MissHarmony

Busy-ness of Harmony's Jinan
2004-03-25 07:53:41 (UTC)

1/23/4 Thailand Round 2

The players:
Me, duh!
Augie ?my aunt Allena?s partner in oh-so-many-crimes and a
family friend. He?s a rocket scientist/ musician/ botanist/
genius/ surfer dude. He needed a vacation and Thailand
rocks so I offered to be his guide for a week
Putt ?my internet pal that I met last year right after I
returned from my first trip to Thailand, and whaddya know?
he?s Thai. He?s the only person I?ve ever met on a public
chat room and I lucked out?cuz he?s not psycho in a bad way
(only in the good ways, like me). He?s a professor of
mechanical design and engineering (? I think?it?s beyond
me, so I can never remember exactly what it is), as well as
a web designer and digi-photographer extraordinaire.

The plan:
Meet up with Augie for 7 days, play around Bangkok for a
day or so, then mosey on to my favorite island in the
Southeast for several days. After Augie returned to the
dregs of the murkin society, I stayed on for another 4 days
to tag-a-long with Putt down to a new (to me) island near
Bangkok while he was on a ?business? trip.

1/23/4 Friday: Traveling can be such a chore sometimes

Before the crack of dawn I was bustling about with last
minute details. I?d showered AND bathed the night before,
even though we?d only stayed less then 24 hours in Heze I
felt filthy, but then again I?m a prissy little Virgo girl,
so it doesn?t take much. At any rate, I went out to water
my plant in the darkness and realized?it was snowing!
Noooo! As I?m leaving for Thailand donned in several layers
of my dual purpose (hot/cold) clothes and shoes, it would
have to snow. So I tossed on an extra windbreaker and hoped
my feet wouldn?t freeze in my open tennies. Luckily, all of
my running about and the slight fever from the rotten eggs
of the night before kept me nice and toasty as I dragged my
stewardess case through the one inch of powder that
shrouded the campus. It was beautifully silent, except for
the racket of my suitcase wheels and the light conversation
of the lil? ol? ladies out for their morning walk on the
second day of the New Year. . The street was dead and I
feared not finding a cab at all, but fortunately one came
and paid me the most lovely compliment to boot. He thought
I was Chinese or at least Chinese American til I made him
turn around (at a stoplight, of course) to look at my face.
Beam, beam, beam?.what a nice ego boost.

Surprisingly enough the train was rather full of people.
Thankfully I was on the nice cloth hard seats (as opposed
to the old school bus style vinyl hard seats) and I was
near the nice bathroom (they even had toilet paper,
amazing!). So I drank like mad to flush out the toxic eggs
that were still plaguing me. When I got to Bejing I had no
luck finding Som to while a way some time over food and
conversation. Instead I just grabbed some Taiwanese style
breakfast for lunch and dinner, namely a log roll of sticky
rice filled with dried meat and crispy fried donut stuff,
yum! Then I headed over to the Beijing airport where I
waited for 4 hours in the main lobby, being completely
unproductive because of the headache I was still nursing
and the constant chill from outside that seeped through
everything. Finally I made it into the waiting area at the
gate, shed some layers, hopped on the plane and was only
able to relax a little as my head was still pounding.

I finally arrived in Thailand. Augie told me that there was
a shuttle to/from the airport from the hotel he?d booked.
As it turned out there were two hotels with almost
identical names. Inevitably I went to the wrong one. But
they were very nice, called the right hotel for me, found
me a cab and I made it over to the right one around 2am. I
was wiped out when I arrived at the Windsor suite?oo la la,
but both Augie and I were excited to see each other and
have show and tell with all the stuff we?d brought to
exchange. So it took another hour or so before I made it
into shower, bed and sweet sweet sleep.




Ad: