Bangkok - Day 1

Yesterday was a long one, or actually spanned the calendar length of three days, but seemed like a week. The flight from LAX to Taipei was perhaps the worst I have experienced do to a rather overweight man's "spillage" of excess body mass onto my seat from his - and the man in front of me insisted on full reclining full time - and the temperature seemed to move from Arctic cold to Sahara hot every 15 minutes - and the video on demand broke. So that was 14+ hours or my life.

Taipei airport is huge but empty. There were literally more employees than travelers and the airport was about as large as four Terminal 1's at LAX. The flight from Taipei to Bangkok was uneventful and I managed some good sleep... However, I was served the same meal on this leg of the trip - chicken with rice - and the chicken looked NOTHING like the LAX to Taipei flight. Weird, but edible - picture a fillet to a pork chop.

Got to my hotel at 3AM to learn check in does not begin till 5AM so had a couple beers with the belligerently drunk British watching the Man U game.

Today I managed to use all of the public transportation - sytrain, tut tut, taxi, water taxi and my feet. I say my feet as I was lost in Chinatown for hours - the guide books are not kidding when they say "get lost in Chinatown".

Adios America

After an eco-friendly ride to the airport via Senor Hargrove's Hybrid, I will be Bangkokin' in 24....

T-minus One Day

This time tomorrow I will be somewhere over the Pacific on hour eight of the 14 hour trip to Taipei - then another three-to-four hours longer to Bangkok...

As much as I enjoy procrastinating the packing for trips, the thought of almost 24 hours of travel/airports/planes/threat-of-swine-flu - and completely missing the three-month anniversary of my last day of work (September 23rd will be lost in translation over the Pacific) - is not hurrying this process. But, with luck, the flight tomorrow just might allow enough time to remember everything I forgot while packing so I can land in Bangkok with purpose and reason to haggle a pair of socks from 7 cents to 6 cents.

Did I also mention my arms hurt? Really bad? Thanks to the caring jabs of my nurse you all don't have to worry about getting Hepatitus A & B, typhoid or whatever a tetanus shot fixes from me anytime soon...

T-minus Two Days

Two days until lift-off and my list of to-do's has filled an entire page (well two with columns)..... Packing and jabs (Hep A&B, tetanus, thyphoid, flu, etc.) and last minute errands await in the morning.