So I am presently sitting in a bus
station somewhere in the city of Bangkok, Thailand. It is odd not having a clue where in the
world you are but it is comforting to know that I am in the right place. We have about an hour and a half before we
are scheduled to get on the bus that will take us to Chiang Mai, which is about
9 hours to the north.
The trip itself was very long but
not as long as I was expecting it to be.
After a car, 4 planes, a bus, a car, a hotel, a taxi, and another bus I
will be in Chiang Mai. This trip has
totaled to be about 48 hours all together.
It has been a bumpy ride with not too many hiccups but I am so
tired. That is the other weird thing,
the time change. In Arizona it is 6 at
night the day of the 8th but here it is 8 in the morning the day of
the 9th. See, so weird.
Here is my trip in a little bit more detail:
My mom woke me up at 4 in the
morning the 7th of May to make my flight, which was at 6:15. My mom was already crying as my dad and I
were driving out of the garage. It was weird hugging her and thinking that I
will be thousands of miles from her for the next few months. My dad and I had a good car ride, which
included laughing, pep-talking, and another call from my mom asking if we could
say a prayer. I had never said a prayer
though the phone before but that did not change how needed and important it was
to me. I could not close my eyes for
fear I would start crying.
Once we were at the airport, Dad
walked me in and we checked my bags. Of
course, I was over by 15 pounds. I swear
I did not even pack that much, somehow it just all adds up. Then I got on the plane a while later. I met Kristin and Chloe in Salt Lake City,
where the journey really began. We got
on a plane to Portland, which all three of us read are really annoying books
for the class that we are taking while in Thailand. During our layover in Portland we met a guy
named Nolan. He was from Provo too but
he was going to Hong Kong for a job. He
was interesting and from Wyoming but he was really nice and friendly. The flight from Portland to Tokyo was the
worst. It was a good nine hours where we
were all squished into the plane like sausages.
I slept for about 2 hours of it. The
dinner that was served on the plane was disgusting and I am trying really hard
to be open to things but I just could not do it. I watched 3 and a half movies and read about
3 pages of my book: Poor Economics, A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight
Global Poverty. Once we got into Tokyo
we had another 2 hour layover. During
which we walked around the airport, exploring the origami exhibit, exchanging 3
dollars into Japanese Yens just to see what the money looks like, and asking
ourselves life-changing questions like: Why do we call layovers, layovers? While sitting waiting to board our 3rd plane
(4th for me) I decided that the airport in Japan did not feel much
different then American airports. I mean
yes, there was a lot more Asian people and on all of the signs Japanese was
first followed by English underneath, not much was different. People were all still people and traveling
was still traveling.
The plane we got on to go to
Bangkok was huge. It was a two story
one, with TVs for every seat. It was a
lot nicer than the plane previous. Our
seats were towards the front but we were all in different rows. I was on the aisle and kept waiting for the
two other people that would sit in the two seats next to me but they never
came. So once the doors closed I got to
celebrate the fact that I had three seats all to myself! Kristin came and sat by me, we watched two
movies and ended up falling asleep. I was so much more comfortable though.
Once we landed we got off the plane
and were hit with this sticky heat.
Getting off the plane was cool though because we did not exit into the
building. We exited the planes on stairs
that went straight onto the runway. It
was like all the older movies, which was really cool. A bus took us to the terminal where we went
through Customs, exchanged our money and got our bags. We then had to find the car that was supposed
to pick us up and take us to the hotel.
That was a wide ride. We ended up
asking some guy and he yelled across this sea of people and another random guy
came up to us with a clipboard. Chloe’s
name was on the clipboard, so we put our trust in this young man that we had
never met and will probably never see again.
The car ride to the hotel was about 15 minutes, during which we got to
have a small taste of this new world we would be living in. The steering wheel was on the other side of
the car and the speed was in Kilometers.
There were dogs that we could see walking the sidewalks and people on
motorcycles driving really crazy.
When we finally got to the hotel it
was around midnight in Bangkok but 10 in the morning back in Arizona. We talked to the lady at the desk for a while
and really got to see how nice these people are. I got to call Spencer, the facilitator and my
cousin, for about five minutes. He
explained what to do the next morning to get on the bus. We slept pretty good but only for about 5
hours. I needed so much more.
The taxi ride to the bus station
was about 45 minutes. This ride we
really got to see what this city is like.
There are two colors that are more pronounced than all the rest: Green
and Dirty. The freeway was like a
rollercoaster of ups and downs, and the ups gave us a really good vantage point
to check out our surroundings. There
were more dogs and so many phone lines.
People were everywhere too.
So that is the first two days in a
nutshell. It was stressful and fun and
wild all at the same time. There were
moments when I was a little anxious but it was nothing I could not handle. There was a lot of trust that I had to give
people I have never met. Because of
movies (Taken) I think it forces this negative connotation about people in
other countries, which could be a good thing because it keeps you on your toes
but it could also be a bad thing. Not
everyone is out there to hurt you.
Honestly they don’t really care about you, they are doing their job and
want to get paid is all. But they are
nice about it; don’t get me wrong. I am
excited ever more for this adventure I am about to embark on and all the wild
things that happen along the way.
Oh and while leaving we met two
girls, probably in their early twenties that were just checking into the
hotel. They told us they were heading
home from 3 months of living in Chiang Mai.
They were from England and they were so cool. They looked Thai too. It was a great way to start my morning.
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