✈️ Thirty-Eight Hours, Two Airports, and One Run-In with Abu Dhabi Immigration
My last morning in Bangkok began the way every good story shouldn’t with rain hammering down in sheets. The kind of tropical downpour where you step three feet from the lobby to a taxi and end up drowned like a rat.
I’d been staying at the W Hotel since returning from Pattaya about a week earlier, recovering from surgery, and by the end I’d somehow become the unofficial celebrity of the place. Each morning, more and more of the staff would appear, beaming and waving, calling out “Miss Stevie! Miss Stevie, so good to see you!” until other guests were clearly wondering who on earth I was.
I never quite figured out why. Maybe it was the tipping, I did tip well after a massage or two but I think it might have been something else. There were several transgender staff working at breakfast, and I sometimes wondered if they’d seen me and thought, one of us and one of us who’s doing okay. Whatever the reason, it was lovely and a little surreal. Everywhere I went in that hotel, I was fussed over and asked, “When are you coming back, Miss Stevie?”
It was the loveliest send-off imaginable and, as it turned out, the calm before the storm.
I took myself off to Siam Paragon for one last wander and, naturally, bought a dress because if you’re going to be trapped in a monsoon, at least do it in style. Then I went back to the W and treated myself to a cheeky espresso martini at The House on Sathorn, that beautiful old colonial-style bar next door. It felt like the closing credits of a long, surreal film.
Then I was whisked away in a hotel car to the airport, Bangkok fading into a blur of neon and puddles. That’s when the fun started.
The Delay
My flight out was delayed until 1 a.m. on Sunday morning, which meant my connecting flight was missed entirely. “Don’t worry, madam,” said the Etihad staffer. “We’ll put you in a hotel.”
Now, anyone who’s trans and has travelled through the Gulf knows exactly why that’s a bad idea. So I smiled and said, “No thank you, I’ll just stay airside.”
He smiled back. “You’ll be fine.”
Famous last words.
The Holding Pen
At immigration, I queued, I smiled, I handed over my passport and suddenly three military-looking men appeared. Before I knew it, I was being escorted through a warren of corridors and plonked into a little side room. They took my passport and boarding pass and vanished.
Fifteen minutes later, I was still sitting there thinking, well, this is how I die not with a bang, but in an air-conditioned Abu Dhabi cupboard.
Eventually, I decided sod this. I stood up, channelled my inner Joan Collins, and said, “I am not leaving airside. Give me my passport back.”
And miraculously… they did.
I strutted out like I’d just won Eurovision.
The Cheeky Bastards
Feeling rather pleased with myself, I went to the transfer desk and said, “Right, can you point me to the business lounge, please?”
The agent looked up from her computer and said, “Oh no, your ticket still says business, but the system’s quietly downgraded you to economy.”
I blinked. “So you’ll still let me sit in business, but I can’t wait in business?”
She nodded earnestly.
“You cheeky bastards.”
Apparently, when Etihad rebooks a delayed connection, they downgrade you in the background “for system reasons” — meaning you keep the seat, lose the perks. It’s like buying a penthouse and discovering the lift doesn’t go to your floor anymore.
So yes, they were happy to pay for a 12-hour hotel stay by way of compensation for the flight delay — but couldn’t possibly let me have a sandwich in the lounge.
The Long Haul Home
By the time I finally boarded the next flight, I’d been awake for what felt like a week. I landed somewhere around 8pm, then began the final stretch of the journey, the long shuffle of taxis, transfers, and bleary-eyed connections.
I finally got through my front door at half past midnight, absolutely shattered. Thirty-eight hours of travel in total. A personal record, I think.
And honestly? I was too tired to even unpack, take off makeup, wash my face or wrestle off that lovely dress I bought in Siam Paragon earlier in the day (or was it days!!!). I just looked around, half expecting someone to hand me another customs form.
Never flying Etihad again.
But I’ll give them this — they gave me a new Substack story.