Arriving in Sydney

The 23 hour or so flight wasn't that bad actually. It did start off badly though - the boarding gate at Heathrow was rammed with people and it was hot and disorganised (in contrast to my pleasant flights to Geneva and Glasgow, both also via British Airways). But most worrying was that my worst fear had come true: I was going to be sitting next to some big sweaty guy for the ten thousand mile trip. Still at least I had legroom (always go for the fire exit row, chaps).

Our one hour fuel stop was in Bangkok. Apparently we were to land at the new airport (as opposed to the old one, presumably). It was pretty neat, but one thing that struck me (along with the countless "Long Live The King" posters) was the Muslim prayer room instead of a multi-faith room as it would have been called in a Western city. I had never been Thailand before and although I had heard of the Islamic vibe there, this was my first taste of it.

Whatever the case, I managed to both complete my prayers and take a dump (since they also had istinja facilities there) during the stopover. The remainder of my time there was spent playing multiplayer DS with an Irish girl I had met at the gate.

The food was pretty good on both legs; I'm now comfortable enough with MOML trays to enjoy the meats they provide. The dish coming out from Heathrow even had a Halal Authority logo on it! I also slept quite a bit before the first stop - seven hours I think. This wasn't as much a good thing as it sounds since I wanted to sleep properly on leaving Bangkok (my flight was due to land in Sydney 6am local time so I wanted to "wake up" for that).

But sleep I did, which is probably why I didn't mind the flight as much as I should have. Coming in to Sydney was pretty amazing too: we were treated to an aerial view of the harbour, its bridge and the Sydney Opera House on approach to the airport - I think it was then that I actually felt like I had arrived in Australia.