Twelve hours to London

The plane was a little delayed but I was in no particular rush and just chilled out. My seat was ace, the complete opposite of the less than satisfactory seat from Sydney to Bangkok. I had seat F and G, thanks to the guy at the check in counter, so it was pretty sweet. It was only a little annoying because the ugly lady sitting to the left of me in seat E thought that she had some sort of right to this new vacant seat F. I'd put something of mine there and then she'd cover it with her jumper. She ended up taking up the whole extra seat with all her crap: jumper, pillows, used napkins, blanket, headphones. So as a bit of revenge I quietly and secretly placed a red grape under her jumper and squashed it using the juper so i didn't get any grape on my hand.

The flight was pretty good and went relatively quickly because I slept for half of it. When the plane landed at Heathrow (LHR) the sky was blue and the tarmac was white (with ice/frost). I'm not sure if there are many places as opposite as London and Bangkok, yet the two are also rather similar. For example: they are both big, highly populated, have a big gulf between the rich and the poor, and a kind of class system, they both have a monarchy, always busy, unclean and rubbish in street, intimidating to a newcomer, noise and air pollution, rich in history, etc. However, these are mostly similiarities on the surface. Overall, London is rich and powerful, angkok is poor and weak. Trillions of pounds travel through London and have for hundreds of years. If you ignore the buildings/wealth of the King of Thailand and of the 'church', Thailand is very poor and most probably a third world country (although it is recently improving with new buildings and developments outside of the city).

Once I landed at LHR I lined up for aout 40 minutes at immigration. Then when I finally made it to the desks at the front I was given the third degree. It was a trainee and a supervisor. They thought that I might have travelled to London to work and that I was not planning to only stay for 10 days and not work. So I had to show them that I wasn't using all of my different documents and it became clear that I was teling the truth. (I thought that they might be worried that I was a drug mule because I had come from Thailand after spending only 3 days there and that I was a young male backpacker. Instead they were worried that I might work in London for a little bit.) I then thought i'd get hassled at Customs for drugs or something because I was coming in from Bangkok, had a big backpack, was dirty, bloodshot eyes, unshaven, tanned skin, a ponytail and was wearing a cap. But I wasn't stopped and walked on through. Maybe they really don't profile?

I muddled around the airport for a while because the train station at my Terminal (4) was getting renovated so I needed to take a special bus. I eventually made it to the entrance to the underground and, after paying £4 for a ticket to the city, embarked on my hour long voyage into the city.

I was on the Piccadilly line, so it took me all the way to Russell Square, no swapping lines. I was a little confused after I disembarked, but soon found my way to my hostel, the Generator. It was about 8:30am at this time and check-in wasn't until 2pm, so I put my large pack in their luggage room and headed out to London, my old friend. Damn it was cold (and still is!). I incorrectly assumed Spring would be a bit warmer.

Initially, I wanted to find internet access, so I decided the best way to do this was to walk the streets in a haphazard way. I eventually made it to Piccadilly and used the place under Burger King, which I used on my last trip. I caught up a little on the net then ventured out again. I explored more, checking out lots of little funky shops, until I found myself back at my hostel for check-in at 2:30pm. That was easy enough, just a bit of a wait in line, but one of the staff gave me a glass of beer to ease the wait. After I had my stuff stowed away in my locker next to my bed (number 13 or 14 beds in our room), I headed out for a late-lunch/early-dinner. I had a £3.95 burger and pint for dinner and by the end of it I was very sleepy. I thought that I better walk for a while and push past the tiredness so jetlag wouldn't be so bad. By 6pm I was walking back to the hostel buggered. I felt like I was floating and it felt like I was in a dream and everything was in slow motion. I went to my room on level 0, got my inner liner out, prepared for bed, and went to sleep. It was about 7pm and since I woke from my bed in Bangkok I'd been awake there for 18 hours, on the plane for 12 hours (minus 5 "sleeping"), then in London for 12 hours. A long day, but I was now in London.