Thailand Or Bust (Day 2)

May 22 & 23 (Friday & Saturday)

Tim was nice enough to take us to the airport crazy, early in the morning. It wasn't long before we met up with Eric & Audrey and got on our way to start our long flight to Hong Kong.

The 14 hour flight was pretty uneventful. We watched movies, slept, flew over the international date line and just enjoyed the downtime getting ready for all kinds of adventures ahead of up.

Much to our surprise, our first adventure happened as soon as we landed in Hong Kong. We got into Hong Kong a little later then expected and we were on the back of the plane. As soon as we got off the plane we had to move quickly to find our connecting flight. What we had forgotten was that we had to go through security again to get to our gate. Thankfully, as soon as we got through the security check our gate was right there. The bad part was that they we making last call for our flight so we had to run to get on before they closed the doors.

We were very excited and relieved that we make our connection but had to laugh that we ran to make the flight and immediately had to wait on the tarmac for 2 hours. We were all hopefully that when we got to Bangkok, Eric & Audrey's luggage was able to make it on our plane during our delay. It was not surprising but very disappointing when we realized it didn't make it.

After jumping through all the hoops to report missing luggage, we were able to find our transportation to our hotel. By the time we were driving into Bangkok, it was Saturday night. We were hoping to make it to the flashlight market once we checked into our hotel.

We should have known (we kind of did) we were in trouble when our driver had to stop and ask for directions to get to our hotel, Kingston Suites. It didn't give us a lot of confidence but we went with it cause, we really had no other choice. Thankfully, they were able to find the hotel and dropped us off. She let us know a great place to grab a bite to eat once we got settled and they were on our way.

As we checked in, we quickly learned that our reservations were not correct and they only had one room for us. At this point, we really just had to laugh at the ridiculousness of the few hours and we tried to wait patiently as they tried to figure it all out. In the end, out hotel was booked and they sent up to a hotel down the street. I am sure you had to be there, but it was quite hilarious when Eric asked the lady, "Is the room equitable?" It was hilarious to all of us because we are not sure she understood much English and here is Eric, using big words. With no real answer to Eric's question (understandably) and no other options, we headed down the street to our new hotel for the night.

We were determined to not end our night on a negative and since all the hotel hiccups cause us to miss the flashlight market, we decided to just go walking around our area and grab a bit to eat.

It must have been at least 10 or 11pm (if not later) by the time we headed out but you would never know it from all of the people and traffic.

 The sights, sounds and smells our first night were a bit surprising. There were a ton of night market stands for blocks so it was fun to see all the things for sale. A few of the tables were quite shocking. Many of the tables were full of different sex toys and enhancements. We also saw lady boys and a lot of ladies of the night. Not much was said about it at the time, we just walked around and took it all in. We never felt unsafe and no one approached us in any way so we kept walking.

 After a while, we finally found the grocery store that our guide told us about before she dropped us off. It had a restaurant inside the grocery store and that was a good place to get our first meal in Thailand. It was also a great chance to get a few things from the grocery store. Win-win.

Eric wasn't ready for thai food out of a grocery store so he stuck with the McDonald's on the corner. This pit stop lead to the next great comment from Eric. When asked how his cheeseburgers were his response was, "good...actually, I think they are better then back home."

 The pad thai was great and we were excited to get back to the hotel to really dig into it and call it a night. That was when we saw the most surprising thing on our way back. Once we left the grocery store/restaurant, we saw a lady in a tight white dress. Then we noticed a guy grabbing her butt and "checking out the goods" to see if he was interested. It was crazy to see it all happen and it wasn't like we were walking down some deserted alley way, it all happened right out in the open. It was crazy!

We knew that this was going to be a memorable trip and we couldn't wait to explore the city tomorrow.