Kuwait Air: unexpected upgrade! Sort of.

Be sure to check your firearms.  Seriously.

My last day in Bangkok started really early, 0230 to be exact, when Eric and Joe got up for their ungodly flight back to the states at 0500. But unfortunately, my flight was not until 12 noon and that meant that I will have to be up for at least 8 hours prior to my flight. Knowing me, the crazy one who could never really get a good rest on airplanes; was just preparing myself for a really long day and decided that my day was totally shot and ruined.

As I was leaving for Suvarnabhumi intl airport, of course I got stuck in Thailand's version of rush hour; of tuktuks, pink taxis and Mercedes Benzs! I was never really worried though because I gave myself more than enough time for the airport. Got the at 9am and waited for an hour for Kuwait Airways check in counter to open, already not a good sign! Then a group of at least 30 teenagers traveling together cuts in front of me, checks in before me, leaving me so mad and irritated! Wouldn't you be? Anyways, water off my back right, so I just kept reminding myself to find a happy place, find a happy place. At 11am, it was time for me to head off to the gate only to find 6 people in the pre boarding area. Did I miss something? Did the plane leave without me? The sign says now boarding but no was around, another bad sign! I was ready to be devastated when they called for the final boarding announcement and no Thai woman screamed my name to get on the plane. "Paging Mr Christian, board Kuwait airlines now!" That wouldn't be cute right? So I got on the plane without even checking my seat and the purser took one look at me and told me to follow her. To my surprise, she asked a lady seat jumper to scram and the flight attendant looked at me again and said "have a nice flight." I was happy as a clam in a Business class seat! Cant beat that right, and just when I thought that my day was going bad, the Airport gods once again smiled at me!!!   I have no idea how or why I got this mysterious upgrade.. but I wasn't complaining!

Guess what this button does!

So this Kuwait Airways plane that I was on, was old and kinda dirty. The seats needed some freshening and a face lift. The color was sea foam green, not a good color for flying. The seats were at least comfortable and wide. The controls for the seat was old and antiquated and needed an instruction manual.  I couldn't even figure it out! This knob thingy threw me for a loop. I spent most of the flight halfway reclined which sucked! Thank god, the BKK-MNL trip was only 3 hours long. 

First Class.  Really.

The food, don't even mention it, it was horrible, but at least they made an attempt at it. Anyway, enough with the babble, but on with the trip. I made it the MNL safe and sound and glad to be home once again.

Thank goodness the Arabic was subtitled in Thai!

T-75: (Day 7) Bye Bye, Thailand!

The remainder of our time in Phuket was wonderful.  We spend a day diving with Andy's Love To Dive. Check out his TripAdvisor profile for our wonderful review as well as the rest of the reviews which earned him #2 attraction in Phuket..  Here's a couple of our favorite pictures of that day...

Us with Andy, our dive instructor

Lunch with a view..

On our last day in Phuket we had lunch with an incredible view.. the food & drinks were just ok (read our review here) but the view was priceless...  It sort of sums up all of the beautiful views we saw in Phuket.

To see all of our pictures from Bangkok, check out our Facebook photo album.

Unfortunately, we're just a few short hours from our departure from Thailand.  Eric & Joe will be heading BKK > NRT > LAX > JFK to get back to work.. Christian will be heading to the Philippines tomorrow for a few weeks.  Hopefully he will be making a few blog posts while he's there to keep us all up to date on what he's up to.

Other than that, we're just in the countdown for the BIG TRIP.. just 75 days left!!

and with that.. here's my favorite shot.. our approach back to Phuket after a day of diving..

T-78: (Day 4) Arrival in Phuket

After a wonderful first few days in Bangkok, we hopped a plane (a 747 in fact!) down to Phuket and installed ourselves in the beautiful B-Lay Tong hotel right on the Andaman Sea..





The hotel is very modern with minimalist construction but bold, very interesting accents (as you can see).   Subtle, eh?

Most importantly, they immediately recognized our Royal status and placed us directly in the throne that they had waiting for us.

The Shrimp that Almost Bit Back!

We then found a very local seafood joint (the kind where you pick your dinner while it's still moving) and had fresh sea bass, squid, morning glory (a vegetable.. it wasn't moving when we picked it) .. and the best part, prawns as big as our heads!  (yes, that's just one giant shrimp -- on a stick!)

Now it's the morning of Phuket day 2 and we're going to spend our time exploring the island (which is Thailand's biggest) .. then tomorrow we'll be diving!

T-80: (Day 2) BK in BKK

And so day two in Bangkok began..

After getting up at the early hour of 6 in the morning, we wondered around looking for some breakfast because we couldn't figure out Chatchai's fabulous coffee maker. After a nice breakfast of instant coffee and taro flavored bread and butter, we got everyone together and started our errands for the day.

Our first stop was the tailor that we used during our prior visit to Thailand with Tomny, but unfortunately that tailor went out of business. The previous tailor recommended that we visit one of his family members who turned out to be a great find. We definitely scored on this tailor! After an hour and a half of being measured, pinned, tucked with a whole lot of lost in translation, we finally were able to create the makings of a fabulous suit! We looked through fashion magazines and picked out the latest trends in haberdashery, we were able to design 5 suits and 15 tailored shirts all for the whopping total price of about $900! Let me tell you it was a steal and a half, and totally worth it to come to Thailand just to get custom made clothes! And to top it off, we get the finished products in less than a week! How's that for Thai labor for you?

After the tailor, we went blitz shopping at Palladium and MBK malls. We didn't really get a whole lot of stuff but it was an experience nonetheless. We were able to get a few items and were happy about how cheap things are here.

Next came a tuk-tuk ride between malls.. A somewhat harrowing experience zig zagging through busy (and very congested) downtown Bangkok. There are no traffic rules and no sidewalk is safe from the tuk-tuk. But we made it in record time!

Then, out of nowhere, were attacked by a large black giant that wanted to take us back up her beanstalk..

But happily, we escaped due to X's incredible ability to perform Olympic caliber gymnastics.  After the applause slowed, we were able to escape...

We are getting used to taking the Skytrain. It's pretty easy to navigate BKK. As you can tell, I've already did my gymnastic routine on the train. I got a perfect score from the Thai judge! 10- 10-10 across the board!!! 

Silom at night was as usual a sight to see. We hung out at Telephone bar, of course on our phones. No talking, just texting! (and more than a little "grinding") If you wanna know the password for Telephone bar, contact us!

But then it was time to head home and crash.. This was an easy night.  No clubs..  but we couldn't resist our American stomachs..  We had to make a pitstop at Burger King.. cuz there's nothing quite like BK in BKK...

Until tomorrow!

woof!

T-81: (Day 1) Arrival in Bangkok

Bangkok's Beautiful Suvarnabhumi Int'l Airport (BKK)

We got to Bangkok at 11:30 PM, and our friend Chatchai picked us up at the airport. It was a warm balmy summer night here in Bangkok and I guess we just have to get used to this warm weather. When we got to the apartment, we got situated and went out for a 2 AM street food hunting. After eating, we went to bed for an early day of shopping and discovery in Bangkok.

As usual, I only had a few hours of sleep, and I'm sure I'll be regretting it later. But I'm not worried because I'm here to see the most about Bangkok, and spend it with Eric, Joe and Chatchai. I'm pretty excited and I can't wait to face today.

Before we went to bed we decided to have a little snack - Bangkok style, so at around two in the morning we wandered down the street to the local food stalls and got an assortment of things like chicken satay, chicken and rice, soup with noodles and a lot of other colorful things that wound up tasting great!

Street Vendor Selling "Meats"

Halo-Halo (dessert) -- Thai Style!

This is our first attempt at daily blogging.. We'll be using our iPhone and iPads and mostly will be dictating.. So please forgive any "speak-o's" that we have.. Now off to bed because there's a very busy day ahead tomorrow!

T-82: Thailand, here we come!

We just couldn't wait the remaining 82 days..

So we decided to take a little side trip to Thailand..

In just 7 hours we'll take off..

JFK - SFO - NRT - BKK

After a few days of shopping & playing in Bangkok, we're off to Phuket for the weekend..

We'll be staying at the B-Lay Tong on the North end of Patong beach for the weekend.  For the first time ever, Eric is going to try scuba diving (with a very well regarded dive instructor) who will hopefully keep Eric from drowning while not boring Christian & Joe to death.

Then back to Bangkok on Monday (after the mandatory 18 hour flight delay post diving, of course!) to spend a few days enjoying the city before heading home.

This trip is a trial run for our Around the World extravaganza.. so we're going to try to post daily blog updates including our favorite pictures from that day.. just like we plan to do on our big trip.

So... we hope you enjoy reading our blog as much as we enjoy writing it.

.. and here we go!

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu