Our evening began in Doha. It was the first day of the Eid celebrations and, let me just say, the Qataris do NOT mess around when it comes to fire works. The entire sky was lit up like a lantern and the traffic was at a dead stop heading towards our house. Our friend Jenne drove us to the airport and was dreading having to sit in that crap, so she took a long way home, albeit much faster.
Our flight left at 11:30pm and we arrived in Mumbai at 7:30am. With the time change, the flight was 4.5 hours...and it SMELLED. Some lady was changing her baby's poopy diaper in the row in front of us repeatedly. Also, they served Indian food as the dinner...the entire plane smelled. But, to cover the stench, the flight attendants walked through the cabin spraying bathroom spray. No shit...full on, in your face, Lysol. They DID, ever so nicely, warn us to cover our faces and close our eyes if we wore contacts, so there's that.
Sidenote: Mumbai is probably the most poverty-stricken city I have ever seen. I've seen homeless people and shacks in Texas, but these were on a whole other level. Their houses, if you want to call them that, were built out of plywood, stacked on top of each other, three or four stories tall.
The next flight was 3.5 hours to Bangkok. Nothing exciting happened on this flight. I had an entire row to myself and slept the entire time...so did Brian. We were wide awake for the last leg of our trip from Bangkok to Phuket. It was only an hour and I stared out the window the entire time. It was surreal to see landscape...real, green, rolling hills....with clouds in the sky.
Upon arriving in Phuket, we grabbed our luggage, went outside and waited for what we were told would be a man holding a sign saying, "Roan Party." There was no man and there definitely was no party. We had booked through Expedia and luckily, Brian found a man who was the Expedia rep standing outside. After 45 minutes of him calling everyone and their mother, we get in a car. So, we start driving...la-dee-dah....Brian looks at his snazzy new iPhone (which I thought was a waste of money) and realizes that we are going the wrong way on the highway. We were heading south instead of north. My panic button goes off and I start thinking of all the shitty scenarios I read about at JMAS (Embassy school) and in two seconds had come to the conclusion that we were being kidnapped to a pot forest to be held in a mud hut. I digress. The driver does not speak English and we do not speak Thai. Brian calls the hotel and makes them talk to the guy and he says he understands...but does not turn around. OH MY GOD WE ARE BEING KIDNAPPED. While I'm stewing in my overreaction, Brian uses the Translate app on his iPhone and tells the guy we need to turn around and shows him on the map where we need to go. LIGHTBULB! So, we turn around...then he pulls over to the side of the road to call his home base, I suppose, to tell them he's going to take longer. I think he's calling to tell them he can't kidnap us because we are so difficult. Either way, in my mind, we were going to be safe....until we sat there for, no shit, 45 minutes. 45, people. The only good/cool thing about this part was that I saw a baby elephant in the back of a truck. Finally, I say, "I'm going to call the POLICE if you do not take us to the hotel right now." The car starts moving and we arrive at the hotel 35 minutes later. SOOOOOOOOO, 3 hours after we landed, we finally made it to the hotel.
Casa de la Flora, how I miss thee. It is the nicest, most beautiful hotel I have ever seen. We had our own house with an Infinity pool which was 5 feet from the beach. The bathroom had a tub that took 45 minutes to fill, but if you were at dinner and told the waiter you wanted a bath, they would fill it for you so it was full when you got back to the room. We had dinner, swam in the pool and went to sleep the first night. We were jet lagging and didn't feel like doing much. That concludes day 1....more to come soon! :)
Our flight left at 11:30pm and we arrived in Mumbai at 7:30am. With the time change, the flight was 4.5 hours...and it SMELLED. Some lady was changing her baby's poopy diaper in the row in front of us repeatedly. Also, they served Indian food as the dinner...the entire plane smelled. But, to cover the stench, the flight attendants walked through the cabin spraying bathroom spray. No shit...full on, in your face, Lysol. They DID, ever so nicely, warn us to cover our faces and close our eyes if we wore contacts, so there's that.
Sidenote: Mumbai is probably the most poverty-stricken city I have ever seen. I've seen homeless people and shacks in Texas, but these were on a whole other level. Their houses, if you want to call them that, were built out of plywood, stacked on top of each other, three or four stories tall.
The next flight was 3.5 hours to Bangkok. Nothing exciting happened on this flight. I had an entire row to myself and slept the entire time...so did Brian. We were wide awake for the last leg of our trip from Bangkok to Phuket. It was only an hour and I stared out the window the entire time. It was surreal to see landscape...real, green, rolling hills....with clouds in the sky.
Upon arriving in Phuket, we grabbed our luggage, went outside and waited for what we were told would be a man holding a sign saying, "Roan Party." There was no man and there definitely was no party. We had booked through Expedia and luckily, Brian found a man who was the Expedia rep standing outside. After 45 minutes of him calling everyone and their mother, we get in a car. So, we start driving...la-dee-dah....Brian looks at his snazzy new iPhone (which I thought was a waste of money) and realizes that we are going the wrong way on the highway. We were heading south instead of north. My panic button goes off and I start thinking of all the shitty scenarios I read about at JMAS (Embassy school) and in two seconds had come to the conclusion that we were being kidnapped to a pot forest to be held in a mud hut. I digress. The driver does not speak English and we do not speak Thai. Brian calls the hotel and makes them talk to the guy and he says he understands...but does not turn around. OH MY GOD WE ARE BEING KIDNAPPED. While I'm stewing in my overreaction, Brian uses the Translate app on his iPhone and tells the guy we need to turn around and shows him on the map where we need to go. LIGHTBULB! So, we turn around...then he pulls over to the side of the road to call his home base, I suppose, to tell them he's going to take longer. I think he's calling to tell them he can't kidnap us because we are so difficult. Either way, in my mind, we were going to be safe....until we sat there for, no shit, 45 minutes. 45, people. The only good/cool thing about this part was that I saw a baby elephant in the back of a truck. Finally, I say, "I'm going to call the POLICE if you do not take us to the hotel right now." The car starts moving and we arrive at the hotel 35 minutes later. SOOOOOOOOO, 3 hours after we landed, we finally made it to the hotel.
Casa de la Flora, how I miss thee. It is the nicest, most beautiful hotel I have ever seen. We had our own house with an Infinity pool which was 5 feet from the beach. The bathroom had a tub that took 45 minutes to fill, but if you were at dinner and told the waiter you wanted a bath, they would fill it for you so it was full when you got back to the room. We had dinner, swam in the pool and went to sleep the first night. We were jet lagging and didn't feel like doing much. That concludes day 1....more to come soon! :)
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