The Trip Here

It was a whirlwind trip. Everything seemed to happen in a matter of a few hours. From packing my stuff to getting off the plane in Bangkok, it all happened so fast. I had so much stuff going on between my jobs, moving out and making last minute purchases, I had about 7 lists of things I needed to do before I left. All in all everything went pretty smoothly, and my body ended up in Thailand before I realized I had actually left.

My dad drove me to Phoenix -Thanks Dad!- and dropped me off at my friend Joelenne's house where we had one last American hurrah. The next day started early, 6:00 am? I caught my flight to LAX that morning which turned out to have a connection in Las Vegas. Las Vegas had a dust storm which put a 45 minute delay on my flight. This combined with the fact that I had not actually planned on going to LV left me wondering if I was on the right flight and if I was, was I going to make my next flight to Taipei, which would be a bad flight to miss. My fear was in vain and ended up leaving me with a couple extra hours in LAX waiting for my flight to Taipei. The 15 hour flight that followed was uneventful and left me able to sleep for several hours duraing the flight. The Taipei airport seemed very large, with it's own internal transit system, while I was running from one terminal to the next. I waited for less then 45 minutes for my final flight to Bangkok. Three hours later I landed in Bangkok, a disproportionately clean airport to the rest of the city. I knew Melissa (my girlfriend) was waiting for me so I hurried to baggage claim and to the nearest ATM to get some Baht. After stumbling through the Thai ATM instructions it so politely informed me that I had insufficient funds to withdraw 10,000 baht, (about $300). My heart dropped, I was potentially stuck in Thailand with 3,500 useless dollars stuck in a useless bank thousands of miles away. My mind raced for an answer, I figured that my credit union was somehow not equipped to handle international ATMs. I had my credit card, but it was worthless with out a PIN, I could call my bank and demand answers, I thought of opening a bank account in Thailand and transfering my money online, but each would leave me with out cash in hand for several days. I concluded that I would figure it out in the morning and just meet Melissa for now. After waiting in a hefty immigrations line, I wandered the Bangkok airport looking for Melissa. After meeting with her and getting in the taxi that she had waiting my 23 hours if airports and jets had finally come to an end. Thank god.