We were dropped off at the airport a bit after 8pm, utterly exhausted and itching to get on our flight and sleep. However to our confusion when we looked up at the board our 11:40pm flight to Thailand was nowhere in sight. We stood there bemused for a few moments, looking at one another and assuring ourselves as we were simply looking at the wrong board. However to our horror and dismay a quick Google search revealed what we had been dreading- THERE WAS NO 11:40PM FLIGHT TO THAILAND.

Now I would like to say we remained calm and dealt with the situation in a rational and commendable manner… I really would… Although the reality resembled more of what happens on the Block when a bath tub doesn’t arrive on time.

My dad was on the phone calling whoever he could get a hold of and explaining this long winded story of how he had planned this trip and booked with this company and we’d never received any information about change of flights or anything and he’d been checking his emails for days and he’d even called up the company a few days prior and now we were standing in this airport and we had all our bags packed and our house packed and he didn’t know what to do and what should we do? Basically he was only taking a breath every few decades of his story, and the various people he talked to on the other end of the phone were…Well…Not very helpful to say the least.

My mum was on her phone googling information about our flights and trying to figure out what was going on. Essentially every few minutes she would read out some horrifying tidbit from a news story about how Thai airways had changed their flight schedule a month ago, or how Bestjet (our travel agent) were notorious for reprehensible customer service. The former head of the company was no longer allowed to trade anymore due to illegal activities, and had therefore given the company’s management over to his wife. There was even a Facebook page setup by disgruntled Bestjet customers who had never received their well deserved refunds. Great.

And me… Well I sat there in silence as I watched this all unfold around me, with a stream of cuss words playing in my head on loop, wondering what I had done to deserve this, finally coming to the conclusion that I was either a criminal in a former life, or had incurred the wrath of some God or another.

In any case initially it looked like this slip-up was going to cost us thousands of dollars, we were most likely going to lose accommodation, and we had no clue when the next flight out was going to be.

Eventually we found a Flight Centre that was miraculously open (it was 9pm by this stage and the airport was practically deserted). My dad opened his mouth to launch into his novel of an explanation for what we were doing at the airport- “My daughter just graduated high school and…” before I cut him off and explained in about 20 words what had thus far unfolded. While simultaneously talking to our new (and much friendlier) travel agent and our insurance, we decided (after three hours, but I’ll spare you the details) that we were to fly out tomorrow and make a travel insurance claim which would hopefully cover the cost of our unwanted diversion.

It was well after midnight by the time we arrived at the Budget Ibis down the street. To end the night of woes we were ripped off by the taxi driver (who charged us $30 for a five minute trip), I had broken the hotel’s check-in machine and we’d woken up a rather unhappy looking hotel manager who said she didn’t have our booking, and had made us pay for our room twice.

After the night we had had it was a miracle that the next day we actually ended up on a flight at all, and we were very grateful for it too. We just hoped that nothing else would go wrong for a while, but that was never going to happen, was it?