Our view of the Chao Pryha River from the 26th floor
Well, somehow the week between getting home from Chicago and leaving for Bangkok flew by, and here we are heading off for the airport for our flight to Tokyo and on to Bangkok. All in all it went well, without forgetting anything crucial (like money or passports) and Laz dropped us off at LAX with time to spare. Being on a "budget" oriented frame of mind, the first thing we decided to do was drop $400 for an Admirals Club annual membership so that we could relax in comfort for what we thought was a four hour layover in Narita. Also, we figured we should be able to take advantage of it over the year so what the hell, it's only like 16,000 baht!
Anyway, we eventually took off and settled into our coach, that's right folks, coach seats which were fairly cramped and none to comfy.
What will no doubt be Cindy's favorite room in S.E. Asia
Cindy's most memorable statement was something to the effect of "Being in coach sucks! I get claustrophobic in coach!" which was somewhat true. All in all, it wasn't too bad and we made it to Narita and went to the lounge where we had a whopping 35 minutes since our flight was late. At least I was mildly entertained by those crafty Japanese engineers who managed to invent a cool beer tap that automatically lowers itself to the bottom of the glass, fills the glass to within an inch of the top and then tops it off with some foam.
The flight on to Bangkok was another six hours but had better movies and we arrived in Bangkok around 11:30 PM and was happily surprised to actually see our bags after not to long. Hopped in a cab and checked into the brand spanking new Millennium Hilton (not exactly our budget but I am a dedicated Hilton Diamond guest and figured it would ease us into the rest of the trip which will, needless to say, be a bit more downscale and local). Two Ambien later and we were snoozing away in our very nice room overlooking the Chao Pryha River.
PS - Since the Internet tends to be slow here, we might opt to just write outlines of our adventures now and only upload minimal photos but rest assured that, if you show up at the house, we will bore you to tears with millions of pix. Eventually, we will update the best of them here too.
