Bangkok, Thailand

Travel - Bangkok (Jan 29)

The Beijing airport is super boring. The executive lounge for Air China just has drinks and leather couches. It's the largest airport I've been in yet. Terminals are very spaced out and in bad Chinese to English translations for directions. I ended up sleeping the entire plane ride from before landing to landing in Bangkok. 

Last night upon arrival in Bangkok, I walked all the way through the Bangkok airport to baggage claim and immigration. Met a very interesting character in the line for immigration. He came to Thailand to teach kids English for the next four months. Honestly, the program itself sounds amazing but totally not up my alley. He made the journey to Thailad all the way from Iceland. 

Got my luggage and proceeded to lie in bed fully awake for a full three hours before hopping in a taxi at 5 am to go to the Viengtai hotel in Bangkok.  The hotel was a 50 minute drive from the airport. Bangkok is not a pretty city. It's very crammed and short. The hotel that contiki has arranged is in one of the "safe" parts of Bangkok according to my taxi driver. 

This is where my contiki tour started. While attempting to check in, I met up with Bree, Luke, London, Brittany, Cloe, and Justin to go on a day tour to the Tiger Temple and back. The day started out with breakfast at the hotel of cornflakes and coffee. 

The tour first took us to the Kachanaburi War Cemetary which was pretty but honestly boring. Good to stretch the legs out after the hour drive through Bangkok and north. Followed by another hour and a half on the bus to the river Kwai. Stunning views and a neat walk across the bridge and back. You could see cigarette boats running up and down the river. I'd estimate it's double the size of the bow width wise. Then we proceeded to look through a market. I found at flea markets are exactly that all over the world. 

 The tour then took the train to Trankennung. On the ride there, I saw rice fields, red dirt, skinny cows, mountains, tapioca plants, and farmers. The landscape is quite similar to Hawaii but less lush. in addition, we crossed over Death Bridge. Named as such for its extreme heights on wooden stills and how dangerous that section was to build. Breath taking views from below and the sides which photos will be posted later. After the three hour train ride, we stopped on a floating restaurant for lunch. I had steamed chicken, rice, and sprite. Food sucks here. It's all horrible and inedible. 

After lunch, we went to the Tiger Temple which is another hour drive into the bush. I got to pet tigers, play with a cub, take a teen tiger for a walk, and have a tiger decide to sleep on my lap. There are some amazing photos from here. The best is I am petting a tigers head and it decided to yawn but I look petrified that it's moving to do something else. Tigers are adorable as cubs and I'm certain that these tigers were drugged to remain so calm. 

A three and a half hour drive back to Bangkok in a bus resulted in a whole lot of frustration. Traffic in Thailand is insane. No one follows rules of road, uses signal lights, drives in one lane, and seems to forget that the shoulder isn't a lane. Our bus driver almost took out a Civic. While filling up with petrol the bus driver had everyone get off the bus. Fun fact of the day: Thailand is know for buses exploding while filling gas. In the last three months two buses have blown up due to filling with petrol. 

Once we arrived safely back at our hotel, I met up with the rest of the group and went to dinner. I had shakiest and water for dinner. Nothing looked appetizing nor safe for dinner. Everyone seems pretty legit and awesome so far in this trip. There are a couple beauties of people. 

I have proceeded to get in bed early, pack up everything, and pack my overnight bag for tomorrow.

AFN