After a farewell at the departure gate, the nice lady at passport control at Sydney Airport had the temerity to suggest that Ilias' passport has seen better days, then proceeded to show us how sad by demonstrating how the the main page is separating from the rest of the passport... His excuse is that the typhoon on Boracay a few years ago damaged it - not to mention the exploding champagne bottle the other night.
After 9 hours and considerable doubts about whether the Thais would let him in at Bangkok with such a dodgy document, our fears were unfounded. Despite the fact that it wouldn't even read in the Thai passport scanner, he made it through.
Tomorrow we'll be making a sweaty journey down to the Australian Embassy to see how long it will take to get a replacement.
We've managed to hook up with Praphasi, an old Thai friend from Newtown. She's found us somewhere nice and pleasant to hang while we sort out passport troubles and my dodgy calf muscle.
Hopefully cycling will begin in a couple of days...
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