An entry in the TFS Travel Journal
Now this is what we call a travel day! We left 33 Fifth on Thursday at 3pm NYC time. The 5 1/2 hour flight to LA was as pleasant as these things can be. It was then a nice and easy transfer to China Air, whose lounge we waited in for the 2 1/2 hours or so until boarding our next flight (catching up on last minute phone calls and watching the Arizona-Maryland game). Next came the 14 hour flight to Taipei during which we enjoyed an Asian-style dinner then slept as much as possible, waking up on Saturday, around 4am Taipei time. (We also had a brief conversation with a flight attendant who told us that Bangkok was in the midst of a cholera epidemic!)
We landed at 6:30am and waited 2 hours until boarding the flight to Hong Kong and Bangkok. En route to HK we enjoyed a tasty Asian breakfast of shrimp and rice and some tropical fruits. We had about 1 hour in HK so we just walked around the airport. We passed on the bountiful duty-free offerings, but marveled at what must be the busiest runway in the world. We then returned to the airplane, our home for the past day or so, finally arriving in Bangkok around 1:45 in the afternoon (1:45 am, Saturday morning, New York time).
Though we had gone through customs in 18 previous countries since May, this was the worst so far! We stood in line for close to an hour before being told that we had to go to a different area. We calmly said “no” and asked for a supervisor, who came over and allowed us to be quickly processed. Amazingly, our suitcases had made it from LA, and were waiting patiently for us. We had a nice air-conditioned (whew, we’re sure back in the tropics!) ride to the hotel. We settled in, and Milton went to the exercise room in attempt to remember what activity was like. After some wonderful showering, we forced ourselves to go to dinner at the hotel’s Thai restaurant on the terrace across the river. (The hotel sits on a wide, busy river, but many of its facilities are on the other side, so boats go back and forth constantly to take guests on the 3 minute crossing)
Dinner was as good as we’d been hoping it would be when we finally got to Thailand! We started with the mixed appetizers (some crab dumplings, spring rolls) then mixed satay, stir-fried vegetables, and duck. While it was all good, it was the perfection of the seasoning that was truly memorable. We also had a Sing-ha Gold and coconut juice in the shell. We were fading fast, so we motored back across and went to the room.
We desperately tried to stay awake, but to no avail and we passed out around 8pm. Must not have been too early, though, since we slept ’till about 7 the next morning . . .