Saturday, June 08, 2013

Adventures in Thailand Part 1: Getting There - Isn't this Supposed to be the Easy Part?

On June 3rd, I departed my house around 8am to embark upon my epic journey to Thailand. After arriving at the airport and enjoying a lovely breakfast at Cafe Patachou with a friend, I ventured through security where things moved seamlessly as I boarded my American Airlines flight bound for JFK. And then the lovely seamlessness ended. The moment I threw my backpack in the overhead compartment and my ass hit the seat, I heard an announcement coming over the speaker. Many people were still settling into place so I couldn't make it all out, but the key elements I heard were "...no flights to New York... more than 4 hours ... deplaning."  Lucky for me there was a bar directly across from the gate, so I downed some delicious Sun King beer while I waited.

We finally departed and landed uneventfully at JFK. I made the 30-40 minute journey over to the China Eastern counter (American wouldn't issue me a boarding pass or check me in because it was a different airline - so what's the point of all that "Sky Team Alliance" crap then?!?). I arrived to find no one there. A nice airport employee asked what I needed and I said I needed to talk to China Eastern because my flight had been delayed and I needed to find out how I was going to get to Bangkok now. "They're closed! Won't be back until tomorrow. Sorry." I cried. After calling friends and the company I booked the ticket with, and journeying all the way back over to the American counter, I sat in line for almost 3 hours only to be told by American that all they could do was rebook me for the same flight the following day, and no, they won't pay for my hotel tonight because it was a weather delay and not their fault. Awesome!

Waiting in line at American

After spending $150 on a hotel room (and after having Will sign into my fb and get in touch with friends who have friends in NY, but discovering that the cab fares would probably end up being as much as the hotel) I ventured back to JFK for round two. This time things moved pretty smoothly, except for the fact that American had apparently booked me on different flight from Shanghai to Bangkok, so China Eastern couldn't check me in for that flight, because I would need to stop and get my luggage re-routed before boarding. Awesome!

Despite being 15 hours, the flight to China wasn't awful. I quickly discovered it was more battery efficient to watch movies on my iPad Mini than my MacBook and managed to get through several. (Win number who can keep track for the iPad!) Bag re-routing was less cumbersome than imagined and I even had time to stop at a free internet kiosk to shoot off an email saying I had made it that far. (They had about 4 open wifi networks in the airport, but none would actually let me connect. The free computers wouldn't allow access to FB... Welcome to China!)

The stop in Shanghai was really all worth it for this sign...


I don't really know what "Mind your head" means, but I feel like I can interject it into normal conversation and it will be fun. Also, I got to pay $8 for a liter of water, who doesn't love that?!

I got settled on the flight Bangkok and after eating, decided it was definitely time to watch some Pitch Perfect. Don't judge me! It's aca-awesome and you know it! After arriving and discovering that my bags did in fact make it all the way to Bangkok (pretty shocking given the previous information) one of the Echo English staff members picked me up and, since it was about 2am, dropped me off at place to stay for the night (or sleeping hours of the morning, depending on how you want to look at it.) Depite the fact that is was early afternoon back home and that Thai mattresses bring a whole new meaning to the definition of firm, I passed out rather quickly.

Random pretty thing in Bangkok Airport

In case you're counting, the total estimated door to door travel time was 56 hours, the first 33 of which were just trying to get out of the US. I can't actually pinpoint how many time zones I crossed because I'm while I can't be sure of this, according to app I downloaded, my flight from New York actually took me back west to Shanghai, not east. So confusing.

Stay tuned for Adventures in Thailand Part 2. I'd tell you the tentative title, but you'd just get too excited.

Labels: American Airlines, Bangkok, China Eastern Airlines, JFK, Thailand, travel