Note:  Thanks to Joanne for inviting me to post this little travel adventure.  This is my first trip to Asia. The adventure began this past weekend (1/16/2016) when I flew to LA to meet my nephew, Steve, who flew in from Atlanta. We boarded Saturday morning for the long haul to Tokyo’s Narita Airport. We’ll be meeting up with a third guy, Bob, who is an Air Force pal of mine. Forty odd years ago Bob and I were very happy to spend three of our four Air Force years in England.  As life’s ironies work out, Bob is over here scouting Thailand as a possible part-time home. I’m here just for fun!
Part 1. The Flight and Arrival

25 hours of travel and 15 time zones later, here I am in Bangkok. Blessed with the somnifacient power of an Alka Seltzer Plus night time caplet, I managed to escape into a fairly restful, if interrupted sleep on the nearly 8 hour flight from Tokyo to Bangkok. I remember the beginning of the take off roll from Narita, waking once to eat dinner and once for necessities. Apparently the change in the background noise awakened me at the top of the descent into Bangkok. I still managed to doze until we touched down. There were dim memories of turbulence and I occasionally awakened to alternately crack my neck from the slumped forward sleeping position to the dropped back. Remarkably, it was still a fairly effective sleep.
Meeting my nephew, Steve, at the end of the jetway, we found ourselves in an airport much like any other. As with Narita, English language subtitles were featured on most Thai signs. The proportion of westerners in both airports made me wonder if we’d actually left Los Angeles. However, as Steve pointed out, Bangkok smelled better.
The cab ride into town was notable for the unusual ¾ disc of the moon, hanging low in the midnight sky, its top portion removed by means I’ve yet to understand, or see again. The modern divided highway running into Bangkok was a feature of the uniformity of our global village. However, the areas it coursed through were distinctly third world. As we came into town we noted a stretch of ground under the freeway inhabited by sleeping homeless figures, lying like familiar looking rocks in the urban no man’s land. No shopping carts or tarps, just sleeping human forms in shorts. We approached our hotel destination distressed to see the surrounding neighborhood looking like the aftermath of the apocalypse.
However as we turned off the street, we entered a zone that promised some hopeful prosperity. A closed, but upscale shop followed by a small lighted building that looked like it might be a shrine greeted us as we approached the granite and teak towers of the Prince Palace hotel.
After checking in and a heavenly shower, we convened in Steve’s room for some room service. He negotiated the order and before long we were enjoying a made to order omelets, fried pork goodies and a fiery veggie dish. Steve ordered eggs that were steeped in a fish sauce that was too steep a gustatory gradient for either of us to climb. No matter, it was off to bed about 4 AM.
At 8 AM this today, I realized that my sleep at 36K feet not only painlessly transported me across 1/3 of Asia, but it allowed me to wake ready for a proper breakfast while it was actually being served!
I headed off to the hotel restaurant for their buffet breakfast. I felt a little awkward passing tables of business suited Asian men, apparently fueling up for another Monday coaxing this Eastern phoenix to rise from its squalid past. The food was a tasty mix of East and West, eggs, noodles, tasty vanilla muffins along with the best tasting pineapple and watermelon I’ve ever enjoyed. Plate after plate, cup after cup of delicious strong coffee made me think I was enjoying a premonition of flavors to come.
Although the cost was exorbitant, at nearly $9 for breakfast, I enjoyed the welcome “Asia-lite” experience to begin my visit. I’m betting cheaper and even tastier delights await.
As I devoured the first ground food in nearly two days I enjoyed the panoramic view of downtown Bangkok framed in the gleaming granite of the hotel dining room. Before long, the serious horde of Asian businessmen and khaki clad officials vanished and the more bedraggled tee shirt and shorts of the western holiday crowd filled the tables. Suddenly I blended in!
The view over the shoulders of my fellow diners out into downtown reinforced the impression of a rising phoenix. Corrugated tin roofs seemed to be losing ground to grand towers and cranes that dominated the skyline. The stark contrasts of the third world were obvious even from the sanitary distance of this upscale restaurant.
We’ll be entering that world in a little while.