Flight TG925 25/05/06

When you have spent thousands of hours flying like I have, You know when something is not quite right. Such was the case with flight TG925 from Munich to Bangkok on 25/5/06. Tke off was normal but it soon became apparent that the noise and vibration where above the level that you would normally expect. We later realised that we had not heard the, what I had always considered to be, disconcerting thump as the landing gear retracted. The pilot made an announcement which due to the noise, the poor sound quaity of the public address system and the thick accent of the pilot I doubt anyone understood. All I could discern where his last words about "being under control". We continued to climb and eventually the pilot made a second announcement whereupon we motioned to the stewardess who up to now had remained steadfastly in her seat to come to us. She informed us that there was a problem with the "gear" and that we were heading for Frankfurt where they had spare parts. "Don't worry" was the message but when you are at 40,000 feet knowing that there is something wrong with the landing gear that is hard to do. I now understand the notion of a "dry" mouth. We were apparently going to return to Munich originally but now the pilot had decided on Frankfurt and it will remain a mystery why it took over 2 hours to accomplish what by all accounts is normally a 40 minute flight. In any event, we landed at Frankfurt much to the surprise of many of the passengers, many of whom didn't realise that we were going to land. Most of them were German so had little chance of understanding the announcements and many were peering out of the aircraft trying to get a glimpse of the airport name. The Thai air crew receive no marks out of ten for the way they handled the situation as they must have realised that the communication was inadequate. The passengers including myself were however obviously happy to be on the ground as a silent plane suddenly became a hubub of conversation and laughter as soon as we touched down. It was by now midnight and we were put up in the Sheraton Airport hotel for the night with a promise of a flight the day after at midday. In any event, landing gear fixed we eventually took off at 2:55pm minus a few passengers who didn't show for an uneventful flght to Bangkok. I did however listen very carefully to landing gear being lowered!

Wandering around the Tyrol 13 -14 May 2006

After having spent the previous week wandering around Southern Bavaria, this week Ann (who is back from the UK) and I set our sights a little higher and decided to visit the Austrian Tyrol. More lakes and more mountains but quite magnificent nonetheless and due to the less than ideal weather, the roads were quite empty and noticeably free from the bikers that seem to hit these roads in their thousands on a warm sunny day.After wandering around for a while, we found ourselves in Kitzbuehel, a place that we have visited before. We stayed at the Strasshofer Hotel which has very nice rooms, each one different and ishoused in a 1000 year old building. The hotel has been in the Strasshofer family for over 300 years.

Wandering around Southern Bavaria 6-7 May 2006

Lake at Kochel am See

Alone, as Ann was visiting her parents in the UK, I decided at the last minute, that is immediately I discovered that the weather forecast was for a warm and sunny weekend, to hire a car and head for the hills. Southern Bavaria is indeed beautiful with mountains and lakes, but slightly overshadowed both physically and metaphorically by the splendour of the Austrian Tyrol. By 9:30 Saturday morning, after blasting down the A95, I was sat outdoors sipping coffee in warm sunshine at the Gasthof zur Post in the village of Kochel am See. I was headed for Walchensee at the recommendation of my colleague Gunter who has acted as our unofficial tour guide during our visits to Munich. On reaching Walchensee, I took the cable car up the mountain which revealed a fantastic view over the lake and surrounding mountains even though visibility was not at its best. The intention was to walk back down the mountain which first involved walking a little higher before you could descend. I walked to a point where I had a view across the other side of the mountain which revealed that there was still plenty of snow but also the looming dark clouds of a thunderstorm. Several flashes of lightning convinced me to abandon my plans of walking down the mountain so I retraced my steps and took the cable car back down again. The thunderstorm erupted just as I got back to the car and for the rest of the day, I wandered around, some of the more picturesque parts of the area stopping once at a rest area on a rather long bend which was obviously a favourite with the motorbike fraternity as they hurtled round like it was a TT track.
The Sunday was spent doing pretty much the same thing stopping in various places such as Tegernsee, yet another lake, Garmisch Patenkirchen and Rosenheim where there was some sort of car exhibition with the likes of BMW, Volvo, VW and Fiat etc were displayig there latest models. More interestingly there were some vintage cars around which made for a few good pics.

Sailing in Cambodia

Want to hear the story of Sailing in Cambodia? Then check out the site below where you will also find a number of photos.

http://kevinhellon.googlepages.com/home

The Beginning

For nearly 2 years I have been using MSN Spaces to publish a blog about life living in Asia. I have now decided to switch to Blogger for various reasons and will continue where I left off. I will keep MSN Spaces open for the time being but will continue to add new entries here.

If you look at www.msnspaces.com/members/hellon you will get an idea of what this blog is about and see what has preceded it.

I hope you find something of interest.