Tag: Travel

Travel

On By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

There is so much travel in traveling.  I’ve never had more than two weeks off in a row.  I’m now a month into vacation and weary of the travel part.  I know, whaaa, quit complaining.

Yesterday, I had breakfast at my hotel and the worked on lesson plans until it was time to leave for the airport. I have to turn in my first month of lesson plans before school starts.  The rest of the day was travel to Bangkok and a hotel near the airport.  The taxi stand at the Don Mueang airport was amazing.  I got there and they were serving number 555.  But, where to get a number was not obvious.  It must be at the back of that room full of people.  It was.  I got number 630.  This system doesn’t appear to be working very well.  Then when I finally got a taxi it took 40 minutes to go the 8 miles to my hotel.  Whoa Bangkok traffic.

What a wonderful little trendy, cheap hotel.  The staff was friendly and I get free breakfast and airport shuttle in the morning.  I ate dinner there because I was too exhausted to go further.  I had a grilled cheese sandwich that I’m pretty sure was cooked in liquid sugar instead of butter.  Come on, Thailand, stop putting sugar on everything.  Don’t try this at home.  Sugared grilled cheese is not delicious.

This morning came early – breakfast at 3:30, shuttle at 4:00am.  Was I high when I booked a 6:00am flight?  Maybe it was foggy brain.  The airport was a zoo at 4:15.  I made a friend within 2 minutes and we decided to navigate the zoo together.  Justine was a delightful young lady and we managed to find our way through a mob with no lines, just angry lost people everywhere, ticket agents yelling, and tour groups looking confused.  After landing in Bali, the immigration line was the shortest I’ve ever seen.  But I had to wait a long time for my luggage because I waited at the wrong carousel.  Once I figured it out, my bag magically appeared on the correct one.  Funny how that happens.  Unfortunately, that meant I didn’t get to say goodbye to Justine.  Enjoy your vacation Justine!

I rented a car while here.  It seemed easier for wandering around the island.  If I didn’t have the suitcase or if I had the SE Asia ability to tie any thing to a motorbike, I’d rather do that.  But, that was just a bad story waiting to happen.  The car guy took me to an atm and then to the police station to get a “driver’s license”.  I don’t have an international license because I didn’t know that was a thing until I had already moved to Thailand.  I would have had to get it in the US in person so too late for that information.  This license is supposed to get me out of having to pay a bigger fine if I get pulled over.  We’ll see.

So then I have to take this sorry excuse of a vehicle from the airport to my hotel.  The doors rattle.  The steering is loose feeling.  The breaks need a heavy foot.  The steering wheel is on the wrong side and it’s stick shift.  That was a first for me.  Then let’s drive on the left side of the road just for fun.  As in Thailand and Vietnam, the striping is just for decoration and a beep means “I’m passing you now”. All that said, it went ok and I made it to the hotel.

My hotel is cute and has a pool.  I was in it within 5 minutes. I worked for a few hours, then dinner and now travel exhaustion.  Tomorrow diving – fingers crossed that it’s great!

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

 

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Taxi Stand
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Taxi Bling

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Pool side room

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All the Things

On By rrainefioreIn Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Thursday, I did a half day of rock climbing.  Railey Beach, which is near me, is known for its climbing.  The beach is only accessible by boat.  It has such a weird vibe to it which I didn’t like much.  It’s like a Rastafarian, a hippy and a rock climber met on a beach.  The climbing was good and it felt nice to be on the rock again.  But I pulled a quad muscle part way through.  That might cause a problem for climbing in two days – I booked two days of climbing.  I wondered how they would know to take me back to my hotel after I did the boat ride.  As I was leaving the climbing shop, they gave me a red nametag thing around my neck and put me on the boat.  I felt like a little kid who had been given a nametag and sent off to school.  It worked, a taxi was waiting on the other side and knew me by my red tag.  I did have a neat experience where I had the distinct feeling, “Oh, I live here”.  It was subtle, but it was as if a small part that was resisting, let go.

Yesterday my leg did not feel miraculously better as I had hoped it would.  All my other muscles were sore too.  I guess I got a good work out climbing the day before.  I had signed up for a jungle tour today.  The people in my tour were less than fun.  It was 4 Europeans, 7 Thai Muslims and a family of 3 from India.  I’m becoming more and more convinced that Europeans are just snooty.  The Muslims didn’t even acknowledge me.  The Indians were nice to talk to.  We went to a hot springs waterfall.  I really enjoyed that.  We also went to the Emerald pool which was a mineral springs with tons of Thais swimming in it.  It was also enjoyable.  There was lunch which was Thai or Halal and too spicy for me.   I didn’t really like it, and (foreshadowing) it didn’t like me either.  Then they took us to the Tiger Cave Temple.  It doesn’t have actual tigers, that’s another temple somewhere else in Thailand.  I didn’t see a cave either.  There was a bunch of stairs you could climb to see a big Buddah.  Of course there were, they seem to like to build things on tops of mountains and I seem to climb them even though, it looks like the same Buddah I’ve seen in other temples.  I didn’t listen too closely to the tour guide when she said how many stairs.  I should have.  At about 600, I asked someone, how many stairs?  Oh jeezee, I would not have done this if I had known it was 1260 really steep stairs to see a Buddha statue.  So, enjoy the pictures I took, because I worked very hard in the heat to get them.  The way down was just as hard since they were so steep.  I could barely move my legs by the time I got down.  I felt dehydrated and horrible by then.  Next was elephant riding.  I’m am against this so I didn’t pay to go.  Another couple didn’t pay either.  Shortly after everyone took off on their elephant ride, the put the three of us into another van full of other people and took us back to our hotels.  The ride back went winding down steep streets way too fast and I felt sick to my stomach by the time I got back.  I never get car sick.  I tried to nap, but was rudely awakened by the need to throw up.  This continued roughly every hour through the rest of the day and all night.  Really, Life?  What do you want?  I was just beginning to feel better and was trying to rebuild my strength.

Today I woke in so much pain.  All my muscles hurt from climbing the other day and now my stomach muscles hurt from being sick all night.  I tried to eat some yogurt, but didn’t feel much better.  The owner of the guest house I’m staying in offered to drive me to the doctor.  That was real nice.  The doctor asked a bunch of questions, gave me some meds and sent me on my way.  I didn’t do much today, slept a bit, tried to eat a little and rescheduled the tour I was supposed to do tonight.  I canceled climbing yesterday.  I feel a little bit better, but not great.  How am I ever going to survive Thailand?

Then to add to all of this, I find out my mom’s husband has been put into hospice care.  My brother went out there yesterday to help with finances and paperwork.  One of my cousin’s sons was killed in a car accident.  Big stuff is happening back home and I’m complaining about some bad food. I find my brain trying to put all the information into categories and boxes and make sense of it all, but it’s having a hard time doing it.  I’m not sure it even knows how any more since that’s the old way of doing things.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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Foggy Sapa

On By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

We arrived at the train station at 6:00am.  What’s my name?  A sweet lady shows up with sticky rice.  So I bought some thinking it would be like Thai sticky rice.  Oh no, it wasn’t.  It was tasteless patties of white goo that I was supposed to buy sausage to go with.  You make a rice goo sausage sandwich.  I ate one and decided I never needed to eat that again.  We waited out front of the train station for our shuttle.  It was a zoo of taxi drivers hassling us and backpackers everywhere.  Later it turns out one of the taxi drivers that was bugging us actually was our shuttle.  If he had a sign with our name or the hostel’s name on it, we would have gone with him sooner.  He finally showed us a confirmation email.  The ride to Sapa was at least an hour from the train station, maybe more.  It’s wet and foggy and everything is damp.  Omg, the streets of Sapa are so narrow and steep.  There were buses, motorbikes and hikers everywhere barely missing each other by inches.  I’m not sure how you even get a motorbike up the steepness of these roads.  It’s very cold and everything is wet and muddy.

We got to the hostel and didn’t have the private room we were promised.  Annalise took the last bottom bunk and the shower was cold.  There were no lockers or any way to lock up our valuables.  I felt very flustered and unhappy.  So, I decided I could just feel unhappy or I could change my situation so I asked if there was a private room I could upgrade to.  There was so I did that.

We set out in the cold foggy weather to see Sapa.  They sold “North Face” jackets, hiking boots, backpacks and other gear in every other store.  I didn’t want to buy more clothes, but I was freezing so I got leggings, a hat and gloves.  The North Face jackets were $15-$25.  I ended up buying one of those, not because I needed one, but because I have a jacket problem.

We went to the pharmacy because both Erin and I are sick.  In Thailand, you often skip the doctor and go straight to the pharmacy and the pharmacists speak English so we figured it might be the same in Vietnam.  She didn’t speak English and I doubt she was a pharmacist, but after a short game of guess this illness charades, we both had a pile of drugs.  Mine were sinus drainage drugs and an antibiotic.  So, if I have a sinus infection, that should work.  Fingers crossed.

We holed up most of the afternoon in a restaurant that had a fireplace and fabulous ginger tea.  We wandered around town a little, but it wasn’t really pleasant.  We signed up for a tour that included a waterfall and trekking through the tribal villages and rice fields for tomorrow.  Hopefully the fog clears enough to see something.  After dinner, I had a massage.  It was in a cold room and the massage was mediocre at best.  I miss Thai massage already.  She did do a lot of work on my face and head which felt great on my sinuses and hopefully helped!  The fog is creepy, but in a fabulous way at night.  I enjoyed walking back to the hostel in it.

I got back to my private hostel room and was met by the smell of mildew.  In the dark, it’s creepy.  There are cobwebs everywhere and it just feels gross, cold and wet.  It’s too late to do anything now, but first thing tomorrow, I’m going to book a room at the hotel next door which got good reviews.  It’s more expensive, but at this point I don’t care.  It’s official, I’m too old for hostels.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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Look carefully, those are dead squirrels as decoration

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Ha!
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Tiny coffee with candle to keep it warm
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Disco Lights in my scary hostle room

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Vietnam

On By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

We left in the morning and flew from Chaing Mai to Bangkok and then from Bangkok to Hanoi.  Switching planes in Bangkok was a challenge.  I wasn’t sure I had a long enough lay over, but it worked out well.  Had to get my luggage, then go check in for my international flight and check my bag.  Some people need a visa to go to Vietnam or at least an intent to get a visa letter.  USA is one of the countries that needs that.  I had applied for my letter and had no problem checking in, but the people in front of me were not prepared and got turned away for the flight.  Getting in to Vietnam, we had to hand in our letter and then wait for the visa and pay for the visa which took quite a while.  We were supposed to pay the fee in US$ or VND, but all I had was Baht and there was no place to exchange money.  They let us pay in baht – yay!  Louise is from Scottland and didn’t need a visa at all.

Erin was already at the airport and Louise, Annalise and I were all on the same flight.  We exchanged money and headed out to find a taxi.  There was a taxi stand with a line of taxis.  I figured, as in most places, we just go to the first taxi.  Some guy kept asking if we needed a taxi and telling us $20 to the train station.  We just had to wait 3 minutes.  At some point when I figured we had missed the front of the line, I decided I wasn’t going wait for him when there was a line of taxis already.  He was livid and started screaming at us and the taxi driver whose car we got in.  Welcome to Vietnam.

It was a long drive to the train station, but since our train didn’t leave until late, that was ok.  We got dropped off and went in to find Gate 6 which is where we were supposed to pick up our tickets.  There was no gate 6, just a door 2.  Nothing looked right at the station.  Something was very off, but of course I have no idea, just the knowledge that this isn’t right.  Someone directed us to Track 6, but that wasn’t it either.  No one spoke English, no one.  By now, I’ve figured out that there are two stations and the other station should be on the other side of the tracks, but I can’t see a station anywhere.  Finally, a lady motioned me to walk to the end of the platform and turn left.  I turn around to find my friends and almost get run over as about 20 motorbikes come tearing down the platform.  What a strange place to drive a motorbike.  I guess they came off a train.  We walked to the end of the platform and crossed a bunch of tracks and headed toward what looked like an abandoned warehouse, but right around the corner was another train station.  There were only 2 people in the station, but we found gate 6.  So then we headed out to find some food.

I wouldn’t think that Vietnam could feel, look, sound and smell so different from Thailand, but it is so completely different.  It doesn’t even feel real.  And all we have seen is the airport and the train station and it’s already vastly different.  There are more motorbikes here than I’ve seen anywhere, ever.  The driving was insane.  Dinner was ok – small hole in the wall local restaurant.  A bunch of people were having what looked like Korean BBQ where you grill the food yourself on a table top grill.  We wanted that.  An old lady had us point at food in a window and fixed us plates of rice with the food we pointed at.  There was no menu and having the grill did not appear to be an option for us.  At this point, it was too much work to do anything else so we ate the already cooked food.  It was pretty good, nothing special.

By the time we got back to the train station, there were a lot more people there and we were able to get our tickets (we had already paid for them, but had to exchange an emailed voucher for the actual ticket).  We still had over an hour before we could get on the train, but at least we were positive we were in the right place now.

The train wasn’t luxury by any means, but is was very nice for how cheap it was.  Our room had 4 bunk beds in it and nice thick comforters.  It was three of us and a random guy in our room.  Louise was on another car because she had bought her ticket later.  The guy in our room was very nice, spoke great English and was very respectful.  He owned one of the first guide companies in the area we are going to and goes back and forth between Hanoi and Sapa often.  I don’t sleep well in new places so I didn’t get a ton of sleep, but it was pretty comfortable overall.  This is the first time I’ve taken a sleeper train anywhere so that was cool.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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Clinic

On By rrainefioreIn Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Yesterday was rather uneventful.  I woke up with the same foul mood that I do every morning.  It slowly fades as the day goes on.  I taught some classes.  I brought a salad in for Pat.  She thought it was a funny thing to eat.  Another teacher and Pat’s husband joined us for lunch.  The other teacher found the salad strange too.  Pat’s husband finished off what they didn’t eat with quite a bit of excitement.  I bet he had a bunch of energy the rest of the day and didn’t even know why.  It was still cold most of the day, but tolerable.  I decided to brave the cold shower – I survived, but barely.  Then I ate what was called a pizza and looked like a mini pizza with bread, cheese, ketchup and radishes.  I am not positive about what it was, but my best guess is the cheese was a sweet glaze kind of like frosting.  It was most definitely not cheese.  Cheese was the part I was most looking forward to.  The bread was bread and the ketchup was ketchup.  I think the stuff that looked like radishes was fish.

Today was teacher meeting day so I didn’t have to go to school because it would be hours of me not knowing what they were talking about.  They asked me to come for lunch, though.  I feel quite uncomfortable with how much people are feeding me.  I feel like, if I didn’t work and didn’t attend meetings, I shouldn’t get free lunch.  I assume they feel the same, but they probably don’t.  So, another thing to investigate – receiving.

I went to the coffee shop this morning and had what tasted like cookie crumbs with yogurt and jam on top.  Then washed it down with coffee flavored sugar.  Pat’s husband came into the coffee shop while I was there and wouldn’t let me pay for my sugar.  There it is again – uncomfortable.

They asked me to do English lessons for the teachers after school.  I agreed.  One teacher asked me how much and I said free.  This makes me feel a little better.  They have taken such good care of me that I wouldn’t feel good about charging for this.

In the afternoon, Pat took me to Tak to go to the clinic.  I guess as part of my work visa I need to have a doctor certify that I don’t have tuberculosis, leprosy, drug addiction, alcohol addiction, elephantiasis or tertiary syphilis.  Where do they come up with that list of illnesses?  The doctor wasn’t going to be in for another hour or more.  So she gave me the list and took me to the bus station.  I got on a bus to Sukohthai because I need a weekend of sight seeing.  She said I could go to a clinic in Sukohthai and get the certification done.  Oh jeeze, I have to navigate that task alone?

I was going to stay on the couch of some of my TESOL classmates that live in Sukohthai, but I decided I’d rather have my own place where I can hopefully stretch out and sleep well.  I found a place near the bus station for $11 a night.  I got to Sukohthai ok and to my guesthouse ok.  The people at the guesthouse were nice and spoke good English.  The room has a double bed, air conditioning and a hot shower!  I don’t have to sleep under a bug net and there are no frogs in the bathroom!  I got to have a hot shower for the first time in over a month.  This is the best $22 ever spent.

The guesthouse rented me a motor bike for 200 baht a day ($6/day).  So, I set out on my motorbike to find a clinic.  Thank god for google maps!  I love you google maps.  I think you have saved me much drama and will get me out of trouble in the future.  So, I haven’t ridden a moped in over 15 years. Now I’m going to drive it 2 blocks and then get on the highway driving on the other side of the road from what I’m use to while trying to find a clinic.  It was simply terrifying.  Turning and accelerating at the same time almost did me in a few times before I got the hang of it.  And by hang of it, I mean not in panic mode, but on extremely high alert.  Oh, well, it had to be done sooner or later.

The first clinic I went to was no where to be found.  The second one told me I needed to go to the hospital to get the certification.  Luckily, there was a hospital a block away.  The people at the desk didn’t speak English, but a nurse did.  I had to show my passport, sit and wait, then go to the pharmacy to pay for the tests then sit in a new spot to wait.  Then the nurse took my blood pressure and moved me to another spot to wait.  Then I got moved to a chair in front of a door to wait.  All these different spots to sit and wait were all in the same room.  Then the door opened and I went in to see the doctor.  He used a stethoscope to listen to my lungs, signed some paperwork, gave it to me and sent me on my way.

I went next door to a restaurant and had a lime slushy and a ham and cheese sandwich.  Even though it cost about 3x as much as a Thai meal would have, it was a wonderful break from Thai food.

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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Someone put a shirt on the school stray dog

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The tree in front of my house
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Nothing but sugar
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And more sugar (and gelatin, of course)
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Guest house in Sukohthai
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A double bed with no need for a bug net!!!
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Small, but wonderful for $11/night
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No frogs here
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And the best part – a hot shower!

Minor Scam

On By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Well, today was much much better than yesterday.  I got to the hotel around 1:00am, slept until 6:00am when my body decided it was time to get up.  Later in the morning I met up with 6 of the other teachers in my program and we headed out check out parts of Bangkok.  We went to the Chatuchak Weekend Market which boasts to be one of the world’s largest markets.  It was pretty big, hot and crowded.  But there was coconut ice cream so I was a happy little kid.

We wanted to go to the Grand Palace after and couldn’t figure how to get from the train station to the Grand Palace.  A couple of tuk tuk drivers showed us where it was on the map, but it was closed due to a holiday.  They suggested we do a boat tour instead and see a different temple.  Apparently this is a common scam where someone will tell you where you want to go is closed and then take your to their friend’s place to spend your money instead.  Still, the tuk tuk ride was fun.  The boat ride was fun and interesting, but longer than I would have liked.  It’s very interesting how some people live in big houses and next door is a tiny shack that looks like it might fall into the water at any moment.  And then next door to that is a glittering temple.  The temples are amazing, ornate and beautiful, even the smaller ones.  We ended up another Temple, Wat Pho, that has the largest reclining Buddha statue.  It was so large, I couldn’t get a picture of the whole statue.  There were many temples all within the grounds of Wat Pho, but unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to explore a lot.  Then we got into way overly priced tuk tuks to go back to the hotel.

We had a meeting with Xploreasia that evening to introduce everyone and get the general info on tomorrow and the weeks ahead.  By the time we were done with the meeting, I was ready for bed, but needed to eat.  Most of us went to a night market for dinner.  The food was great.  Then I went to bed early.

Overall, it was a great day and I feel so much better about my choice to move abroad.  I’ve always known it’s going to be great, but the fear of the unknown has been very big lately.  The fear has retreated quite a bit today!  Yay!

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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Travel Days

On By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

20151226_000519_resized20151227_011845_resized20151225_111000_resized20151225_235400_resized20151225_110934_resizedBy the time I went to bed last night, I felt ready to go to Thailand.  Then I woke up several times panicking, thinking I’m bringing too much stuff.  But, it’s too late to rearrange stuff.  Both of my connections were close so I woke up worrying about that.  I purposfully booked one airline so I wouldn’t have issues with baggage and connections, but found out last night that I had two airlines.  My  first flight was at 7:30am so I got up super early and went to the airport.  There was issue at check in.  One of my bags was 4 pounds overweight.  I asked if I could take some stuff out and put in my carry on.  The lady kept telling me the bag was overweight and she couldn’t take it, but she wouldn’t give it back to me either.  Finally, I got the bag back and moved some stuff out.  It was still overweight and then I asked if I could just pay extra for it being overweight.  She freaked out and told me she was going to get fired and she couldn’t help me.  Again, she couldn’t take the bag and yet wouldn’t give it back to me.  She called over her managers.  Same story.  I kept asking if I could pay extra and they kept saying they couldn’t help me.  After 15 minutes of this round about conversation and a lot of crying on my part, I was able to get my bag back and had no choice but to pull more stuff out.  Not my carry on was almost too much for me to handle.  When I got to the gate, they announced that the flight was overbooked and some people would have to check their carry ons.  So I checked my overstuffed carry on for free all the way to Bangkok.  I may get to Bangkok and only have one change of clothes, but at this point, I don’t care.  I cried for half the flight.

I keep reminding myself that it’s all ok.  I’m safe and on my way.  But I just want life to go smoothly and when it doesn’t I just want to not get ruffled by it.  I guess I’m not there yet.   Cognitively, I get it that I create the world around me.  So, am I creating this drama?  Is this all because I’m scared so I’m secretly creating a frustrating world around me?  On the flight, I’m overcome with the huge feeling of “I don’t want to go”.  I can’t un-do this.  There is no un-do, no do-over, no going back.  I’ve processed this before, this feeling that I can’t un-do my childhood or being adopted or being born and I just want to un-do it all.  So, here it is again, but this time it’s about overpacking.  Seems trivial when you finally break it down to what’s going on.  So what if I over packed?

I got to LAX late and only had an hour to change planes.  This involved leaving the terminal, getting on a bus, going to a different terminal, going through ticketing again, and going through security again.  I made it just as the plane was boarding.  Whew.  Ok, things are still ok.

I arrived in Seoul late.  My plane was supposed to be taking off the same time we arrived at the gate.  I’m on a huge plane (row 64).  There’s no way I’m going to get off the plane in time.  I talked to the flight attendant.  She said they’d wait.  Huh?  I run through the airport.  I have to go through security again, I run some more.  I hear my name being called over the intercom, but I have no idea how to answer the call.  Then I see a man walking my way and he asks if I’m going to Bangkok.  I said yes and he started running ahead of me yelling Bangkok to the gate.  I can see the gate and it’s still open.  I get on the plane and take my seat.  It took me at least a half hour to catch my breath.  I didn’t know I needed to train for my flight.  As we are pulling out of the gate, they apologized for the delay.  It was due to connection problems.  Holy shit – they actually held the plane an hour for me.  And I didn’t have to deal with that heavy carry on.

I arrived in Bangkok and hour late.  My luggage was there.  My ride to the hotel was there.  I took a shower and went to bed at 1:00am.  I made it here.

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore