Journey to Africa, pt.1

hello all!

Sorry it’s been so long since my last post, my transition to South Africa took some time. But I’m here, I’m in Africa!!! Now that things are settling I have so much to write about so I’ll have to do it in a series of posts.

First off, the journey from Cambodia was long but not awful. I flew from Phnom Penh to Bangkok on Sunday with plans to see the city on Monday morning. I checked into the airport hotel and during the night there was a huge storm. The bad weather continued the next day, plus the hotel was really nice and I was in desperate need of a rest between my continental adventures so I decided to just chill in the hotel and check out late. Here are a few things I noticed are different about Thailand vs. Cambodia from the airport/hotel/road between:

• They use their own money
• They have change (no coins in Cambodia)
  
• The signs are in Thai first, English second
  
• The airport is super luxe
  
• Starbucks!!! (sorry Khaldon, I couldn’t find any Bangkok mugs)
  
• They drive on the wrong side of the road
  
• You don’t have to pay $25 to get out of the country and you don’t have to pay anything to get in either.

I checked in and next to me was a Thai couple checking like six boxes with “FARGILE” written in huge red letters on the side. It took everything I had not to laugh out loud. 

The BKK airport is beautiful. It just opened in Sept 2008 and they really paid attention to every detail. There are huge golden murals in baggage claim, temples in the hallways, every luxury brand you can imagine, and even pictures of gods sketched into the glass in the gates. It’s beautiful. However, it does not have free wifi so I hate it. While waiting for my flight I sat at a Starbucks watching movies on my computer. *Note: BKK airport has a lot of Boots drugstores in case you are in need of some last minute items.   They also have a Burger King and I was soooo happy to have my first Whopper Jr. and fries in a long time.

I flew Thai Air to Hong Kong and had quite a nice flight. Below is a list of reasons I heart Thai Air:

• Free alcohol
  
• Man walking down the aisles with tray of cognac after the meal. Yes, in coach
  
• Real tea with fresh milk. After three months of condensed milk which results in cakes like buttery bricks, coffee like sweet sludge and bottled water with breakfast, I finally had real tea (no Lipton grossness) and FRESH MILK. Hallelujahs people, hallelujahs.
  
• George Clooney featurette

2.5 hours later I landed in HK with about an hour to catch my flight. Purportedly the HK airport is bigger than Hong Kong itself (slight exaggeration) so I was unsure about my chances. It didn’t help that I only got a ticket to HK at BKK, I didn’t understand why I hadn’t gotten boarding passes all the way through. I got off the flight with a plan:

• Step 1- find gate number
  
• Step 2- run
  

Coming out of the runway I saw people with signs, which I thought was odd since limo drivers don’t pick you up at the gate. Turns out they were people holding signs for people with close transfers and one of the signs said, “Calvin, Miss Kat. Johannesburg”.   Woohoo!! A remarkable and incredibly tiny woman hurried through the gate (she was hurrying, I was following at a leisurely stroll- she had small legs) and led me down the long hallway to the train. She then gave me directions for where to get off and hurried back. I got on the train, went down one stop, and got off at what turned out to be the transfer gate. 

Apparently everyone in HK who is transferring flights has to go to a special gate for their boarding passes. It is beyond stupid. I waited in line as my flight time tick tick ticked away and eventually it was my turn. I got my boarding pass, ran down another hallway, went through- I swear on all that is holy- the slowest security checkpoint in history, ran up the stairs, past the super swank duty free line, saw my first black person in weeks and knew I must be getting close to South Africa Air, and found my way to gate 22 with ten minutes to spare. Just enough time to take advantage of the free wifi to tweet about the free wifi and email my mom. Yaay to the yaay. HK is awesome at having escorts if you’re running late but sucky at not making you run late. I would bet good money that everytime unemployment gets high they just build another checkpoint at the airport and hire 50 people to run the foreigners to their gates. Whatevs, I made it and I was finally going to AFRICAAAA!!!!

Next up:  Arrival.

Travel well,

kat

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