Hello to anyone who has looked at this blog and wondered why there have been no new posts.  This results simply from a lack of time and more urgent must-do items to attend to, including meals and sleep.

The route went from Al Ain (in Abu Dhabi) to Ahmedabad in India.
From there we flew across India to Chittagong in Bangladesh.

Photo:refuelling at Chittagong


Then we went from Chittagong to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, arriving there on 20th April.
These were all long, long flights.

 Parked at Chiang Mai International Airport

 Here is route map for the itinerary from Abu Dhabi to Ahmedabad (India), Chittagong (Bangladesh), Chiang Mai (Thailand).  Marie asked for a map!

 



It was good to spend a few days in one place here in Chiang Mai after having long flights every day.

Street scene
 

Bar menu

Two crews planning flight into China ....

 
On Saturday 22nd April we flew the Mooney to the nearby airfield of Nok, where there were facilities provided by the local pilots to do an oil change, oil filter change, clean the plugs and inspect the engine.  This all went well, except that the very hot weather (for those not used to it) meant that the mechanical work was very tiring.  I was pretty exhausted by the end of the day. 

 Test flight at Nok.

Local wildlife

Here's a Siamese cat



We returned from Nok to Chiang Mai's International Airport on Saturday evening, parking on stand 17.  This is a stand for airliners, it seems there is nowhere for small aircraft to park here and the parking available is quite limited for a busy airport.

We went off in the evening to meet Michael Peare, a UK/Canadian flying instructor living mainly in Thailand, at John's Place a bar on the far side of downtown.  

Local culture


Sunday (at the time of writing) has been taken up with various must-do items and catching up with my emails.  First of all the availability of oxygen at our destination in China seems now to be in doubt, and contrary to what we thought oxygen supplies for the Mooney's built-in oxygen system are not available here in Chiang Mai.  This leaves a question mark over whether we have enough oxygen to fly at the required level around 18,000 feet to the destination at Zhengzou and back to Bangkok where reportedly there is an oxygen supply.

Another matter that has taken hours to deal with is a reconciliation of my dollars in cash with recorded disbursements.  This is to identify my notes about cash movements (in my diary) to my remaining cash in dollars.  I can't quite get this to work out, it is difficult to keep track of everything when we are constantly rushing through airports.

A crisis that has been going on for several days arises because the range of costs involved in arriving in China at Guilin airport have now suddenly been estimated at a large multiple of the costs that were originally estimated by the organisers of the flying show in Zhengzou;  they have arranged our permits to fly in China, but say they do not now have enough personnel to come to Guilin to co-ordinate our interface with the bureaucracy there.   We have discussed this at length with the pilots of the other aircraft planning to visit China (a Piper Malibu, based at Nok Airfield) and agreed that the Guilin costs for which we will take responsibility should be at a level similar to those we were originally sent.  There is a danger of being presented with new costs upon arrival, when there is no option but to pay up.  Furthermore either both aircraft will travel, or neither.

If the entry to China does not take place on Tuesday as scheduled, we can revise our Thailand permit and fly to agreeable places south of here instead.

So this will have to get resolved tomorrow.  We will see what the organisers say .....