The three of us head to the arrivals section of the airport with all of our luggage – clearly confusing the taxi driver. We walk into the airport scanning for a place to settle in for the night while there are loads dreary eyed people coming out of the arrival terminals. We spot lounge metal waiting chairs at the end of the arrivals section and snag a few benches worth of chairs to try and get a few hours of sleep. I nap for a small period till I get up and wait at the second arrival gate for Janet to come out. Her flight arrives on time. There are people coming out of the gate. But I am waiting. Waiting. Waiting. No sign of Janet yet after an hour of her flight arriving, but I think maybe there is a long line at the customs office, maybe she got lost in side coming out…..not to worry. 2 hours later no Janet. So I keep waiting. Waiting. Trying not to get worried I hope that there was a possibility her bag was lost? Did she miss one of her flights? Three hours later and still no sign of Janet and it is pushing 2 in the morning. By now she should have come out….and I won’t deny that I was freaking out. I try using the new high tech trashy pay phones at the airport and can’t seem to get through. I try calling her mom I, try paging her about 4 times in the airport but still no Janet. She mentioned that her phone might work so I try giving her cell a call and she answers….! I am desperate to find out where she is. She answers telling me she is in the middle of Bangkok trying to find our hotel at Khuo San in the middle of madness. And I am standing in the airport and had been waiting for her for the past 4 hours. Not seeing us at the airport she thought that we didn’t pick her up and we’re still at the hotel….some how she found out that we weren’t taking a van so she knew not to look for a rent-a-car. She heads back to the airport to the arrivals department to meet up with us. I pass out for about 30 minutes since I am exhausted and wake up in a fright sacred that she has come and missed me again!! I jump out of the chair and start wondering around the arrivals department and she finally sees me trying to call her again from the pay phone since I don’t see her. Goodness I was so relieved! Turns out she came out of the first arrival gate…the one not assigned to her flight number and walked right past everyone and didn’t see us because we were at the other arrival gate!!
Both exhausted and barely functioning we get something to eat in the middle of the night while the other girls are sleeping. I walk them up to their relief as well that I found the mystery Janet. Christie was starting to question if I even had a friend Janet. By that point it is almost 5 in the morning and our flight leaves in over 3 hours…after chatting a bit we decided to head to the domestic airport across the city. We rent the only taxi that will fit all four of us and our luggage after several taxi drivers thought we could all fit into a small Toyota corolla. I tell the taxi driver we need to go to the other airport and he repeats the name of the airport and I say yes. After our conversation the whole car falls asleep – of course except for the driver and an hour later I wake up in we’re in the middle of no where with small houses and businesses on the side of the freeway. I quickly ask Janet where we are and why we haven’t arrived at the airport that was a 20 minute drive away. She asked the driver and he said that we are on the way to the beach!!! I quickly was like what the hell!! I clearly remember saying we need to go to the airport! Well turns out he thought we were going to the beach that happens to have the same name as the airport – the beach is about 2 hours outside of Bangkok which is where we were headed. I thought my night, my morning, whatever time it was couldn’t get worse…well it just did. With 2 hours to spare we turn around and head back to Bangkok with at least 1 hour to get there not including morning rush hour traffic. We get to the city with an hour before our flight leaves and hit the traffic we expected with a detour to the gas station. Fortunately the driver remembers a short cut on the freeway that gets to the airport faster but costs money….like we care! Trying to stay calm we pull up to departures a half hour before our flight leaves and run to check in – with about 1 and half hours of bad sleep and 3 hours of sleep the night before I was waking dead. Thank god this is a small airport and we are able to get through quickly and run to our gate before it closed and were the last people on the plane.
Again I am exhausted and I pass out on the plane for our hour flight to Chiang Mai. Arriving in the morning and after a quick hour nap at the hotel we head out for the day. Thanks to Janet we had plenty of places to visit in Chiang Mai. A temple in the mountains, an amazing botanical garden with amazing intricate displays and a huge temple yet again….by dinner time that same day that we had to run to the airport I was about to pass out at the dinner table. It was the most exciting dinner tho, a buffet of all different kinds of vegetables and meats that you are able to grill, boil, or cook on your own little stove available at each table. After about 10 minutes at the night market all of us could not stand up any longer and passed out at our hotel.
Oooo! I forgot to mention that I got to drive, can you believe it? running off of 4 to 5 hours of sleep in two days I drove on the wrong side of the road. Not to be worried I was alert for sure, and had a car full of people to help me. It wasn’t too bad and I thought I did rather well considering it was Thailand and the other side of the road. The next day I was able to drive again, a day jammed packed with places to visit; including the highest mountain top in Thailand, like 4,000 feet, more temples, a Karen (a tribe of Thailand and Burma) camp, waterfalls, hot springs, KFC, and Thai messages! Yes all of that happened in one day……the bad news was the three of us had to leave the next day. I did all my last minute shopping with Janet, which was the main item on her agenda, and then ran back to Bangkok to catch our flight to India. Phew, no more weird beach driving taxi drivers that make us almost miss our flight. Upon our arrival to the Mumbai airport we spend yet another night their in our corner and in the morning I had to part ways with the girls as I flew to the Northeast! And they fly home. Super excited and super sad I was looking forward to discovering my internship and the backwaters of the Northeast.
No comments:
Post a Comment