To See the World: Farewell

March 17^th

The night before left all of us unprepared for the 5 AM wake up call that arrived far sooner than it should have. I stumbled out of bed to pack my suitcase one last time before departing Hong Kong and China, for good. Though I didn’t purchase an awful lot of souvenirs, my stuff far exceeded available space, forcing me to book passage for some of it in a friend’s suitcase. The group convened at 5:30 AM in the lobby of the Salisbury Hotel with sleep lingering on all of our faces. We boarded the bus one final time for a ride to the airport with our gregarious tour guide Andy, who had a knack for being the most enthusiastic during our peak points of exhaustion. As Athul once put it, “does anyone have some ibuprofen or a baseball bat?”

Because Brad and I were going to Thailand, we all parted ways in the airport as the rest of the group was continuing back to the States. After spending 2 weeks with all of these people who I previously barely knew, it was sad to leave knowing that we would return to our normal lives and lose the comradery that comes from traveling with people. Alex was also traveling separately, so the three of us shared a breakfast of Popeye’s in the Hong Kong airport. After several hours of waiting around, it was finally time for us to board our flight to Bangkok. The time in China was wonderful but heavily scheduled and exhausting; I welcomed the chance to get to Thailand and move at my own pace.

Brad and I arrived in Bangkok safely, managed to purchase train tickets, switch over to the metro, and arrive at our hostel (which was tucked away in a winding alleyway off of the main street). Needless to say, I was extremely impressed with us for making it with hardly any complication. The hostel was beautiful, spacious, and our room had air conditioning. The heat in Bangkok was shocking and oppressive after the moderate 60 something degree weather in Southern China. As it is probably well known, I am not a hot weather person and typically suffer miserably when faced with 80+ temperatures. Despite some moderate wining, I fared pretty well in the 100 degree, sunny weather in Bangkok (you know despite constantly being drenched in my own sweat and the swollen hands and feet).

We were both tired but forced ourselves out of the room to forage for dinner. At Brad’s request we took a tuk tuk to Khao San, the street of choice for backpackers, to find some dinner and be bombarded by salespeople hawking any number of hilarious and useless items. Not knowing what we were doing, we ambiguously picked a restaurant and went for it. Because I am obsessed with Thai curry, I knew immediately what I was going to order. I was nervous that it would be different from what I was used to however it did not disappoint. The first night was a wonderful celebration of incredible, cheap food and the fact the we finally made it to Thailand!