was on borrowed time. In fact I had broken the rules of re entry but in Thailand there is always a way!