Amy and Monica Take Thailand: Departure!

TO SET THE SCENE:  Monica calls me at 4 AM Saturday morning.

     Me: “Hello?”

     Monica: “Were you sleeping?”

     Me: “Yeah.”

     Monica: “Well, I found us a flight that leaves today at 4:40 PM.”

     Me: “Okay.”

    There was more to that conversation. But that was the important part. Then I realized all the things I still had left to do. I got off the phone with her around 4:30 AM and immediately sent my parents a text to tell them the news. I figured I didn’t need to wake them up just yet.

    I took about an hour to fall back asleep, and then decided it would be best to wake up around 6 AM. I had to shower, double check everything I packed, change suitcases due to a broken handle, and then anxiously wait for driving up to LA round 2!

     My dad woke up first, and saw my text and laughed. He had to take care of some car stuff and said that I could let my mom sleep in until at least 9. I woke up my mom at 9 and she was at first annoyed, but then realized that it was better this way. My dad returned from doing all the car stuff and we left the house around 10 AM (again).

     This drive was much more relaxed. We didn’t stop for food or anything like that. We just drove straight on up, and since The Parking Spot was such a steal when you don’t actually stay for the whole day, we parked there again. Luckily for me, right next to The Parking Spot was an In-N-Out Burger. Although at first I said we didn’t have to eat yet, I realized that Thailand probably doesn’t have any In-N-Out Burgers. So my final meal in the United States was an In-N-Out cheeseburger.

Mmmmmmmm

     We got to the airport around 2 PM. I checked in to the flight for myself and the woman I checked in with said, “And you know you have an 11 hour overnight layover?” I said yes and she handed me my boarding pass and said, “It looks like the flight is delayed about 20 minutes, so you will start boarding at 4:40.” Then we just hung out in the airport until Monica and her mom showed up.

     With about an hour to go until boarding, Monica and I finally get our goodbyes in with our families. There were surprisingly less tears than I expected (on my part at least). We get through security, I already break a zipper on my carry-on bag, and then I take my first picture to document the trip:

Airport art.

     We sit and do all of the last minute things we could think of doing before boarding the plane: withdraw more US dollars, charge our electronics, and make the last U.S. phone call to the boyfriends. Mine got a message while Monica actually talked to hers. And last but not least, I took a picture of our plane.

This picture is mostly Monica, but she needed a photo.

     And finally, we boarded our plane for the 13+ hour flight. Monica was in the middle seat in the row in front of me. Monica lucked out, a couple had bought the aisle seat and the window seat in her row, with hopes of no last-minute people like us coming on board the plane and filling in that middle spot, so they swapped her out to the aisle row. I was not as fortunate, the people in my row were not acquaintances. But I did sit next to a very interesting man who talked to me about all the travelling he’s done, his backpacking adventures on the east coast and in the Grand Canyon, and so much more. Aside from sitting next to Monica, he was a really good seat partner to have. And Monica was grateful to not be sitting next to mister talkative, but I do believe I handled all that pretty well.

     Overall the flight was pretty cool. We had our own individual screens on the seat backs in front of us so we could watch movies, listen to music, play some old school video games, or just watch the progress of our flight. I saw when we were flying over Hawaii, but I couldn’t see anything because it was night time. And I watched This Is The End and Love Actually. I played Tetris a lot and got ranked on the plane (granted, I don’t think anyone else was playing). And we got served 2 meals! One close to the beginning of the flight (dinner) and one close to the end of the flight (breakfast); even though judging by the time that we landed, it should have been second dinner, but we were served eggs so I called it breakfast.

     And then our plane landed. The man I was sitting next to offered up his phone for me to call my parents, but I told him I already had a system worked out and politely declined. He gave me advice for what we needed to do once we got off the plane—mostly don’t go through immigration—and then we wandered off the plane. We actually walked past where we were supposed to go and when we turned around we realized that out of all those funny looking names on the paper, the bottom one was mine all smooshed into one word, and we made our way to go find a spot to spend our 11 hour layover.

This is where we ended up.

Found a Hello Kitty Story for Sarah.

Pretty flowers.

We don't look like we've hardly slept, right?

     Our spot was legit. We spent about 2 hours total each sleeping though. We did some skype calls, updated our facebook statuses, all those “important” things that are way more necessary than sleeping.

Second breakfast

    Finally, we go wait for our flight more than an hour before hand and are the first people in the waiting area. Which means we got some really comfy seats that we relaxed in until the plane boarded.

     We board our plane, get some breakfast on the flight and each choose to watch Turbo for the duration of our (final) 3 hour flight. And for this flight we actually got to sit next to each other!!

     Once we get off the plane, we rush to get our money exchanged to baht. Rush through customs (it took almost 2 hours) and then work our way towards our cab driver to take us straight to Hua Hin. The cab man had been waiting for us for somewhere between 2 and 3 hours, and there was one other person who was joining our ride down to Hua Hin. Unfortunately for him, his car would not fit all of the luggage we had. So he actually had to call a friend to bring a bigger car and then lost us as customers.  Oops.

     We get in the van, our new friend Chase sat in the front and kind of talked to the driver, but there’s a definitive language barrier there. We took some pictures on the drive down of what we thought looked cool. I noticed a lot of cows/steers that were in the forest/swamp areas on the side of the road. There is a lot of green here. And it took us about 3 hours to get from Bangkok to Hua Hin. Pretty much as soon as we got here and got in our room we passed out to prepare for the next day.