It started with rain. Proper Bergen rain — the kind that comes sideways off the fjord and makes you question every life choice that led you to live at 60° north. We stood at Flesland at 6 AM, two checked bags, two carry-ons, and a one-way ticket to the other side of the planet.
BGO → MUC — LH 2451
The first leg was almost too easy. A CRJ-900, half empty, climbing out over the Hardangerfjord just as the clouds broke. For ten minutes we had Norway at its most dramatic — glaciers catching the morning light, the water a deep slate blue. Then we were above the weather and it was just coffee and Tagesschau on a tiny screen.
Munich appeared through a haze of Bavarian autumn. Two hours in Terminal 2 — enough time for a pretzel the size of a dinner plate and a very stern German immigration officer who wanted to know why two Norwegians were flying to Thailand with no return date.
“We’re traveling,” Thea said. “For a while.”
He stamped. We ran.
MUC → BKK — LH 772
The A350 is a quiet airplane. Almost unsettlingly so. Somewhere over the Black Sea, the cabin lights dimmed to a simulated sunset and we settled in for the long haul: eleven hours with nothing to do but watch the moving map crawl across Kazakhstan, western China, and down over Myanmar.
We chased the sun east. The sky outside stayed stubbornly bright until somewhere over the Himalayas, when the whole horizon turned shades of orange and pink we’d only ever seen in travel brochures.
Landing at Suvarnabhumi at 5 AM local time is a particular kind of disorientation. You step off a climate-controlled tube where it was 22°C and suddenly it’s 32°C at dawn with 90% humidity. The air smells like jasmine, jet fuel, and something frying. Your body thinks it’s midnight. Your watch says otherwise.
A different kind of boat from the ones we left behind — Railay Beach, no roads, just sand and sea.
The Math
| Leg | Flight | Aircraft | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| BGO–MUC | LH 2451 | CRJ-900 | 2h 15m |
| MUC–BKK | LH 772 | A350-900 | 10h 50m |
| Total | ~14h in the air |
Bergen to Bangkok in a day. From the North Sea to the Gulf of Thailand. From 9°C and drizzle to 33°C and the kind of heat that makes you understand why som tam exists.
We’ve got six months. Let’s see what happens. 🌏