The long, long travel day kicked of in San Francisco, CA. Nico and I were dropped off at the airport to begin our 2 month adventure through South East Asia. At SFO, we met up with our friends, Kristen and Josh, who were also travelling with us for part of the trip.
The first leg of our flight was to Wuhan, China. We passed the time watching movies, sleeping, and goofing around with each other. When we arrived in Wuhan, we had to pick up our bags and go through security again to get on the next flight. We had a pretty long layover (like 5 hours) so we weren't too crunched for time. After picking up our bags, we filled through to the room where we'd wait. It was a small lobby area with only a few chairs. There was one little cafe and one tiny convenience store that pretty much only sold sweets or instant noodles. Hungry and tired, we all slurped instant noodles and tried to sleep on the plastic benches. The lobby eventually got really packed with people and it was too loud to pretend to be sleeping. We sat and people-watched for the next few hours as there was no wifi (what kind of an airport has no wifi??).
The Chinese people didn't mind being in close proximity to one another. As the benches filled, there would often be multiple people to one chair. If they didn't get a seat, they would often squat and snack on a meal brought from home (usually noodles and a thermos of tea).
The Wuhan airport, in all its glory
Finally, it was time to board our next flight to Bangkok. It landed a little before 3 am and despite the early hour, the air was HOT when we walked out of the airport.
I'd read up a little about scams in Thailand before setting out. One thing I read was to make sure the taxi drivers use the meter when taking a cab. We told our cab driver to use hers but she said something along the lines of, it doesn't work at this time of night. We asked her how much the trip would cost (to be sure we wouldn't be screwed when we reached our destination) and she said 150 baht (about $4). I found out later that we were overcharged but none of us cared since we were all so tired and the price would have been higher in the US.
Hostel
The hostel we stayed at was called Nangtayon at Ban Thap Chang. We picked it because it was very close to the airport but right by the train to take us into the city. The ladies who hosted us there were so, so nice. We booked beds in a 6 bedroom dorm but being the only guests, were given a 4 bed room for the same price. It felt amazing to be in an air conditioned room.
The hostel provided a free Thai breakfast, which was like lunch in my point of view. I had basil chicken, a specialty in Thailand.
The little balcony in our hostel
Activities
We took the train into the city and then struggled to figure out the buses to get to Kaho San Road. We were following Google maps and I learned what the first symbol of our stop looked like in order to be sure we were getting off at the right place. We walked through Kaho San Road for a little bit and stopped to have a few beers.
Drinking beers on Kaho San Road
After a little while, we decided to walk to the Grand Palace, which was now closed to visitors for the day. We walked around the area for a little bit before deciding that it was way too hot and headed back to the hostel.
That evening, we left once more to find some food (by riding the train for just a couple stops). We were still so tired from travelling, however, that we went to bed right after dinner.
Smoggy sunset
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