Happy honeymoon - a concrete floor and sweaty crowds

Taranaki newlyweds Shane and Mel Hurliman will never forget their honeymoon night.

But not for the heights they scaled - quite the opposite actually.

At the end of a 12-hour flight the New Plymouth couple flew slap bang into a protest of thousands who had surrounded Bangkok's international airport.

Shane, a policeman, and Mel, a practice nurse, raised a sweat trying to find out what had happened to their connecting flight to a Phuket resort, completely oblivious to their plight as pawns in an uprising aimed at deposing the Thai government.

"The information feed was just non-existent. So our honeymoon night was on the floor at the transit counter," Mr Hurliman said.

Next day, rumours were rife that the protesters were planning to storm the airport and that policemen had been injured. There was no sign of the military.

"But we didn't have feelings of animosity against the protesters. They had a very, very legitimate gripe. Unfortunately we became the political pawns and they used us as leverage - and it worked."

Then, when the duty free shops closed down, taking away all their expensive wares, fears intensified. "Apart from that we didn't fear for our safety at all," Mr Hurliman said.

When they lined up outside with the other 20-30,000 stranded travellers to take buses into Bangkok, they finally saw for themselves the extent of the protest. The throng of protesters filled the upper airbridges on the approaches to the huge airport.

"They had loudspeakers and everyone had dressed in yellow supporting the protesters.

"That was the worst part of the ordeal for us. There was no airconditioning, they were slow in getting water supplies out to everyone. Elderly people were fainting, young children screaming: they just couldn't cope with it. It was a bloody mess. We worked out they needed at least 500 trips to get everyone into Bangkok."

The second night of their honeymoon was spent in a three-star hotel in Bangkok.

From there they took a 1412 hour trip in a Hiace van on "the crappiest roads" to Phuket. "I'll never down-talk the Awakino Gorge again," he joked.

Linda Corkin at Travel Smart came in for high praise for the work she put in back home in New Plymouth to resurrect their honeymoon.

"Absolutely brilliant. Bloody marvellous," he says.

Mr Hurliman said that in hindsight, they should have taken a cellphone. Their phone bill is in the hundreds and they were forced to pay $5500 to get home through Singapore and Brisbane with Silk Air and Qantas, arriving on Friday.

"We could have gone to the United Kingdom for that!"

The Hurlimans are still waiting for confirmation that they will be covered by insurance. They are also concerned that Thai people totally dependent on tourism for their livelihoods will now suffer a backlash.

"The Thai economy is going to take huge belt out of this. It's the locals I feel sorry for.

"They have to get tourists back in the country. Beautiful country, absolutely beautiful people. We wouldn't hesitate to go back."