August 2, 2012
I’m pretty sure it is Thursday, August 2nd (August 1st to those of you on the other side of the world). We finally arrived in Bangkok. For those of you who watched Amazing Race,
we were like the couple who would get up to the ticket counter only to be told – NO, there are no flights today. You can leave tomorrow at ___. It was frustrating, but we weren’t in jeopardy of getting kicked out of a race. And,
I didn’t have to eat gross stuff along the way (although even good airline food isn’t good – I had no idea what the yellow blob was on top of my salad). United Airlines finally got us seats on Thai Airlines and that made the last
leg of the journey peaceful and relaxed. Steve and I weren’t sitting next to each other so that made is very restful for me. I didn’t have to wake Steve up for the meal (the stewardess had to do it). I didn’t have to tell
Steve to put his seat back in the upright position (the stewardess had to do it). I didn’t have to wake up Steve when we were ready to land (the stewardess had to do it). LOL! I got to sit next to a very nice young couple from Canada
who were vacationing. I got to watch another movie and some TV. This included watching a short selection on different sites to be seen in Thailand. One of the sites was Krabi – a seaside resort. It boasted caves for exploring.
It highlighted the fact that you can even find human skeletons in those caves. Just what I want to find along my travels – human skeletons! Anyway, back to the flight… The flight attendants were smiling and gracious, bowing and
smiling as they served white wine with the meal and passed out orchid corsages to the ladies. They are so different from the grumpy United flight attendants who make it seem like an inconvenience when they toss a bag of peanuts or pretzels your way.
This time the wine helped me to sleep. Once we landed we exchanged money, and then found our way to immigrations to get our passports stamped. (You basically have to just look for the people who were on your flight and follow them, because you can’t
read the signs). Unlike Tokyo where fingerprints and eye scans were taken, the Thais just looked at our passports and never questioned the fact that in our passport photos we looked like Boris and Natasha, (the Russian spies from Rocky and Bullwinkle).
Then, according to previous plans with Katie, we got our luggage (YES, our luggage was actually waiting for us), and went outside where she was to pick us up. But, there was no Katie. No, she didn’t have the baby. She had changed
her mind, and instead of picking us up in a car, she decided to take the train there. You need to remember that our cell phones don’t work here – we don’t have international service. She had been waiting for us inside but was
stuck behind some people and we couldn’t see her. She saw us and tried waving to us, but it didn’t work. After Steve walked around looking for her and her car, he tried to go back inside the airport, but he was stopped by security.
He needed his passport to go back into the building, but once there he found her. We made our way to the train and got on without a hitch. The train was clean and empty so we didn’t have problems getting seats. Then we took a
taxi the rest of the way. Driving on the “wrong” side of the street while NOT wearing seatbelts and having scooters weaving in and out of traffic all around you could be scary. However, we were so pleased to have finally arrived that
nothing fazed us.
We then spent the rest of the night eating fresh fruit and drinking fresh kiwi juice (well, I drank fresh juice – Steve had scotch) as we caught up with Katie, Tom, Tommy, and Brooke. The kids are amazing.
Tomorrow Brooke is going to teach me how to make a survival bracelet with a clasp. Tommy and Brooke are looking forward to Baby Wade’s arrival. We are all ready and waiting. Let’s see how much longer we will wait.
Sawadee-ka (that means good-bye).
P.S. Pictures will be coming shortly.