Monday, October 25, 2010
This morning I had a long bus ride from Sukhothai to Bangkok (where I'm meeting my tour - can't believe I'm on the last three weeks of my trip in Asia). My bus left at 7:45am, so I had to leave the hotel at 6:30am to make sure I arrived at the station on time. For second-class, the bus was nicer than I expected and I spent most of the ride listening to podcasts (which I only just discovered. They are fabulous!). At the bus station, it proved hard to get a taxi who could understand where I needed to go, but a young local girl helped me out. Got to hotel around 4pm and found out that my roommate was already checked-in. I went to the room in nervous anticipation and met my roommate for the next 3 weeks, Roslyn a 45-year old Australian nurse. She didn’t stop talking for the two hours before we had our group meeting, even though she was trying to watch TV. I hope this isn’t a glimpse of the next three weeks.
There’s Donna and Norm, 68 and 70 respectively, from Canada, Elizabeth and Jacek, in their 50s, from Canada (although they’re originally from Poland and still have their accents after 20+ years in Canada), and Ellie, 43 from Athens. That puts me 16 years younger than the next youngest person. Not that age matters, but it would have been nice to have someone a bit closer to my age. Oh well. Some people seem nice enough, although it’s definitely an interesting mix of people.
The most important aspect however is the tour guide, and J.P. seems awesome. He’s been leading tours all over the world for the last 13 years and grew up in Norway. The introduction meeting lasted an hour, and we had 30 minutes to hang out before walking to dinner. J.P. took us to a great Thai restaurant where I ordered squid in a red curry. Everyone seems friendly, but its not necessarily the group I would have picked for three weeks. Don’t think this group will ever live up to the wonderful companions I had on the Trans-Mongolian.
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| The group - Me, Elizabeth, Jacek, Elli, Roslyn, Donna, Norm |
Tomorrow we have a very early morning wake-up, 3:45am to go to the airport for our flight to Myanmar. Can’t wait to get there!
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