Plane Flight to Thailand

Thirty-six hours later I have arrived at my final destination, Chiang-mai, Thailand. The trip began with a twelve-hour flight from San Francisco to Tokyo. The flight was easy and comfortable, thanks to having airline passes from my uncle and with some "luck of the Irish" I got the last ticket for business class. After a three-hour layover in Tokyo I had to prepare for another flight to the capital of Thailand, Bangkok. Again, I was lucky and received one of the last tickets for the flight to Bangkok, though this time my seat was in the middle (always fun to ask for permission to get up and go to the bathroom), but I struck up a conversation to help pass the time with the older gentleman who shared the other middle seat next to me. The gentleman told me all about Thailand's business practices and the economy. I found it interesting that the individual who owns Thailand's largest airline business, Asian Air, and telecommunication company is also the Prime Minister of Thailand, sounds familiar, Dick Cheney? Having made the flight to Bangkok, my original plan to stay the night in a Bangkok hotel changed when I decided I would spend the next four hours waiting in the Bangkok airport for my third and final plane flight to Chiang-mai. A movie on my laptop and several walks around pushing my luggage cart made the time pass quickly. Now this brings up an important lesson for international travelers that I learned the hard way. By no means should your one carry on bag weigh more than your two check in bags combined; I welcomed the free push carts for your bags with open arms when I arrived in Thailand. As soon as the ticket office opened, I booked a flight on Thai Air to Chiang-mai. Now for those who are planning trips I do highly recommend taking the Thai Air Flight #100 costing 2,777 baht ($70.00), but I’m pretty sure you get it cheaper if you book it twenty-three hours in advance on the internet at www.thaiairways.com . It is a flight that is about one hour; I received a full meal, the best dried fruit I have ever had (Logan, a major economic crop of Lamphun Province, Thailand), beautiful stewardesses, and a whole row of seats to myself. I now sit in the Chiang-mai International Airport for another five hours until I get a car ride to the Starfish Country Home School. I have found this nice restaurant on the 2nd floor in the airport where I can charge my laptop (International converter is required to charge the laptop), and I’m rocking out to Thai pop/rock music. I only have a few short remarks about the trip so far that I want to share for my own personal notes and for other travelers:

1) I have found that Thai people can sometimes be pushy because while I’m in line waiting to get something, a Thai man or women will completely ignore the fact that there is a line and go straight to the front. It has only happened to me three times, twice at the two different coffee shops and once while in line to get the Thai Air plane ticket.

2) The phone card situation is sometimes troubling. I cannot get it to work for calls within Thailand; it only wants to work when I’m calling the United States (it is an MCI International Rechargeable Prepaid Phone Card from Costco). I have little to worry about though because it seems that everyone has a cell phone (the nice GMS phones), and so far two people have voluntarily offered me their cell phones to use. I only borrowed one person's because the first person was someone that was also trying to get me to buy his taxi services (I was forewarned about the taxi drivers who will stop at nothing to get you into their taxi, and it is true!).

So far I’m still healthy and have a lot of things to look forward to. You should know that my Thai speaking is still not close to par, but I’m eager to learn some because it will make my life here a whole lot easier.