Touring the North

On Sunday, we hired the Hotel driver for the day to take us to some tourist stops. We planned on seeing a local Buddhist Temple and Terry wanted to visit "King Cobra Village" for their snake display.

Jody was MIA ... maybe she's still in that massage chair. So we headed off to the lobby and found our driver. We pointed out our sites on the map and headed off.

First stop, the Royal Buddhist Temple in Kohn Kaen, Wat Nong Waeng, the highlight of which is the 9 story tall stuppa, Phra Mahathat Kaen Nakhon. According to the sign, the original temple was built in 1793, around the time the city of Kohn Kaen was founded. The temple was elevated to Royal status in 1984. The stuppa was built around 1994-1996 (for the city's bicentennial and the 50th anniversarry of the King's corronation). The stuppa contains "relics of the Lord Buddha and important Buddhist scriptures."

--Photos Coming Soon--

We arrived at the Temple in the middle of a Buddhist service but were allowed to walk the grounds and were shown the staircase to walk to the upper levels of the temple. From the top of the 9 story pyramid, we could see the City of Kohn Kaen and the surrounding countryside.

-- More Photos Coming Soon --


Our second stop was the Temple at Phrathat Kham Kaen. The Phrathat is a spire that is built ag ground level and there is a building adjacent that holds more relics of Buddha.

-- Photos coming soon --

The last stop on our trip was King Cobra Village. I'll write more on that when I can get the photos uploaded. In the mean time, I'm getting ready to board QF-2 from Bangkok to Sydney.

Up north Thailand

We headed to Don Meuang Domestic Airport for our flight North. Jody stopped out front for a smoke, but after we got through security, we found this:


The flight was on an Airbus A300-600 and the four of us got a middle row of four. Thanks to the travel people .. we just don't see enough of each other on these trips.



After arriving at Khon Kaen airport we settled into our hotel, the Sofitel Raja Orchid. Not nearly as nice as the Conrad Bangkok, but it was still OK. Here's the view of the city from my room:


After we settled in, we headed to the mall to check out the local shopping. Jody quickly found the massage chairs at the sporting goods store:
We might not see her again until Monday morning.

One night in Bangkok ...

A little mood music for this post ... link.

Jody, Ernest and Terry arrived around 5pm, after they got settled we met in the lobby for dinner. Jody wanted to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for touristy T-shirts. No problem, off to the doorman for a taxi.

We piled into the next cab to arrive and the doorman told him something in Thai that included the phrase "Haad Lock". The driver showed us his dance moves and smiled ... he MUST understand! Perfect! "How much?" I asked. "100 baht only!" was the driver's reply. I think that was "American" pricing, but it was still only $3 so who could complain.

About a block after we left, things started to go downhill. The driver told us, "Haad Lock closed till 9pm ... I have better place." Uh oh ... not good. We tried to get him to drive by the Hard Rock to check it out ... now he says that it's not open at all on Thursdays. We drove for about 20 minutes and he pulls into the driveway for a wierd mom-and-pop club. As the doorman there tried to pull Jody out of the car, I told the driver to take us back to the Conrad. All of a sudden, the "Haad Lock" had re-opened and 5 minutes later we were at the entrance:


It was the same as all the HRC's everywere, I like the "Tuk Tuk" cab stuck to the facade. We had a nice, overpriced Hard Rock meal. A Scottish guy with his corporate group bought us a round of drinks for taking their picture. And we got our T-shirts ... nothing good for Nicholas, they only had "My First Hard Rock" shirts in his size. He's already got that one from Tokyo :o(

After dinner, we took a little walk around downtown:




Here's Jody and a blurry Ernest snapping away:


After we got sick of walking in the rain, we embarked on Bangkok taxi attempt number two.

Terry, sucessfully hailed a cab, as we got in, I saw that this guy was actually using his meter - no price haggling this time. I asked the driver to take us to the Conrad Hotel, "Cown-Raad? Hmm, OK, Cown-Raad." We drove .... and drove ... and drove. Until we got to Convent Street. There was a seedy looking Hostel there.

"No," I said, "Con-RAD Hotel." He shook his head ... didn't understand. I dug in my pocket for the little envelope that held my room key. It had the address on the back. I showed it to him, but that didn't help. Apparently, 87 Wireless Road doesn't mean anything to a Thai in Bangkok.

Finally, I flipped the envelope over and pointed to the Hotel's logo.

The drivers face turned red and he angrilly said, "Corn-lad ... CORN-LAD!!!" As if to say, you moron, can't you pronouce CORN-LAD correctly (I mean, collectry). We were about 10 minutes out of our way, but the driver navigated right back to the CORN-LAD.

Off to bed. Tomorrow, we head north ...

Arrival in Bangkok ...

Arrived in Bangkok around 11:15 on Thursday, September 11th. Immigration was fast and the customs inspection was waived today.

I hired a taxi to the hotel using the AOT (Airports of Thailand) "limo" service. "Limo" in quotes because my "limo" was a Toyota Corolla ... but for 1100 baht (about $30) it got me to the hotel with no issues (and some fancy driving on the shoulder of the highway). I could have used the regular taxis and negotiated the fare down to around 300 baht (plus tolls), but I'm not so sure about my Thai haggling skills, so the limo it was. Here are some photos from the ride into town:






My snapshots came to a halt as we encountered some traffic and the driver decided I was in a hurry. He proceded to drive at about 120km/h on the shoulder of the road. As you can see from the picture above, the shoulder isn't all that wide ... I was pretty sure we were going to loose a side mirror or two.

We made it through unscathed and the driver exited and made his way to the Conrad Bangkok Hotel. I checked in and was shown to my room:




The photos don't really do the room justice. It's probably the nicest room I've ever stayed in, especially for the $140 it cost for the night. The window into the bathroom was an interesting feature! But the best feature was in the bathroom:

My very own rubber bath Elephant!

Here's my view of Downtown Bangkok from the room:

I believe the short white building in the middle of the photo is the US Embassy.

It's only about 1:00pm, so I have a few hours before the rest of my team arrives on thier All Nippon Airways flight from Tokyo.

HKG and CX Flight 713

Arrived in Hong Kong just slightly late (didn't make up much time after the late departure) at about 5:45am. The airport is very clean and bright and, at this hour, very empty.

I found my way to the correct transfer station and went through a quick security checkpoint. I got through OK except the security officer was yelling at me in Chinese for trying to put my belt and watch through the X-ray machine, it took a little heated sign language on her part to clear that up.

Off to the Cathay Pacific "Pier Lounge" for a shower and a snack ...





I got to the lounge to find it wasn't quite open yet. At 0600 sharp the attendant switched on the Escalator and let me down.

There was a nice view of Castle Peak Bay from the lounge. The noodle station was open (for breakfast??) but I just had some cereal and yogurt. After breakfast I headed off to the gate ...

Here's my plane at the gate:




Cathay Pacific Flight 713 Preview:

Aircraft: Boeing 747-400

Scheduled Departure time: 8:45am

Flight time: 2 hours 40 minutes

Seat Assigment: 35D, Economy


After boarding, the flight's head flight attendant came to my seat and greeted me by name. I quickly prayed to the First Class Upgrade gods but she only stopped by to thank me for being an AAdvantage Plainum/OneWorld Saphire member ... got my hopes up for no reason.

The flight was uneventful ... same numbing seats, but only for two and a half hours.

The AirShow worked on this flight:



The meal was a cheese omlete with potatoes:




Not the greatest looking meal, but is was OK.

LAX and CX Flight 883 (LAX - HKG)

I made my way from LAX terminal 4 to the Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT) - checked in at the Cathay Pacific desk and had no trouble getting my missing boarding cards. I guess there was no need to worry.

I headed back through security so that I could experience first hand the complete and utter dump that is LAX's TBIT. Wires dangling from the ceilings, paint peeling from the walls, and a really nasty smell that I just can't describe. I quickly navigated to the OneWorld Alliance Lounge which was quite nice. Theses photos are linked from the Gensler project decription page becase I didn't want to bother people with my flash:










Cathay Pacific Flight 883 Preview:

Aircraft: Boeing 747-400

Scheduled Departure time: 11:45pm

Flight time: 14 hours 40 minutes (DOH!)

Seat Assigment: 66H, Economy (Double DOH!)

I got bored with the lounge about 20 minutes before boarding time so I headed out to the gate. There was no clear shot of the 747-400 at the gate's window. Here was the scene at the gate:



Boarded a bit late for no aparent reason. The flight was quite full and I didn't get any pictures of the cabin myself. Cathay pacific has a nice slideshow of the new economy cabin here: http://www.cathaypacific.aero/SlideShow/EN/index_en.html

The seats look pretty cool. When you recline, you don't back into the seat behind you, it kind of slides down. Unfortunately, they are seriously uncomfortable. I suppose they were designed to mold to the Asian posterior. My butt was numb in 45 minutes!

The in-seat power outets didn't work :o( no DVDs on this flight for me. The in-flight video-on-demand was pretty good, although the moving-map airshow was broken so there was no map of where we were. I watched Iron Man, The Usual Suspects, The Graduate and a few Episodes of the Amazing Race (the last couple that I missed from last year).

I slept through the meals, but wondered to the galley for a mid-flight snack or two:

AA75 IAD to LAX

Here's the 767-200 at the gate:


Departed on-time at 6:15, after some taxi delay the wheels went up at about 6:30.

I didn't take any photos of the circa 1977 First Class cabin on tonight's Boeing 767-200.

The food was the usual American Airlines first class fare; but since this is a transcontinental journey, we were fed the coveted 'Made-to-Order Ice Cream Sundae' for dessert:


Link to the rest of the meal

They really should get rid of all of the other food on airplanes and just serve the sundaes. They could save millions in catering costs ... although it would be offset by the additional fuel used to transport a bunch of even fatter passengers.

Spent the remainder of the flight sufing the Internet and listening to a Sirius radio stream (thank goodness for GoGo! in-flight internet).