Bangkok Exodus

July 14 was the most important day in my recent years due to the fact that we had sold most of our earthly possessions and gave up the house to move to a foreign country to start life anew. It was also to be an exciting one because I would be traveling with my grownup children and my 21-day old granddaughter.

Some weeks before this day, I was already praying that God would take charge of every single detail of this move. I knew I had no control of the many aspects of the trip like the baby’s disposition during the long haul, the flight schedules of our connecting flights, the expenses that we might incur outside of the fare and a lot more. I also fairly well knew that God in his might had all these concerns in focus and that he was just waiting for the right opportunity to display his power to some vulnerable earthling like me.

True to my personality I had everything planned, and executed every detail to ensure that the trip would be the least stressful, and this included the packing of our baggage to the exact weight that was allowed us for free so that we wouldn’t have to pay for excess of the total of 80 kilograms. To do this I bought a cheap China-made weighing scale and meticulously weighed each piece of the 6 bags that we planned to check-in. No matter how much I shifted the contents between the bags I was still at least 13 kilograms over the weight limit, which is about Php 3,900.00, times two plane trips would mean 7,800.00. I knew I didn’t have that much money for excess baggage and yet I couldn’t leave these things behind because we needed them.

I then chose a medium-sized red trolley bag, which I singled out as a hand-carried item aside from a backpack that I planned to carry. The size of this bag was way over the allowed maximum size but which I figured out would fit in the overhead compartment of the plane cabin. It weighed a little over 11 kilograms, which is 4 kilograms over the allowable hand-carried baggage limit. This placed two odds against the ‘wonder’ bag. Three things could happen to this ‘damned’ bag. Either the airlines would demand that I check it in during check-in time or I would be apprehended and forced to check in the baggage the moment I would enter the predeparture area where they have a weighing scale and a measuring device for all hand-carried items or it would escape attention at the two points and yet wouldn’t fit in the overhead storage compartments of the plane cabin.

The first two scenarios never happened and I ‘luckily’ pass through both check points with the bag unnoticed. Boarding time comes and I maneuver towards the plane entrance with the bag in tow. In the boarding tube a uniformed maintenance man approaches me and asks if I would want to have the bag checked in free of charge. Without much thought I oblige and he hands me a claim stub after attaching a sticker tag to the bag handle. I notice that he exits through a side door of the tube, carries the bag down a ladder and heads towards the fuselage of the plane. I try to imagine the scenario of me trying to lift the bag to the overhead compartment and failing to make it fit. A sigh of relief escapes my lips.

Three and a half hours later I am in another airport checking my baggage in for the second and last plane ride to our destination. The officer there weighs and measures it and tells me that the red ‘wonder’ bag was too big and too heavy for a hand-carried item; he also tells me that I didn’t have any choice regarding its passage. So I check in all 6 bags in and inquire from the lady at the desk how much I had to pay for the excess weight. She shrugs her shoulders and tells me that my baggage is just within the allowed weight and that I didn’t have any surcharge to pay. [This made my China-made weighing scale and the digital meter at the first airport look obsolete and malfunctioning] I look up to the ceiling and force back an escaping tear as I realize that my God is not sleeping on the job.

The entire trip took two mini bus and two plane rides between two countries for a total of 9 hours, and the baby was as comfortable as though she was in her own room all the time. We were able to manage through two “poopoo” diaper changes in flight and a lot of breast feeding, and it was if she was sedated. A few days before the trip someone suggested that we drug her to minimize the crying and bawling, which is expected of babies who are not comfortable. I tried to entertain the suggestion but I realized that it would be tantamount to trusting a drug to take care of this particular detail of our trip and leaving God out of the picture. The drug could either fail or manifest an adverse effect but God never fails, I reasoned out.

God proved it again! He is awesome!