June 25th, 2010
WE ARE BACK! June 24th-26th
We left Seattle on Thursday June 24th–and just got here to Chiang Mai at 9am Saturday June 26th their time. The hotel we are staying at picked us up from airport and brought us to the hotel and we were able to check in right away–Thank you lord for this small miracle. The travel time was just over 30 hours in all–with 19 of that being in the air–the rest in airport connections and layovers. The time zone is 14 hours ahead of Seattle time (13 hours ahead of Edmonton/Calgary).
Aside from a few weird hiccups along the way–the travel was uneventful. The line was not long in Seattle to check into the first leg of our journey, but with 20 minutes spent waiting with only one person moving up in the line–I gave up and stomped over to economy–where we were helped immediately. The n in LA an elderly man threw up on the shuttle we had to ride from the domestic terminal to the international terminal–so we all had to evacuate the shuttle and wait for another one to come along. No worries about this delay as we got to the Thai check in counter and they still were over an hour away form opening to check anyone in for our flight to Bangkok. SO we waited in that line until 8:15, when we got through quickly and into a nice lounge where we ate and rested and i was able to talk to the kids on pidgin. The flight from LA to Bangkok was 16 hours and 10 minutes. We had to ride ANOTHER shuttle out to the boonies where our plane was parked. Seriously–we crossed a freeway to get to it. Then when we were taxi’ing back in the plane, we crossed over that same freeway to get back the runway.
Anyway–that flight was good, and then we ran across the entire Bangkok airport to get to our flight up to Chiang Mai–one more hour and were here in our Northern Thailand paradise.
Had to work the front desk over a little for a second internet code so Troy and I can both be connected–but that is OK…I was very sweet : ) and it all worked out. We chatted with the kids and my Dad and then decided to go for a walk. MAN is it HOT out there. It was 86 degrees when we landed at 8:50 this morning…not sure how warm it is right now–but it is supposed to be mid 90s. I swear the humidity is 100%. That is an exaggeration I know–but it has got to be darn close. I needed to go to a baggage shop to get an over the shoulder day pack. The price seemed very reasonable (199 baht–$6.25 USD). But I know troy was annoyed with me I did not haggler her. But it just already seemed like a good deal…Oops–I am totally out of practice–I need Rachael the master haggler!!!
We came back to the room–had a shower and planned to go over to Sopha’s for a massage. They could not see us until 3pm, so we decided to go for lunch. Jackie–we went to the place you picked for us last year–down that side alley that has the awesome HUGE cheap shakes. I had a banana shake and Daddy had watermelon shake. Then Daddy had Tom Yum soup and i had chicken and cashew nut and pepper (BOTH were very yummy) The 2 meals, 2 shakes and rice was 205 baht ($6.40) Great lunch!! and we thought of you the whole time since you found that restaurant last year!
We came back to room so i could blog and we are headed over to Sopa’s in about 20 minutes for our massage–she still has the 120 baht 1 hour massages!! WAHOO! Yes that is $3.75!!
We think it is much MUCH quieter here this year than last year–but I am sure all the people will come out tonight–we are going to go up to the Saturday market!! The road in front of the Raming lodge has barely any traffic–maybe that is because it is the weekend…not sure!
We went for a little walk and saw a temple that had a donald duck statue in the front–kinda out of place…
Oh yeah–Did I mention how TIRED I am ?????
