Where am I, and when is it?

Lost in timezones and micro-napping. I'm in my apartment, at least physically. To quote an old friend who said this very often, and was, to be fair, of very limited IQ: "I think I left my brain at home".

The trip from Manchester to Bangkok, normally a 17 hour grueller, this time was via Phuket. That, for the geographically challenged, is also in Thailand but a grand total of 980 km from Bangkok. The resulting van-ride was epic.

Here's the blow-by-blow:

Finnair finally told me I could go back via Helsinki overnight, and Phuket, then drive to Bkk. This was possible because I am living and working over there and in those cases they are obliged to repatriate passengers.

I hastily contacted my employers here and they agreed to send a driver to meet me and take me from Phuket to Bangkok.

I left the house in a hurry as usual, having discovered an email ten minutes before leaving which informed me of a schedule change. This would mean my driver would arrive 7 hours late to meet me. There was no way to confirm it, and it contradicted the one I'd been given over the phone by the nice Finnair man, so I left not knowing my itinerary.

Sure enough, on arrival at Helsinki I was told the following two versions of events within two minutes:

• You're booked into a Hotel overnight. Get a bus and tell them we sent you. You fly to Phuket at 6 am, good night.
• You're on the flight to Phuket which leaves in an hour. Get your arse over to the checkin desk NOW.

I decided to wander around aimlessly. Seemed like the logical thing to do. Eventually, having found the information desk empty and wandered over to the check-in desk (also empty) I was told over the Public Address system to go the infomation desk. Strangely when I got there it was open. Twilight moment for sure.

The information people gave me more information and I made my way to the enormous Cumulus Hotel (think that's what it was called - my memory is cloudy. Crrrasssshhhhh) for the first of many short sleeps. I got to bed around 12 and was woken at 4.30 to get on the Phuket flight. Already cell-damage was setting in, and the transformation from "jet-set traveller" to "jelly-brained rambler" had begun.

The next twilight moment was when no more than two dozen or so passengers had boarded the flight to Phuket, they closed the doors and took off. I looked around during the flight and it was really quite disconcerting to see a plane with 400 seats nearly empty. Quite spooky.

More napping, but my guts play up on planes so although it was a ten-hour flight, I probably slept for three of those. I watched "Wall-e" and found it to be amusing in a sugary, formulaic hollywood style. When are they going to invent some more cliche's? Every scene contained one and they are getting a bit dog-eared.

There was a spectacular sunrise, followed eight hours later by a spectacular sunset, which I really regret not photographing. It would have meant turning on my phone mid-flight so I decided against. I did see Afghanistan (Mountainous), Pakistan (Flat) and India (Bit of both). We also flew over Russia but I was napping. There was a Russian rocket launch on the port horizon but I was on the wrong side to see it.

Landing, I quickly found my driver chap - actually two chaps - and we set off to Bangkok. It was a minivan so there was room to lie down, and they threw me a spiderman quilt. I snuggled down and tried to nap. Problem: Thai roads are too bumpy. Problem: The drivers stopped every hour to wee/eat/stretch legs/swap drivers. Problem; I'd had just enough sleep on the plane to negate the possibility of dropping off in these conditions.

Basically I just lay there bouncing around, not knowing how far it was, waiting for the sky to brighten, and Bangkok's skyline to appear on the horizon. This took twelve hours by which time I was completely scrambled.

I ate a pot-noodle (delicious) and went to bed, where I was finally able to get a semi-decent kip. This was interrupted by Lynny, who rang to see if I was ok, and my cleaner lady, who called round to inform me I had a new bathroom ceiling. I hadn't noticed. Apparently there was a plumbing dsaster on the next floor up while I was away.

The final irony: on one of their many stops, the drivers bought newspapers. They gleefully infomed me that the main airports will open shortly so I needn't have bothered with this trip anyway. A couple more days and I could have flown direct to Bangkok. What a pisser.

It's now 7.30 pm and I'm back at work tomorrow. Wish me luck getting some sleep tonight.

Be good.