Wednesday December 5, 2007, Bangkok, Thailand. Taipei, Taiwan. San Francisco, CA
We got up early and had a great breakfast. Packed, checked out and got a taxi to the airport. When we negotiated the price (the standard is 400 THB from our hotel), the driver first wanted 500 THB. I told him, the standard if 400, and he relented. Then in the car he says, ok how about 60 THB more and I’ll take you via the freeway. We told him no way, 400 includes the freeway toll. If he did not like it, he can stop the car and we’ll get out right away. So he relented. It really upset me that early in the morning he was trying to wriggle some extra money out of me. Many people can say it’s a dollar here and there, but that’s beside the point. I just don’t like it. I’m quite sure the 400 THB we paid was the “tourist price” anyway. Oh well.
Since it was a national holiday that day (Kings birthday) the roads were empty and he only had to take part of the freeway. He saved some money that way, but it was fine with us since he’s also out to make a living and as long as he did not get us stuck in traffic and took us to the airport on time, we did not care.
As usual, thanks to my rushing to the airport habit (something I picked up after I missed a flight out of Toronto eons ago, and subsequently having to spend 11 insane hours at Heathrow) we were ahead of time. Checked in, passed immigration and walked around the airport a bit. They have a lot of stores trying to sell you all sorts of stuff.
Finally went through security and got to our gate about an hour before our flight. We instantly realized how stupid an idea that was. While the new Bangkok airport is nice it was not designed with travelers convenience in mind (or at least cattle class travelers like us). The area where the terminals were was closed and there was no place to sit! Hardly any benches. We finally found a spot to sit and wait for our flight. We were hoping to at a coffee or something, but there was nothing available and we did not want to go through that crazy security check again.
Finally we boarded our flight to Taipei.
The flight itself was uneventful and we had a lovely Indian meal of 2 Paneer dishes and rice and some south indian sweet. I saw Bourne Ultimatum while Heena watched Darjeeling Little.
In Taipei, we freshened up, walked around the airport and I made myself sick sampling the pineapple cake/puff thingy that they have. We also found a subway and eased back into North America with a sandwich.
The flight home was really uneventful. We just slept most of the way (bad idea). We landed in San Francisco at 2:30 pm. Immigration was easy. We got our bags and outside the airport we found a shuttle van to take us home.
Welcome to a fast paced life: Life in all the countries we visited was slow. People were easy going and smiling. Our van was fairly empty (it could seat 11 people total) with only 5 passengers in all (2 of us and 3 other ladies). Once we got to the city, these guys drive around such that their route gets optimized. We first dropped off a girl at Nob Hill. The next destination was Van Ness, and then the Marina. However, this lady who had to get to the Marina was so impatient she started telling the driver to drop her at her work on Divisadero (farther from the marina) because there were “too many people” in the van (there were three of us, and it was clear Heena and I were together). She kept repeating that there were too many people and how she wants to go to work and not go home (as initially planned) because it would waste her time. Yes, like 5-10 minutes was going to make a difference…
Anyways, after we got home, we freshened up a bit and were not at all sleepy (thanks to my stupid idea of sleeping on the plane). So we took the ferry to Larkspur to Amol/Ishwari’s place for dinner and also to pick up our car. Amol/Ishwari had graciously prepared an elaborate dinner and also had my favorite Paneer dish! It was the best welcome back home.
This post is a part of the Thailand, Laos and Cambodia 2007 itinerary
