Today, Friday the 27th, I landed in Bangkok at 7:05 am. Because of the time of my flight, I was fortunate enough to be able to spend the last two hours watching the sunrise over Thailand. The colors of the sky were out of this world. From the horizon line up the colors were a bright, orangish- red, a bright sunflower yellow color, and a small strip of dark, navy blue at the top all surrounded by black. All the clouds in the sky were simply silhouettes and my breath had been taken away from me fro the sheer beauty I was lucky to witness.
As time passed, the yellow and red sections slowly blended together to create the most beautiful bright yellowish orange and the sky slowly turned to blue. As I was watching the sunrise I thought about how my family back in Philadelphia would be seeing some sort of variation of this once they woke up Friday morning.
When we landed I had to go through customs in Thailand which was a very easy process ,and lucky for me, I got there right before the long line.
The difficult part was having to re-check in and get my boarding pass to go to Chiang Mai, which was not given to me with my other boarding passes in Philadelphia. So, I spent the first 20 minutes trying to find the Bangkok Airways desk when a kind worker helped me out. Then, I had to explain to the worker how I simply just need a boarding pass to Chiang Mai because I never received it when my boarding passes were first given to me. Then, I had to continue to explain that I was not checking a bag because it was already supposed to be checked all the way to Chiang Mai.
This is where I got nervous. Already, I was freaking out that my bags were going to get lost because that would be my luck, and now there is a chance that I royally screwed up checking my bag and picking it up in the correct location.
However, once again, it all worked and I was given a sticker to inform the people in Chiang Mai I needed to go to where the international bags were since they were originally checked not in Thailand.
Once everything was sorted out and I was through security again, I stopped at a little food court where I as able to use my Baht for the first time. In case you don’t know, Baht is the currency in Thailand.
While I was walking through this little food court I loved seeing that in a container where in the states you would most likely find bottled drinks, were legitimate coconuts! How awesome is that? As well, seeing the typical local flavors of fruit drinks made was interesting to me because instead of seeing the typical berry smoothies like you would in the states, the flavors included pineapple, mango, kiwi, melon, etc.—these also happen to be my personal favorite flavors.
At one of the stands I chose to order a Kiwi Melon smoothie and it is absolutely delicious! While ordering the smoothie, the worker had difficulty understanding which one I wanted, even though I said what was listed on the menu. However, eventually she got it right and my smoothie was ready to go!
It’s kind of funny because the same way I have been having very minor difficulties understanding non-English speakers is probably the same way they feel when they hear me talk. In fact, while I was in the Doha airport and the Bangkok airport, I was finally able to understand what it is like to be the minority.
I was surrounded by people who were all speaking different languages from me, none of them I could understand. Well, maybe one day I will learn a few more languages and be able to communicate with more people. If anything I have learned to sympathize with those who basically have no idea what is going on around them.
Have a wonderful day!
Hannah
Hannah On the Go 