Itinerary: Portland- Vancouver- Tokyo- Bangkok.
(Of note: Thailand recently dropped its extended quarantine requirement for travelers from specific countries who are fully vaccinated, present a negative PCR test at the airport, and pass another PCR on arrival with quarantine until test results are received. Qualifying for this quarantine exemption is not difficult, but it's a tad finicky and requires doing specific things in a certain order and applying for an immigration pass in advance. As long as you give yourself plenty of time to get things lined up, follow the directions to the letter, read all the fine print, actually email the consulate for help if need be, double-check your paperwork and carry hard copies of every possible document you could imagine needing, you'll be fine.)
Apparently not everyone read the fine print.
Portland, OR (check-in counter)
4:00 am: A couple in front of me in the check in line was denied boarding for their flight home to Canada because they don’t have negative PCR test results. They went for a PCR at Walgreens on Friday OF THANKSGIVING WEEKEND and still haven’t gotten it back; they are rather upset the airline won’t let them on the flight.
Vancouver, BC (behind security, secondary document check at the gate)
11:20 am: Some lady just got told she can’t board the plane to the Philippines because she doesn’t have the right paperwork. There are five Air Canada employees all over there with her going on 15 minutes now; apparently because she isn’t and has never been a national she can’t enter? I have no idea what Philippines regulations are these days
11:30 am: In the meantime another unrelated girl is over at the counter in hysterics literally being led away so she doesn’t collapse
11:40 am: They just escorted the Philippines lady out of the secure area, guess her paperwork didn’t check out after all (also the door alarm will not stop going off)
11:45 am: Oh boy they're about to turn down another guy for not having the correct Covid test paperwork. He has the cover letter but not the lab report
12:00 noon: Some other guy just realized the lab got his date of birth wrong on his Covid test results and the airline informed him his results are invalid
12:10: the panicking girl is back in inconsolable hysterics; two airline officials with her, apparently she’s been told she can’t get on the plane. They’re leading her back over to the bench again because she can’t hold herself up, an agent is stuck there consoling her instead of checking other peoples’ documents
12:20 pm: A guy apparently changed his arrival date to Bangkok without applying for a new Thailand Pass and now his Thailand Pass is invalid. They just told him he has to reapply. It’s a 5-7 day turnaround.
12:30 pm: a little lady is walking down the arrivals causeway above me in a yellow contact precautions suit and lab goggles
12:39 pm: Guy with the invalid immigration pass still seems to think he’s going to get on the plane
12:40 pm: announcement just went out that if your boarding pass hasn’t been signed by a gate agent, you’ll be denied boarding. Guy with the invalid Thailand Pass is slowly wandering away with his head down
12:45: someone else is angrily pushing a cart away from the gate agents and back toward security, looks like something wasn’t in order, I’m also confused why he needed a cart for a day pack but 🤷🏻♀️
12:50 pm: My boarding zone just got called; not gonna lie I’m a bit sad to leave this sitcom behind, there are still over 40 people in line to have documents checked
1:21 pm: girl who was in hysterics is on the plane, face is literally black with mascara. We’re supposed to leave in nine minutes; 100% not gonna happen this plane is still mostly empty and the seating chart was just about full. How many people are still in line out there??
1:30 pm: guy in the row in front of me says a lady was denied boarding because she didn’t even know what a PCR test was, let alone have one. Someone please tell me how she got through check-in and security
1:56 pm: Pilot just made an announcement that due to security checks we’re now leaving 35 minutes late; also anyone flying on to Kuala Lumpur needs to deplane because they’ll likely miss their connection (
I guess camping out in Japanese airports isn’t an option these days)
2:05 pm: hot damn we’re pushing back and I’ve got no fewer than five empty seats next to me
Tokyo International Connections
5:25 pm: the airport is dead. Straight up dead. There are 15 flights on the departures board and a third of them are cancelled. You could roll a bowling ball down the entire concourse and not hit a single person. Everything is closed. They’re escorting us in groups by flight. So much for finding sushi; guess I won’t count on showers being open on my return trip in three weeks
5:50 pm: the guy behind me in line for document check spent $3000 this morning when he got to the Vancouver airport. Apparently he didn’t realize there was an airport change on his ticket (no inter-airport transfers in Japan right now). Then when he bought a second ticket it was on airlines that couldn’t transfer his luggage between flights… so he had to buy a third. He’s staying for six months though because he hates Canadian winters so worth it
Bangkok International Arrivals
12:00 midnight: There’s a group of four people lounging on the floor above me in full-on white and blue hooded zip-up hazmat suits, N-95s and goggles. Can’t tell if they’re airport employees or what
Preliminary document checks, immigration and customs go as smoothly as I could have hoped for. Also find a moment to grab a sim card and data plan for the next three weeks; the nice man at the counter swaps it out and sets up my phone for me. $17 total for 20 days is so much nicer than $10/day on Verizon; god I forgot how much I miss data plans in SE Asia
12:20 am: the Arrivals Hall is a hot mess. Turns out the guys in hazmat suits are in fact part of a 40-or 50- person tour group, all wearing the same get-up, but they’ve all unzipped their suits and taken off their goggles in the packed arrivals hall so they’ve totally defeated the entire purpose, but walking around looking like a post-apocalyptic TV show with teddy bears hanging out of your powder pink carry-on is cool I guess
12:25 am: Hundreds of people milling around looking for a sign with their hotel’s name on it so they can catch their transfer. There is no sign for my hotel. I find a lady who tells me to hang tight, retrieves a list from who knows where. It’s my hotel; my name is not on the list. She takes photos of my confirmation and passport, writes my name in, juggles three other people with the same problem, eventually takes us outside and puts us in vans and I end up with a private minibus transfer. He sprays down my luggage before loading it; customer area is 100% separated from driver area by plastic partition
1:15 am: The van turns off the street to a mega testing station. A lady confirms the hotel with the driver, then comes around and hands me a vial to check my name. 100% definitely not my name. She takes a photo of my passport and returns five minutes later with a correctly-labeled vial. We drive around to the end of like 50 testing stalls, another lady comes to the van, hands me a rapid test to save for a week from today, sticks a swab up my nose to tickle my brain, and we’re on our way again
1:45 am: Quarantine hotel arrival and check-in. Get to my room, take off my mask for the first time in 32 hours. Shower and sweet, blessed sleep.
8:45 am: PCR test results are in, I’m a free bird.
