8. Bangkok and lost baggage

I'm sitting here drinking hot tea and listening to the birds and bugs outside the window. It is a really really cool day. "It's cold, NOT cool" said the thai nurses in the clinic today. It is around 70 degrees. It might have been cooler this morning.
I had to go get some trail mix - yummy!

It's 2 in the afternoon outside, but in my head I'm afraid it's still 2 in the morning. Actually, if Texas hadn't had the time change Sunday it would be 3AM, so I guess it's really 3 AM in my head. They say it takes 10 days to get completely acclimated. I keep thinking I've already adjusted, but I guess not. It was easier feeling that way in Bangkok, we were doing so much - even if it had been 3 in the morning I don't think I would have been tired.

So I guess I'll start from the beginning, or at least from last weekend, today is, hmmm what is today? Tuesday. So weekend before last - I stayed in Houston and packed all my belongings (well nearly all - still clothes in my closet and dishes in the kitchen) I had my CS board exam all day monday, went to clinic tuesday (and got my car worked on - I had A LOT of errands to run before I left on my trip). Wed. my preceptor was nice enough to give me the afternoon off. So I went and ran the rest of my errands or at least tried. I then *started* packing Wed. night. Thursday morning I had another test - for Internal Medicine (quite possibly the easiest test I've had since kindergarten). Then ran some *more* errands (like got a new suitcase - which we recently lost - I'll get to that later).

Then Meagan & Beth took Zsila & I to the airport. It was one of the first really hot days in Houston - maybe that was to prepare me for the heat here. I think I am just going to get used to my body being covered in a thin film of slimy sweat - yum.
But not today of course, because today it is "cold" - thanks to the rain -which I'll get to later as well, rainy season has come early - Houston has nothing on the flooding in Bangkok!

So we got to the airport, where I realized I had forgotten my makeup - horror of horrors, the one thing I really didn't want to forget (as I sit here with like no makeup on). Anyways I made myself get over that let down and we got on our flight to LA. We sat with this nice tall (Zsila says gay I say questionable) guy named Anthony and talked real estate (Zsi and I are both looking into buying a place for residency). He showed us where to go once we got to the airport - which was a weird airport. We nearly missed our connection to Hong Kong. We were *running* through the airport. FOURTEEN AND A HALF HOURS. Zsila got the window seat on all of the last 6 flights we've been on since we left last wed. (It should have only been 4, but we'll get to that). She was nice and let me have the window seat a couple times though :)

That was a loooooooong flight. I'm kinda glad I really didn't sleep the 3 days before I left though. And, will all the craziness lately, my mind really didn't mind just sitting there and watching "The Incredibles" and whatever else was on. My mind did mind the fact that Zsila was unconscious for 14 hours straight, and my Ambien aided body only slept 4! Ok, I'm sure it was more than 4, but that was the longest stretch of not waking up every 5 minutes. I was stuck in the middle, crowded from both sides, Rip Van Zsila on my right and nice but slightly creepy old dude who hogged the arm rest and kept jabbing me in the side guy on my left.

We had left Houston at 7PM and arrived in Hong Kong at around 6AM, their time. We waited for the shops in the airport (it was like a mall) to open about an hour later and wheeled our bags around in a little cart the whole time. Every airport over here has these great little carts. Why don't we have carts here? They are sooooo handy! And they're free!
Anyways, we ate some breakfast in a little cafe at the airport and boarded our flight to Bangkok. That was only like a 3 hr. flight. I tried to sleep, but couldn't - again. We got to Bangkok and had to walk to the domestic side (we didn't realize there was a shuttle). It was a loooooong walk. Such a funny airport. It was like the one in the Bahamas only A LOT bigger. There were a lot of bright red Europeans - everyone was sunburned. There were people from all over the world there - but not many Americans. Lots of families and couples and stuff on vacation.

we got on a little bus to board our last (or so we thought) flight to Nan (pronounced non). It was one of those tiny little planes. Everyone in the airport gave us a funny look when we told them where we were going - they all expected us to be on the way to Phuket or something, not many farongs to go there(that's what they call us: westerners, kind of like the spanish gringo, but not really). We got to the airport (which was the size of a big 7-11). The "baggage claim" was niceley labeled with a sign about a wooden bench, where they dumped the luggage after they took it off the little beat-up pick-up. Unfortunately, OUR luggage did not get dumped there. It didn't make it.

Apparently, after we arrived from Hong Kong we were supposed to pick up our bags and go through customs - I didn't know! We were in that airport in Bangkok for FIVE hours, we had plenty of time. We asked the dude when we got our boarding pass for Nan if our bags would get put through to Nan and he told us yes. Well, apparently, Thai people are really big about not losing face and don't want others to lose face, so instead of saying they don't understand they just say "Yes" to whatever you are asking. Hmmmm. So we spent that five hours walking around, people watching, etc. Basically we spent it in a haze b/c we were both so exhausted.

Soooo, we met the nice family we are staying with - the Ashburn's (they are originally from E. Kentucky, the dad is an FP Doctor there). Their oldest daughter, Amy -18, and one of their twin boys - Bruce -16, met us with Mary and Tom Ashburn at the airport. We got in their van after talking with the people about our lost luggage and started our drive to our final destination - right outside Chiang Klang (which, incidentally, I never did find on a map before we left - so I never actually knew where we were going!).

The drive was picturesque. Very green, Gold Buddhist temples scattered here and there - it seems like every village has one. the green mountains in the background. I saw one lady, wearing those fun asian hats far far far below, washing her clothes in the river as we sped by - that's when it hit me, wow - I'm in Thailand. There are so many beautiful, brightly colored flowered plants everywhere, hot pink, yellow, red, purple, it's georgous! People here drive mopeds and little motorcycles everywhere. You will see some guy on his motorcyle with his little baby in his lap in front of him, and as he passes you turn your head to look and there are two more kids behind him, little kids! Crazy. It's very weird driving on the left side of the road. Mary Ashburn was sitting up front on the left and she kept turning around to talk to us, right when I'd start to get nervous because she had been turned around so long, I'd remember that she wasn't the one driving, it was Tom, on the right. We had been traveling for over 30 hours straight...