April 7

Today we fly out to Chiang Mai, but not until the afternoon so we have some time to kill. I thought the wet market was worth showing to my sister so we made the Khlong Toey (Wet) Market our destination for the morning pre flight escapade. I already wrote about this market last time so I’ll spare you the repeat description, but seriously if you go to Bangkok, I think it is a neat experience…if you can stomach it. You don’t have to spend much time there, just check it out. We wanted to get to the airport early so this was about all we had time for. We head back to my buddy’s place, pick up our bags, and head off to the airport.

We grab a cab at the street (cabs are super easy to get) and ask him to take us to the airport. He doesn’t speak any English, but he seems to understand airport (I figure this is a must know word for any cab driver).  He replies, “Suvarnabhumi?”, the name of the airport, to confirm. We throw our stuff in the back, hop in, and off we go. It was interesting that he mentioned the name, but I guess it was a good way of confirming he understood what airport meant. It takes a good 40 minutes to get to the airport with some traffic, but we arrive 2.5 hours before take off. We pay the driver for the toll booths and the fare and walk in to the sea of check in lanes. I look for a monitor to find our flight but oddly enough, it doesn’t show up on there. Hmmm…that’s interesting. I guess we’ll find out at the check-in desk if anything happened. One of the counter ladies points us to the proper check in counter and we walk up to check our bags. We give the lady our passports, she looks it up and asks, “Where are you traveling to and what time?” I reply “Chiang Mai” and tell her the time of our flight, but she seems to have a puzzled look on her face. She picks up her phone to make a call and says whoknowswhat in Thai to the person on the other end of the line. Odd. She then hangs up, and says with a rough accent, “They help you at the desk at the end of the counter.” Very odd. We walk down to a gentleman who is standing up as we walk over and he asks for our passports as we approach the counter.
“Sir, your flight leaves out of the other Bangkok airport, the Don Mueang airport.”
Oh shit.
“The ride to this airport is 1.5 hours long by taxi”
OH SHIT
“We call them to notify them you are coming, but you must hurry”
There are TWO FLIPPIN AIRPORTS in Bangkok!!!
Two hours and 15 minutes to take off. We might have a chance.
We grab our bags and take off for the taxi lane. I’ve never been so angry at myself; I’m an idiot. I assumed (yes, I know I should never assume) there was only one airport in the city. It would suck to have to buy another flight today because of my stupidity.
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I didn’t say a single word the entire ride. My sister doesn’t seem bothered by my mess up, but I am in a bad mood.
I check google maps to make sure we’re heading in the right direction and everything checks out. Traffic is actually not bad for our trip and we arrive at the correct airport 40 minutes later; one hour and 35 minutes before take off. Phew, my mood improves significantly. We find the right counter, check in our bags and are through security within 15 minutes. They take my surgical first aid kit scissors (tiny bandage scissors) because they say it could be a weapon. Ugh, when are we going to get over this everything-can-hurt-you phase at the airport. Oh well, I’m just happy we made it to the airport. I can breathe again. I’m hungry.

I told myself I would eat only Thai food while out here, but there wasn’t a Thai restaurant in sight, so I know you’re going to judge here, but we end up at…..McDonald’s. The fries are just as delicious as everywhere else in the world.
Thai Smile Airlines is a cheaper alternative to Thai Airlines, but still nice. Decent for shorter trips. That’s all I’ll say about the flight. Nothing exciting, nothing boring, just middle of the road, point a to point b; like a Prius.
We land in Chiang Mai and find a taxi to take us to the hotel. Weird thing in Chiang Mai, nearly all taxis are SUVs. Kind of odd.
We booked the Holiday Inn here for about 50 bucks a night. Yeap, hotels are cheap here. The Holiday Inn is nicer than your average Holiday Inn (it has about 25 floors and the rooms are a good size – 600sq. ft.). The service is very good; for example, they sit you down and give you drinks while you are checking in. Not too bad.
For the rest of the night we figured out activities that were available in the area. We ended up signing up for a full day cooking class the following day (this will be more cooking than I’ve done in the last 5 years) and planned on doing the elephant trek the day after. Should be interesting. Bed a bit early since we had to be up early tomorrow for the shuttle to pick us up. Besides, I don’t mind this as I’m still recovering form NZ time zone and I’m sure my sister didn’t mind since she was on who know’s what sleep schedule.
Cheers!