Day 215, Bangkok, Thailand
I do like flying Emirates, almost as much as I liked Luftansa. My favorite is still Luftansa since they came around in the middle of the night offering chocolate to all the insomniacs, I took a few. I decided that insomniacs travelling with three kids just deserved extra. For that reason, Luftansa will always me my favorite. But Emirates treated us extremely well. Madi enjoyed the free ramen on request service.
We got to Bangkok, Thailand at about midnight. By the time we got through immigration and went out to wait for the hotel shuttle, it was about 1 am. We were all so happy when we walked through the doors and felt the tropical warm weather like home. We took off our coats and other layers, but had to wait to swap out our boots until we can dig them out of luggage. Guess I’ll have to start using deoderant again. I don’t really like the cold, never have. I blame my mom’s genes, and she blames on growing up in a bakery and always wanting to be warm. It’s genetic I tell you. So spending October thru January in Paris in the cold, and another particularly cold, snowy, rainy, windy week in Turkey has reminded me how much happier I am when I’m not always cold. Warmth makes me want to be out in the world rather than curled up on the couch.
Since we knew we were coming in late, we booked a hotel close to the airport. We will go to our apartment tomorrow. The men at the hotel desk were so very nice. I like this culture already. They showed us up to these huge connected rooms, ours with a balcony to the front. The girls always like rooms with robes, and the wifi was better than in France. We know what makes them happy. We ended up going to sleep at 3:30 am Thailand time, on big beds. All that for $54.
Here was our tray of complimentary items at our hotel.
Even though it was in the middle of the night, we were a bit too keyed up to sleep. Just so happened there was a 7-11 next door. Yay! If it’s anything like the ones in Japan, they may have sushi. They did! Cali and I were so excited. We also got some interesting chips and cheetos, which taste the same as ours but are natural colored and not fluorescent orange.
First impressions of Thailand, warm (yay), people have been very friendly and helpful, things are inexpensive. But be warned. There are many signs in the airport, and then on billboards as you leave the airport not to buy Buddhas or get tattoos of Buddha. It’s illegal. Just say no.
We got to the condo we are staying in for two weeks, a man with perfect English was waiting for us. He showed us around, told us where to get breakfasts, lunch, groceries, how to catch the boat in front of our building, all the important stuff. The girls tried the internet immediately, because if that isn’t right, it’s a deal breaker. Doesn’t matter how long the security code is to the wifi, Cali memorizes it. It’s the first thing she does on entering any building. After that we just ask her what it is.
We walked to the nearest grocery place. Outside is a big market, then inside on the first floor is an extensive food court, Thai-style. The second floor has many shops and a huge store with anything you need for your home and an extensive grocery store. In the food court you can see all the women cooking behind glass, so many options. I don’t think I’ll get through the whole place, but I’ll try. I had a spicy lemon salmon that was so unique I have no idea what was on it, but it was good. You can pick out your fresh fish and they will cook it for you. The baked goods and bras were housed together in one corner. They like their drink-boxes, there was a huge aisle for that. One thing we just couldn’t get over was that their lotions and deodorants boast of “whiteners” the way our toothpaste does. They promise to lighten and brighten your skin. There are few deodorants that don’t boast of this quality. Even men’s deodorant had this.
Cali was excited to find some pitaya, dragon fruit. We also got apples, snacks, some milk and cereal for Madi. It`s not a big wine place so Paul is trying some new brands of Asian beer.
We took a tuk-tuk home with our groceries. I’ve taken many tuk tuks, but this was the fastest I’ve ever gone in one. I think these have more power. We did a u-turn in front of traffic that I thought was cutting it a bit close, but he just
accelerated into the flow, no problem. Probably better to just close my eyes next time, whichever way it`s going to end. We came home to a crazy view of the city in lights, that we can see from our balcony, and bedroom window. I don`t think we`ve ever had a place with this kind of view. This is going to be fun.
