Montreal to Bangkok in a COVID-19 Era: The Flight
Traveling internationally during COVID-19 isn’t impossible but it’s not as easy as the old normal that you can book a flight today and fly tomorrow.
You need a specific purpose of traveling e.g. business, delivery of goods, diplomat, etc. For me and my wife’s case was in the category of ‘Repatriation’.
Today, let’s look at how the flight going from Canada to Thailand looks like.
P. S. check ‘The Preparation’ to see the process of getting an international flight and how flying domestically looks like (Montreal to Toronto).
Overview
The flight options that we got from the Thai embassy in Canada for August 2020 were departing either from Toronto or from Vancouver. Since me and my wife were living in Montreal at that time, Toronto just seemed to make more sense so we sided with that route which was operated by Cathay Pacific.
Overall, there were three legs while travelling from Toronto to Bangkok.
- Toronto to Hong Kong — 15.5-hour flight
- Hong Kong airport — 17-hour layover
- Hong Kong to Bangkok — 3-hour flight
We left Toronto on 18 AUG 2020 at 15:30 and landed in Bangkok on 20 AUG 2020 at 14:00.
Leg 1: Traveling from the West to the East
Let’s start with the day before going to the airport.
We were told at the beginning that we need to meet the embassy staff at the airport but wasn’t told when exactly. So we waited, for days, months, years until finally, at 23:00 in the night before our departure, we got an email notifying us that we had to be at the airport at 10:45 the next day. Thank you very much for given us such a heads up.
Our initial plan of seeing St. Lawrence market in the morning turned from a 2-hour leisure sight seeing into a 20-minute one instead. Still, we got to see it, took some pictures, and tasted the ‘World Famous Peameal Bacon’.
We arrived at the airport around 10:40 and went to the rendezvous to meet the embassy staff and other people sharing the flight back. Around 11:00 the staff told us to go to the check-in lines of Cathay Pacific.
While waiting in line, the Thai embassy staff came to check if got all the documents that we need to enter Thailand. After that, we went to collect some pastries, water, bottled coffee, and a ‘survival bag’ before heading to the actual check-in process.
Similar to the domestic airport in Montreal, there were hardly any people in the airport and most of the stores were closed. Only a few food and snack stores were open. Every now and then, there would be an announcement encouraging people to ‘wear mask at all times’.
When we boarded, we were given a care kit — antiseptic towelette and a mask — and a bottle of water.
For the onboard meals, we didn’t have a choice as usual. If you want any thing specific, be sure to book the meals in advance while checking in. We had two meals on this trip, one about 3 hours into the flight (dinner) and another about 3 hours before landing (lunch?).
Leg 2: Night at the Airport
We arrived in Hong Kong around 19:30 and after passing through the immigration, our agenda was to find a place suitable enough to spend the night. We took a left turn after exiting immigration and saw that a decent number of people were camping around gates 5–6. It seemed nice and safe so we choose settle down here with other alike.
It was around 20:00 and we were a bit hungry so it’s time to pop open our survival bags. Inside it were assortment of snacks, a cup noodle, a toothbrush, toothpaste, and some cleaning supplies.
After sharing one of the cup noodles and most of the snacks, we decided that it would be a good idea to get some sleep to start changing our biological clock to be in the eastern hemisphere time zone. We started sleeping around 21:00 but since there were a lot of people still waiting for their flight in front of gate 5 and for some reason the airport staff decided that it was a good time to start welding something, we woke at 22:30 and relocated a bit further from that commotion.
We woke up around 05:00, had the rest of the leftover snacks, packed our stuff, and hanged around surfing the internet until it was around 07:30. Then, we decided to walk around the airport to find something decent to eat for breakfast. We found out the hard way that most of the restaurants were closed — at 09:00 there were only about three restaurants that were open and 2–3 coffee shops such as Starbucks and Dean & Deluca serving.
Note: the information was based on 20 AUG 2020. You can check the Hong Kong airport website for more details.
Leg 3: Home sweet home
There were roughly 80 people on the flight back to Bangkok and the flight only took 3 hours to arrive.
Upon boarding the flight, again, we got the Cathay Care Kit. On the plane, we got a small lunch box which had a bao bun, cut fruits, ice cream, and water.
Stardom Moment
After exiting the aircraft, we were immediately put in to a single line walking towards immigration … or so I thought. During our walk of fame, there were all sorts of people: medical staff, airport staff, the police, and the military filling both sides of the walk way and a lot of them were taking pictures of us. Most of them were in full cover protective gear: face masks, face shields, plastic robe, you name it.
Firstly, we stop at a seating area and when each of us sat down, one of the medical team staff will come by us and ask for our personal details, check our temperature, ask if we had any symptoms, and collect all the documents that we brought over from Canada.
Secondly, we were escorted into another waiting area and separated into different two groups, State Quarantine and Alternative State Quarantine. We waited for about 5-10 minutes before being called to go to immigration.
Thirdly, after immigration, we were directed to go to luggage conveyor belt no. 23 (the only one open) to pick up our bags. Trolleys were already placed around the belt for hygienic purposes. If you need to go to the restroom, this is the first and only time after exiting the plane that you will be able to go to the toilet. When leaving the luggage area, we were each given a number tag — my guess that this is to keep track of the number of people leaving the airport.
Lastly, we were directed to the exit door and right outside, were four lines of disinfection areas. We gave our number tags and the staff sprayed some kind of disinfectant solution all over our bags and we continued to board on one of the two buses available. The staff carried the bags for us from our trolleys into the bus. We waited for about half an hour for everyone to board the buses and by the time we left, there were around 20 people on our bus which was about half its capacity (the bus’ capacity was around 35 seats).
So the bus has started its engine and it’s off to quarantine. But the funny thing is, since we didn’t pay for any Alternative State Quarantine locations, the Thai government will choose from one of its qualified places in or around Bangkok.
No one told us where we were going and the bus started driving so its off to the land of the unknown. Where we will end up staying, is still a mystery~
Montreal to Bangkok in a COVID-19 Era
- The Preparation
- The Flight
- The Quarantine
- The Conclusion