Whew! I've made it. Phuket, Thailand. From doorstep to doorstep, the trip took nearly 38 hours, including 5 trips through airport security (including 1 trip through customs, which was easiest). All in all, I have to say that the whole thing went amazingly well. Here's the rundown:
-As planned, I left Roseville, MN around 6:30 PM, said goodbye to two of my sisters and my nephew, and rode with my parents to the airport. Around 7:00, I hugged my parents goodbye as they wished me well on my adventure. Thus far, an adventure it has been.
-MSP Airport: With my head spinning a bit from the goodbyes, I did manage to get checked in and was happy to find that my bag would check all the way to Phuket without any further action from myself. Later on, it would dawn on me that that's a LONG way to go on its own. The flight took off as scheduled, and I found myself next to a gentleman headed home to visit his family in Malaysia. Amazingly, this meant that we would share flights all the way there. In good spirits, the 4 hours passed quickly and I found myself in Los Angelos.
-LAX: Okay, LAX sucks. I've never been there before, but despite the fact that everything is in English, the signage is awful. It was the ONE and only place during the whole trip that I had to stop and ask for directions, which says a lot considering the miles I had to cover. Immediately after exiting the plane, I was at a loss for direction. The “you are here” signs did little to help, as they weren't oriented correctly and nothing was labeled on them within the branch of the building I was in. After asking help from another gentleman, who turned out never to have been there before, and getting ignored by a woman on staff talking to her friends, I found somebody to help me. Turns out you have to follow the “baggage” signs because they mean “everything else.” In any case, I ended up having to go outside and walk 5 minutes to the international gates, which are absolutely a mess. There are 3 entrances and each one has signs outside with the names of airlines on them. The location of these names, however, has absolutely nothing to do with where the desks are located on the inside, leading to quite a bit more walking around in circles. After finally finding the Malaysia airline desks and switching lines after a few minutes, I found myself where I needed to be. Security was another issue. Here you have the choice of going all the way to either end of the building to clear security. I chose to go right, finding myself waiting in a group of people all jockeying for position, seeing as no queue was set up. After about 20 minutes of this, a staff member finally approached and suggested that some of us go all the way over to the other side to a shorter line. Okay, more walking. “Shorter line” was quite the understatement. The other side had exactly zero people waiting, and obviously hadn't for some time, as the staff was goofing around and was unprepared for the sudden mob of people. Luckily I managed to tear my laptop and quart sized transparent and resealable bags from my carry-ons (sorry for the inconvenience) quickly and made my way through the line. What a joke. I'm pretty sure I could have smuggled a large bomb under my hat. Hell, I could have made it run off of marijuana and double as a box cutter while I was at it. Oh well, at least it's just people leaving the country, right? Eventually, I made my way onto the 747 along with a slew of other people.
-MSP Airport: With my head spinning a bit from the goodbyes, I did manage to get checked in and was happy to find that my bag would check all the way to Phuket without any further action from myself. Later on, it would dawn on me that that's a LONG way to go on its own. The flight took off as scheduled, and I found myself next to a gentleman headed home to visit his family in Malaysia. Amazingly, this meant that we would share flights all the way there. In good spirits, the 4 hours passed quickly and I found myself in Los Angelos.
-LAX: Okay, LAX sucks. I've never been there before, but despite the fact that everything is in English, the signage is awful. It was the ONE and only place during the whole trip that I had to stop and ask for directions, which says a lot considering the miles I had to cover. Immediately after exiting the plane, I was at a loss for direction. The “you are here” signs did little to help, as they weren't oriented correctly and nothing was labeled on them within the branch of the building I was in. After asking help from another gentleman, who turned out never to have been there before, and getting ignored by a woman on staff talking to her friends, I found somebody to help me. Turns out you have to follow the “baggage” signs because they mean “everything else.” In any case, I ended up having to go outside and walk 5 minutes to the international gates, which are absolutely a mess. There are 3 entrances and each one has signs outside with the names of airlines on them. The location of these names, however, has absolutely nothing to do with where the desks are located on the inside, leading to quite a bit more walking around in circles. After finally finding the Malaysia airline desks and switching lines after a few minutes, I found myself where I needed to be. Security was another issue. Here you have the choice of going all the way to either end of the building to clear security. I chose to go right, finding myself waiting in a group of people all jockeying for position, seeing as no queue was set up. After about 20 minutes of this, a staff member finally approached and suggested that some of us go all the way over to the other side to a shorter line. Okay, more walking. “Shorter line” was quite the understatement. The other side had exactly zero people waiting, and obviously hadn't for some time, as the staff was goofing around and was unprepared for the sudden mob of people. Luckily I managed to tear my laptop and quart sized transparent and resealable bags from my carry-ons (sorry for the inconvenience) quickly and made my way through the line. What a joke. I'm pretty sure I could have smuggled a large bomb under my hat. Hell, I could have made it run off of marijuana and double as a box cutter while I was at it. Oh well, at least it's just people leaving the country, right? Eventually, I made my way onto the 747 along with a slew of other people.
-Next came the long leg of the trip. I believe it was somewhere between 13-15 hours from LAX to Taipei, Taiwan, though I'm not exactly certain. The odd thing about the flight was that we spent the entire thing in the dark, since we took off at 1:30 AM and landed somewhere around 6 AM, the sun was chasing us the whole way. This meant that they shut all the windows and just pretended what time it was. Evidently 4 AM is dinnertime. Food was all in all enjoyable on the airplanes, though I have to say that none of it survived very long in front of me. Once it was “night time” on the plane, I spent most of my time unable to sleep and instead watched movies and set all time records on some word scramble game(woot! Seat 52G baby!). Speaking of babies, I crossed the entire Pacific Ocean sitting next to an adorable toddler who never made a peep. Not once, the entire trip. He eventually became somewhat of a celebrity and spent the latter portion of his flight posing for pictures with other passengers. Finally, about 90 minutes before we reached Taiwan, the sun finally caught up with us and we got to see daylight. This put the entire cabin in good spirits as we set down in Taipei.
-Taipei, Taiwan: My first thought in Taiwan was how absolutely thick it was. Hopefully you can see in the pictures how water condensed on and ran down the windows. Nothing too much to see from the airport, just another security trip and more walking.-Although only about 3.5-4 hours, the next leg was one of the tougher ones. Turbulence hit as soon as the plates were set down in front of us, and didn't let up the entire way. Evidently we fought off the remnants of a recent typhoon the whole time. It was halfway through this leg of the trip my body finally gave into fatigue and I got about an hour of sleep. Bad idea. Waking shortly before landing in Kuala Lampur, the hour of sleep simply served to confuse my body even more and made for a very difficult layover.
-Kuala Lampur, Malaysia: Despite being incredibly fatigued (I was over 30 hours into the trip at this point), I will note that Kuala Lampur's international airport is very nice. The architecture is worth wandering around for (yeah, yeah, yeah, more walking, but it's easier when you're a zombie) and the whole place was very clean and spacious. I even got to hear an amusing “mosquito song” in which the chorus finished in a convincing “no aedes, no dengue.” Songs aside, all I really wanted was to sleep, so I found my gate, wrapped my bag straps around my feet and turned the zipper sides away from traffic and laid down. With 6 hours before my next flight, I figured I could get a couple solid stints of unconsciousness in. Wrong again. In Malaysia, whenever they need to make an announcement, they first play a short set of notes over the loudspeaker. Loudly. Perhaps just loud enough to awaken the sleepy passenger who necessitated the announcement in the first place. As you might imagine in a big international airport, announcements happen every few minutes, and are preceded every single time by the lovely jingle. Like some form of horrible torture this meant that I spend the entire time falling asleep and being jolted awake again and again and again. By the time my flight arrived, I was quite eager to move forward; anything that made a bed arrive faster.
-My last flight got off the ground around 15 minutes late, the first time all trip I'd been delayed. The 75 minute international trip was amusing, as the airport was still in sight when the seatbelt sign went off, and a meal was served with the plane tilted at a ridiculous angle. There are some perks to flying internationally though, and I was happy for the food. For the first time all trip, I got a window seat and actually had something to look at. Flying over the various islands was quite a sight and I wish it would have been a little less hazy so I might have taken some pictures out the window.
-Taipei, Taiwan: My first thought in Taiwan was how absolutely thick it was. Hopefully you can see in the pictures how water condensed on and ran down the windows. Nothing too much to see from the airport, just another security trip and more walking.-Although only about 3.5-4 hours, the next leg was one of the tougher ones. Turbulence hit as soon as the plates were set down in front of us, and didn't let up the entire way. Evidently we fought off the remnants of a recent typhoon the whole time. It was halfway through this leg of the trip my body finally gave into fatigue and I got about an hour of sleep. Bad idea. Waking shortly before landing in Kuala Lampur, the hour of sleep simply served to confuse my body even more and made for a very difficult layover.
-Kuala Lampur, Malaysia: Despite being incredibly fatigued (I was over 30 hours into the trip at this point), I will note that Kuala Lampur's international airport is very nice. The architecture is worth wandering around for (yeah, yeah, yeah, more walking, but it's easier when you're a zombie) and the whole place was very clean and spacious. I even got to hear an amusing “mosquito song” in which the chorus finished in a convincing “no aedes, no dengue.” Songs aside, all I really wanted was to sleep, so I found my gate, wrapped my bag straps around my feet and turned the zipper sides away from traffic and laid down. With 6 hours before my next flight, I figured I could get a couple solid stints of unconsciousness in. Wrong again. In Malaysia, whenever they need to make an announcement, they first play a short set of notes over the loudspeaker. Loudly. Perhaps just loud enough to awaken the sleepy passenger who necessitated the announcement in the first place. As you might imagine in a big international airport, announcements happen every few minutes, and are preceded every single time by the lovely jingle. Like some form of horrible torture this meant that I spend the entire time falling asleep and being jolted awake again and again and again. By the time my flight arrived, I was quite eager to move forward; anything that made a bed arrive faster.
-My last flight got off the ground around 15 minutes late, the first time all trip I'd been delayed. The 75 minute international trip was amusing, as the airport was still in sight when the seatbelt sign went off, and a meal was served with the plane tilted at a ridiculous angle. There are some perks to flying internationally though, and I was happy for the food. For the first time all trip, I got a window seat and actually had something to look at. Flying over the various islands was quite a sight and I wish it would have been a little less hazy so I might have taken some pictures out the window.
-Phuket, Thailand: Finally, I arrived. Probably the brightest moment of the trip was seeing my checked bag come around on the conveyor. You couldn't have wiped that smile off of my face for anything. 2 airlines, 3 layovers, 3 planes, and 11000 miles later, my bag arrived when I did and didn't appear to be half as tired as I was. Any worries I had about customs were soon gone and I probably spent less than 10 minutes total in the airport. In retrospect, I should have spent a few more minutes in order to exchange some currency, but I was running late and wanted to make sure my ride was still waiting for me. Which it was. Surely the ride to the school was something to remember, even if I wasn't totally with it. Road travel in Thailand is quite horrendous, though typically fairly functional. While my current record for most people seen on a motorbike is 4, (one man driving and a lady with a toddler in each arm on the back) I've been told to expect that to rise. We did happen to pass an accident along the way (“a rare occurence” I'm told), which provided me with a front row view of a very very broken leg. Not so good. The police vehicles were somewhat amusing though, and without a picture I can only describe them as highly resembling the original Ghost Busters car. The school is near two hospitals, so we were pushed along handily the rest of the way by a Thai ambulance, sirens blaring.
In any case, I am here and have a full night's sleep under my belt. Now it's time for me to go find some people and make plans for the day!
2 comments:
you made it! hurah! it was fun reading your blog about your trip over! keep it up! i'll make sure more people know about it, and visit often too!
have you gotten any exploring in yet? hows the food?
~Rye
Congratulations on your arrival. I'm sure you're going to have some great experiences. I passed the blog url to Jennifer who is getting married in three weeks. She was in Thailand a couple of times - backpacking throughout SE Asia the 2nd time after 9 months in New Zealand. Uncle John
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