Daily Report: And Back Again

I'm back in Pattaya now. I just spent 26 hours sitting in airports and on airplanes and in cars to and from the airport. Unfortunately, only about 4 of those hours were spent sleeping. Thus, I am now off to bed. There may be a final trip report put up tomorrow morning or it may come later... You'll know when I know.

For now, to my mother: I'm home safe and sound. To the rest of you: Thank you to everyone who hosted me, treated me, took care of me, or just made my trip enjoyable.

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Rewind 12 hours:

The flight to coming back to Bangkok was also uneventful, although the food dish selection was poor compared to the flight going. They should have a "Hungry Man" ticket option on airline flights. I'd pay an extra $100 for an all-you-can-eat lasagna dish or a quarter-pound burger with fries on these long-haul flights. (No... I won't pay an additional $2000 to upgrade to business class though.)

I sat next to a Vietnamese fellow from New York who works at Ogilvy in advertising. I suggested to him that in order to save advertising money and create cross-brand interest, they should start advertising disparate brands together in the same commercial on television: Like Ford and Pepsi, or McDonalds and Tide detergent. So if you ever see that happen, that was my brilliance. (If you don't see it, it just proves that it's a good thing I never went into advertising.)

I only slept about 4 hours on the 17-hour flight. I spent the remainder of the time watching movies. Bridge to Tarabithia (blah), Deja Vu (pretty good), Pursuit of Happyness (okay), and The Astronaut Farmer (also okay). I really like that "video on demand" system that Thai Airways has set up.

Once again, almost the entire flight was spent in the dark, with shades down. However, with my window seat, I would put up the shade from time to time to see what was going by. The planet was entirely cloud-covered from New York City all the way to southern Siberia... so I didn't get to see the North Pole once again. However, I did see the Gobi desert, which was cool. After that, the clouds came back again, and there was nothing to see until dropping down into Bangkok.

The plane landed in Bangkok 45 minutes early... which is the same thing that happened on the way to New York. Thus, the trip comes in at right around 17 hours, gate to gate. Not bad.

Immigration was hassle-free, got my luggage retrieved with no problem... although for the first time ever, the Thai Customs people scanned my suitcase on the way through (but didn't open it).

I met Mike immediately upon passing through Customs, and we were out to his car and on the highway to Pattaya in no time flat.

All in all, a smooth and flawless ending to an excellent vacation in Upstate New York.

And one final Mike's Thousand Words: The Big Smoke, Bangkok.