Mind the Gap (Year): Thailand Part 1

I kinda dropped off the face of the earth in regard to blog posts. I just got super lazy and tired of doing them cause it takes a good hour or two for each post.

I left off when I described the way I’ve changed since I got to New Zealand. I’ll start from my departure from New Zealand, which was more than a month ago.

After leaving my last organic farm I stayed in Auckland for my last day in New Zealand. Unfortunately it was raining AGAIN so I didn’t get to see it properly. I did get some last minute souvenir shopping done, visit a museum similar to the MOMA and had a coffee with Corey. You may remember him from my first post in New Zealand.

The next morning I left for the airport at 11 for a flight at 1, I think. I can’t really remember. Nothing much happened while in the airport. I had a little down time. The plane was a 747 with the bubble which I thought was cool, and the plane was delayed 20 min. 11 hour flight and I landed in Hong Kong. That’s where the mess started.

I had gotten up early that morning, and by the time I landed it was like 2 am in Auckland. I was excited to be in Hong Kong but my mood turned sour pretty fast. The first thing that annoyed me was that Chris (my older brother) wasn’t going to meet me at the airport, but gave me directions to get to his house. 2^nd, Hong Kong isn’t credit card friendly so needed cash to buy a simcard and octopus card (so I could get a bus). 3rd my credit card still didn’t like working at ATMs. 4^th , I could not figure out how to get the octopus card. 5^th, few people speak English well enough. 6^th, customs took forever. I was just really tired, and in a bad mood. Needless to say Chris took the brunt of my annoyance. Eventually I got everything sorted out and got on the correct bus, the A12. I got off at stop 19, where Chris was nice enough to meet me.

Fred's head. It's the only picture of him i have...

We caught up some that night and went to bed because we had another flight the next day into Bangkok.

After exploring in Hong Kong a little bit the next morning we got a late flight into Bangkok on Ethopian airlines. Yep. Ethiopian Airlines. It got Chris, Tory and I there safely but I was pretty ghetto. The tv’s were old tube tvs and discolored and the plane was definitely at the ends of its life. But I’m not complaining; it did its job.

We arrived at the condo we were borrowing from a friend and fell asleep.

The next morning we got up late and go a taxi to a bigger street with food and shops. It was like $1 for the taxi right and $5 for breakfast for the 3 of us. Bangkok is very different from any other city I was used to. It was very grimy, and less developed but the temples were some of the most elaborate and beautiful things I’d ever seen. It was amazing they could spend so much on religion but be so poor. Also they have shrines to their king everywhere. You’d think that he was Jesus or something. It’s actually against the law to insult him.

Chris and I spend the rest of the day (and the next one) exploring Bangkok.