Part Six: Deplaning Your Aircraft.

I waited by the baggage carousel with very little hope. I went to the baggage counter almost immediately and had them scan my baggage ticket. "Hmmm…" said the man behind the counter. "I don't have any idea where your bags are."

At least, I thought, he is refreshingly honest.

When we had checked in at Shanghai for the Thai Airways flight, we had been told our bags would likely not make the plane with us, but would be on a following flight and they gave us the number. I told this to the people at the bag counter and they said that the flight would get in at three. It was almost midnight. They would deliver the bags to our hotel, they told us.

I didn't have a hotel. I was supposed to be in Mae Sot already, but I had missed the last bus of the night sorting out my bag situation. Someone suggested I go wait in the waiting lounge of the airport – a hot room with plastic chairs. I almost cried. Another night on a marble floor in an uncomfortable chair.

Instead, I marched up to the China Eastern Airlines office and demanded a hotel room. The woman listened and said, "Sit over there." Twenty minutes later, she had left the office, not having appeared to have done anything for my case. I returned to the counter.

You must understand, strong girl though I may be, lack of sleep is my kryptonite. I had grabbed naps here and there, but I had been in airports for more than fourty-eight hours, in high stress situations, in immigration, and I was fed up. I couldn't bring myself to yell, so I cried.

Actually, I kind of lost it, but the end result was that someone came to pick me up from a nearby airport hotel. They took me downstairs and said they would be back in a second with the airport shuttle. Half an hour later, they hadn't come back.

I went back upstairs, thoroughly exhausted and this time I really lost it. I bawled. The airline man was called and came upstairs again. "I'm sorry," he said. "I forgot you."

I checked into the hotel and the man took my ticket and passport and I was too tired to even think about it. I went upstairs to my bed and slept.

In the morning, my bags had still not arrived, so I availed myself of the hotel buffet and headed out to the bus station to get to Mae Sot. I was half way to Mae Sot when I realized that I had left my passport at the hotel.