maandag 14 december 2015

And so it begins - Luxembourg to Bangkok

Last Saturday at early o'clock, I said goodbye to rainy and cold Luxembourg to take the train to Frankfurt airport. It's time for my trip to South East Asia! In the coming three weeks I will be visiting Bangkok, Ankor, Kuala Lumpur and Koh Samet.



Even before reaching the airport, I started seeing interesting things. And I did not even leave Europe yet. I shared my train with a group of people in their forties who seemed to have embarked on a party weekend. They were taking shots, playing accordion and singing songs - at 9.30 AM. A fun start of the day.

I was flying with a Chinese airlines and had a transfer in Shanghai. My first (albeit unofficial since airports don't count as entering a country) visit to China! During the flight, I noticed some peculiar things. Everyone seemed to have taken their own water bottles - they were giving them to the flight attendants, who would then fill them with water. They were walking around with trays full of water bottles the whole flight long.
Then there was this tiny old lady who wanted to take something from the overhead storage space above me. She was saying something in Chinese, and before I knew it she climbed on my chair to reach her luggage - with me still sitting there. That was slightly bizarre.

In Shanghai, I had less than 2 hours to transfer to the next flight. Seems fine, be it that the queue for transfer was extremely long and did not seem to move at all. I was already planning out emergency situations in my mind, when a lady passed by the queue to call for passengers from my flight. We were allowed to go through the priority lane so we could also make the flight. As soon as I entered the plane, I fell asleep and I only woke up when we were landing. I was so tired, I even missed the food ( and I never miss out on food).

Finally I made it to Thailand! After a little moment of panic about my phone card not working, I managed to get a Thai number and some directions to the hotel. A sky train trip and a ride on the tuctuc later, I was there. Time for the adventures to start. I was meeting my friend Marina and same of her friends for dinner later, do I had some time to wander around. The street of my hotel is full of hostels, restaurants and little shops, and is very popular amongst backpackers. It is very lively and noisy. Next to it, is a big street which was decorated with an endless amount of lights and pictures of the king and queen. I followed the lights, which turned out to be a pretty cool walk.

After my walk, I took a taxi to meet Marina and her friends. We went to an Italian-Thai fusion restaurant. The food was delicious and very special. It was really nice to eat with Thai locals. A good first meal in Asia!

By then I was so tired that I slept almost immediately when we got back to the hotel. I did not have time yet to figure out how my SD card converter works, but when I do I will upload a lot of pictures!







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