Number 1

Bangkok Airport, November 16th 4:30 AM.

The flight from Minneapolis to Tokyo was 12 hours and 40 minutes. Surprisingly, it didn’t seem much over 12 hours and 30 minutes. They were showing the 3 movies most likely to win the Academy Award for best picture; Swing Vote, Bonneville and Baby Mama. It was really hard to pick the winner. They also showed 2 hours of Discovery Channel including a never before seen episode of Celebrity Cash Cab and no I’m not kidding. They also served two meals and a snack which reminded me that when the airlines quit giving out free food it wasn’t that big of a loss. Having said all of that I must say that it wasn’t a bad experience. Frankly, I was dreading the flights over but so far it’s been pretty OK.

Landing in Tokyo was the first realization I had that I was on a big adventure. Navigating the airport was easy. There are English signs everywhere and most of the people who work for the airlines speak English. True to their reputation, the bathroom was spotless and had a toilet that was so advanced I couldn’t totally figure it out even though the instructions were in English and Japanese. I was really tempted to hit the button that said “splash” but I didn’t have a readily available spare pair of pants so I didn’t. The one odd thing was everyone had to go through security even though most of us were just transferring to another plane and not leaving the secure area. As efficient as they were, I somehow got through. After the long flight to Tokyo I wasn’t all that fired up about getting back on another plane after less then a two hour layover, but onward and upward.

The flight to Bangkok was 7 hours and 10 minutes. This plane had on demand movies and one meal. I watched Waitress, which was pretty good and Luke Wilson in something that had the name Henry in it. There was a remote at every seat and if you knew how to use it you could play games, listen to business reports and send email. I didn’t, so I didn’t. Once again when we landed in Bangkok I thought to myself; “I’m in Bang (expletive deleted) Kok!!” We landed at 12:30 AM and I somehow made it through customs, found my baggage and the counter to check in for my 8 AM flight to Chiang Mai, which didn’t open until 4. I ate the last Bruegger’s bagel, walked around pushing my luggage on a cart and tried not to fall asleep. I walked outside where it was in the 80’s and finally at 4 they opened the counter to Bangkok Airways. A very nice Thai woman informed me that I would have to pay for having more the 44 kilos (luggage not pot) and a fuel surcharge. She felt bad and even cut the charge by about 200 baht. (about $6) So I changed some money, paid her, got my bags checked in, got a seat and now I’m sitting in the Bangkok Airways Lounge which is quite nice and has coffee, orange juice and curry pork rolls, which I didn't eat. They have 4 computers hooked up for customers to use but none of them are working so I’m typing this on my tablet and I’ll send it when I get to Chiang Mai.

For those of you who are familiar with my lack of emotion and my theory that life has beat the ability to get excited about things out of me, you’ll be happy to know I’m excited and happy to be on this adventure. Of course I haven’t slept since I left on Friday and it’s Sunday here so I’m probably a bit punch drunk.

P.S. After a very pleasant 1 hour flight I arrived in Chiang Mai. It's beautiful. Everyone is really nice. And so the adventure truly begins...