Our trip started when a Erika, Matt, Bowman and I met at mom’s house to eat dinner, borrow her car, and drive to Newark for our first of two flights leaving at 1:45am to Hong Kong. Overall that portion was uneventful. We had some glitches before then with the he National Geographic people, but we’ll save that for another day. This was clearly the longest flight any of us had taken before, our first flight was 14ish hours and our second just over 2 in he air.The path we took was interesting -we flew over the nor the pole, over Siberia, and down to Hong Kong,. It was way to much sitting, not a lot of sleep or enough water. The airport in Hong Kong was interesting as we saw the mountains and the sunrise wadi was beautiful.

We arrived in a Bangkok at 10am and made it through customs relatively easily and caught a shuttle to the hotel. To. For the shuttle we hoped to find a person with a sign and our name listed well that wasn’t exactly the case. Erika eventually found our names on a paper stuck on a poll. That led to someone calling a shuttle for us. After a 45 minute drive and over 50 enormous billboards with the kings photo and Thai phrases, we were dropped off. Today was the second day of the 5 day cremation ceremony for the beloved king. He died last October, at age 88, and was king here for 70 years. We have seen multiple shrines with his photo and the ceremony commemorates a year of mourning for the country.

During the drive, we saw the expansiveness of Bangkok, and the skyscraper (new and old),temples, mosques, lots of construction. The drive there was a little scary and sketchy, and very tight driving.

We were extremely excited when we could check in at noon, relaxed, some of us napped, and just adjusted. We walked around our hotel, found s market, bought some water and snacks, found a place for dinner.

We’re still adjusting to the currency exchange, since 300 baht = 10.00 US. Bowman and I decided to get our first Thai massage, and I say first, because when one costs $15.00 for an hour, you find ways to get multiple massages. The experience was very different, one because our clothes were on the entire time, and second they used their bodies differently to manipulate and support our bodies. We weren’t on a traditional massage table, it was a thin mattress on a platform, so they were sitting with us on it. It was a deeper massage, no walking on us, and it was amazing. The language was a barrier, but we made it through that.

Erika and Matt walked around too, found the McDonalds 7-11 and Starbucks. We are not in a sight seeing area, but more hotels, and businesses. The streets are very narrow with not real sidewalks, so it’s s little treacherous. We met back up and decided on an early dinner and we were exhausted. We of course has Thai food, and it was delish. I posted some photos.