Accommodations: Bizotel Premier Hotel

We arrived safe and sound in Bangkok after a very, very, long journey. We flew from Newark to Los Angeles (5 +hours) and after a few hours enjoying the United lounge, we boarded the next leg to Hong Kong, which took about 15-16 hours. We had to disembark the plane in Hong Kong so that a new crew could board and the plane could be cleaned. We kept our same seats but we had to take everything with us off the plane. The transfer went smoothly and we were back in flight in no time and finally arrived in Bangkok about 2 1/2 hours later. Whew!! In all, we’ve spent just about an entire day in the air.

I wore my boot for the flights since the doctor said I needed to have the boot with me in case the break acted up while I’m away. I’ve been in it for five weeks, so hopefully the wonky fractured calcaneus has healed totally and will behave nicely during the five weeks we’re touring. I’m hoping my boot can tour Southeast Asia in the comfort of my suitcase for the rest of the trip. Fingers crossed. We are traveling very light since laundry facilities will be available all over and unbelievably, my walking boot, which weighs over 2 lbs and goes almost to my knee, fits in the suitcase with room to spare.

We went through customs at the airport in Bangkok, claimed our luggage, and met our driver who then whisked us off to our hotel. The hotel is beautiful and everyone was very welcoming. We were given several bottles of water, since you cannot drink the tap water in Thailand. Our room has two full-queen beds so we can switch from bed to bed if we’d like. Lol!

We are here a day early before the rest of the tour group will be arriving, just so that we get acclimated to the change in time. That will take a few days.

We left the hotel to look for a restaurant for dinner. People all along the street were selling fish, vegetables, herbs, fruit…table after table laden with food. And everything looked so fresh. We came to the traffic light and when the light turned green for us, and the little man on the pole who counts down the seconds told us to go, we stepped into the crosswalk. Holy smokes!!! No car or motorbike (of which, by the way, there are thousands) stops, even though they have the red light and they see people want to cross who are actually…wait for it…IN THE CROSSWALK!!!! We crossed the street like the frog in the old video game Frogger – one step forward, three steps back and hoped we didn’t croak. It was exhilarating for sure.

We ate at Baam Ajarn and we shared spring rolls and then we ordered shrimp and vegetable dishes with rice. We also had a bottle of beer that was enough for both of us. The cost was a whopping 700 baht … about $22! Very inexpensive and very good.

Surprisingly in Thailand, they only use chopsticks with noodle dishes and for soup noodles. For other dishes, only a fork and spoon are used. They don’t provide knives at the table. Instead, you cut the food if necessary with the edge of your spoon, but most of the food is served in bite-sized pieces, so not much cutting is necessary. (I’m sure the chefs are happy that knives aren’t provided. Less chance of a dissatisfied customer storming the kitchen when the Tom Kha Gai doesn’t come out as promised!) 😳😂

The spoon is called ‘Chon’ in Thai and a fork is called ‘Som’. Thai etiquette says to take the spoon and hold it in your dominant hand and pick up a fork with the other. You put the spoon near the food on your plate you want to eat and use the backside of the fork to push the food onto the spoon. Then you raise the spoon to your mouth to eat it. You don’t put the fork in your mouth. Since rice is usually served with meals, you take a bit of rice as well as some of the main dish and push both onto the spoon. You also take small helpings from the main dish that you were served and put them on the smaller plate to eat. I was watching people around us eating and I think Allan and i did a passable job of consuming our dinner the Thai way.

Now it’s off to try to stay awake until our usual bedtime…which is about four hours from now. All I can say to that is…lotsa luck!!

Our room.

Sign in our hotel room. The durian is distinctive for its large size, strong odor, and thorn-covered rind. It apparently tastes delicious, but the smell is overpowering and therefore banned in many public places.

The food for sale along the street.

There were 8 spring rolls served, but we dove into them before I thought to take the pic.

Our shrimp dishes. We stayed with the familiar before venturing into more unusual dishes.

Our beer. You can also see in the pic how they served our cutlery.