Off to Asia!!!

Starting our Asia vacation on Monday (Feb 8). Took off from Seattle on Asiana on time at around 1. All excited because we haven't had a long vacation since our trip to Germany about a year and a half ago. Everything was fine until it was time for food when we discovered Asiana messed with the meal assignments and Sandhya couldn't get vegetarian food. She had to rummaging through smelly, fishy (really, it was fish) lunch/dinner to separate out the sticky rice (which she loves).

The flight was very, very long. 12 hours to Seoul and 6 more hours to Bangkok. All of course with no vegetarian food for Sandhya. We were delayed by an hour departing Seoul for Bangkok. We lost a day and arrived late on Tuesday night/early Wednesday (Feb 10) morning.

Other than then hitch with vegetarian food, service was excellent with Asiana. Don't see that kind of customer service with North American carriers.

Did I mention that this was also the start of the Chinese New Year? When we landed at Bangkok, the line up for Immigration was a mile long. A very large number of Chinese had decided to vacation in Thailand.

But I had to admire the Thai authorities for clearing such a mass of humanity expeditiously! Look at the crowd below! It only took them around 40 minutes to clear.

Chinese Revelers at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Thailand

The Gate1 guy was there to pick us up and get us transferred to the Hotel. Airport to Hotel took us almost an hour--not because of traffic, but just distance. Checking in was uneventful.