We slept very well last night. After showers we headed over to the breakfast room. Our chain of preference is Choice Hotels and they, like a lot of places these days, offer a free breakfast. It's nothing fancy, but it's free so one can't complain much.
We stopped at the office on our way back to the room and got put on the 10:00 shuttle back to the airport. Back in the room we finished packing and after one last long look around, headed out the door. The shuttle got us back to the international terminal at LAX in about 15 minutes. As we walked through the doors into the cavernous ticket counter area, I realized we were in the same room we walked into in 1976 when Leslie and I went to Europe for the first time together with our college choir at California State College, Stanislaus. Was that really over 35 years ago?
We waited another 15 minutes for the check-in windows to open, got our boarding passes and made our way through security. As usual, with all the check in and security taken care of we had way more than enough time to sit and wait. Leslie used the time to walk around, get our air miles into the system and, hunter gatherer that she is, found us food and water.
She had discovered a Pink's hot dog stand in the food court. Kate and I made a pilgrimage to this LA hot dog hot spot years ago. Great hot dogs. This
wasn't the same quality as the real joint but it was pretty good just the same. We split a dog smothered in kraut, pastrami and cheese. Our last taste of American food for a couple of weeks.The call came and we boarded a China Airlines 747 at about 1:45 pm. I am thinking our seats may not be anything special except that they would recline a little more than your average domestic flight's seat. With a 14 hour flight I didn't think that would be too much to ask. Boy, was I wrong. Luckily we had asked for and got seats in an emergency row, three seats across with no one in the third seat. Unfortunately, the seats were the narrowest things I have ever sat in with the exception of a Wujan Airlines short hop we once took between cities in China. I literally sat on the arms of the chair when I sat down. I had to force myself into the seat.
The seats also didn't recline even as much as seats on a domestic American flight.
On a positive note, the TV monitors in front of us displayed the entire taxi and take off of the flight which I thought was pretty cool. At least it took my mind off my poor bruised and aching hips for a while.
The staff aboard couldn't be more polite or accommodating. Of course, that accommodation didn't extend to moving us to more spacious quarters. Oh, we'll.
14 hours later, having crossed the International Date Line, we finally arrived in Taipei, Taiwan. A new country? Technically we don't count it being in another country or state unless we have at least had a meal there or stayed the night. So I guess we shouldn't actually count Taiwan, but we agreed between us that we would since the likelihood that we would ever go there is pretty slim and, let's face it, we're not getting any younger.
This time we had 3-across seating though it was the same type aircraft. I fit into this seat just fine. Hmmm! At the last minute a foreign exchange student from The Netherlands was seated next to us making it more crowded. We noticed that there were plenty of vacant seats toward the back and the flight attendants allowed us to move when all the passengers were aboard. We quickly moved to a bulkhead 4-across row and spread ourselves out. Much better.
This leg of our journey was only 3 hours and much more comfortable. The flight seemed to go much more quickly. They fed us dinner though I must say it was THEE worst airline meal I have ever had. I can and will eat just about anything and I tried to eat this, but the pork over the rice looked like it had been boiled. Turns out it was. It was rubbery and the flavor was just horrid. So was everything else on the tray and so for one of the few times in my life I just set the entire meal aside and went to sleep. We both managed to get some sleep awakening only when the pilot announced we were descending into Bangkok.
Bangkok airport is super modern and clean. Both Taipei and Bangkok airports made LAX look like a dump. America, get with it! We made our way through immigration and to the luggage carousel without a hitch. The immigration lines were lengthy but not horribly so considering it was 1:00 in the morning. Folks that we had met along our journey so far greeted each other again in the line and others approached us taking a chance and asking if we were with the Gate 1 tour. They weren't taking much of a chance really. We were one of only a few Caucasian folks in the line, we spoke English and probably looked as lost as they felt.
By the time we had gathered our luggage we were a little gaggle of Gate 1 Tour groupies who had found each other and gathered for the walk to the exit where a Gate 1 courier was supposed to be waiting for us. Sure enough, a lady was holding up a sign indicating her employer and with what must have been a rather relieved look on our faces, we approached her. She wasn't unfriendly but she did lack that Thai smile we had read so much about. No, "hello". No greeting. She just checked our papers against her list and then led us out the front door and across the parking lot to a waiting van.
The drive to our hotel took about 30 minutes over a toll road as modern as any American freeway which was deceivingly deserted at this early morning hour. It wasn't until we turned off onto Sukhumvit Street, near where our hotel was located, that we got our first taste of Thailand.
Almost 3:00 in the morning and the streets were packed with crowds of folks shopping, eating at one of numerous street food vendors, wandering a night market. Traffic seemed to make no sense with cars, trucks, motor scooters and the famous three-wheeled tuk-tuks going in all directions including straight at us. Our driver was unperturbed by it all and we all chattered away about
the colors, sounds, smells and general craziness of it all. It was just like we'd seen in so many movies and travelogues. It was perfect! Warm, muggy, but perfect!
Or hotel room at the Park Plaza was a welcome sight, beautiful and the bed
was so comfortable. Nothing like I had expected from my experiences in China ten years ago where the beds were all like sleeping on a board. We sank right into bed and went off to sleep dreaming of our first real encounter with Thailand.
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