It has been a long day and a half! Jon and I left our hotel in Zimbabwe at 9 am after a delcious breakfast at "Carnivore" to head to the airport with Kim and Dave. We were dropped off at the Vic Falls airport by our taxi driver after he explained that they've been making huge updates to the airport. We stood in llne for about 30 minutes before getting to the counter...and being told we needed to go to the NEW section of the airport instead of the old. Awesome. At least we had been 3 hours early!
It only took a few minutes to get through "security" as there was basically no one else in the entire airport. When we got to the gate we decided to get coffee and water since we had a little while to wait. The bill came to $5 and we handed the waitress a $20, to which she said "how long do you have to wait for change?" We told her our flight was in 2 hours and she said "great!" and then proceeded to walk away. Thirty minuates later she still didn't have $15 change to give us. FINALLY someone else paid with USD and we were able to leave the cafe!
From there we boarded our uneventful 2 hour flight to South Africa, before a 5 hour layover. For 5 hour we played cards, hung out, Jon had a few beers, and we surfed the web, before going through security again (not quite sure why...) and then heading off to...Abu Dhabi! We were in the Abu Dhabi airport for about 3 hours, fortunately with fantastic internet which allowed me to update our blog a bit before boarding our final flight toooooooo Bangkok!
After countless movies, card games, music, and a bit of sleep over the course of 6 hours, we arrived in Bangkok at 5:30 pm on January 25 (Bangkok is 5 hours ahead of Central Africa time...) We gathered our bags and got quickly through customs. On the other side we were THRILLED to find Nath (Jon's friend from college) at the airport waiting to take us to our hotel!
But first we had dinner...at the airport :-p.
Not gonna lie, when Nath suggested we eat at the airport my first thought was "This can't be any good" followed quickly by "This is going to be expensive." We entered a cafeteria and Nath exchanged Thai Baht (their currency) into "coupons" for food. You get the coupons, give them to whatever vendor you want food from, and then at the end of your meal you can change back the coupons you didn't use for Baht again. At the end of each month, the vendors can exchange their coupons for cash. Pretty interesting.
So Nath treated us to dinner (where we were more than a little overwhelmed). The cafeteria had HUNDREDS of people in it, packed tables, and NOTHING written in English (I know, I know, we're in Thailand but it's VERY intimidating to not know what you're ordering (luckily we have Nath!)) Nath ordered me some Pad Thai and Jon got chicken and rice.
Grand total for our two meals?
$2.30. Seriously.
I asked Nath if he liked to cook and he basically said that ALL meals are that cheap around Thailand, so it's kind of pointless to cook or buy your own food when you can have every single meal freshly prepared for you. Ummmmmmm that sounds amazing. BRING ON THE THAI CUISINE!
After dinner we drove the hour to our hotel. We are staying about 40 minutes outside of the city in a hotel by where Nath lives. Not necessarily my first choice, but it will probably be nice to be away from the hustle of the city (especially since right now Jon and I are moving at a MUCH slower pace having coming directly from Eastern Africa!) After about 10 minutes in the car I fell asleep on the way to the hotel. Major bummer for me considering it's now midnight, Jon has been asleep for three hours, and I can't fall asleep thanks to my nap in the car!
Hoping I can fall asleep soon!!!
Jess' highlight of the day: meeting up with Nath and the first of MANY pad thais :)
Jon's highlight of the day: seeing Nath
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