Landing in Hong Kong

3 hours on United from Denver to LA.  15 hours on Cathay Pacific from LA to Hong Kong.  I think 3 hours on Cathay Pacific from Hong Kong to Bangkok, but my memory is weak from this part of the trip, it was just a case of following airport signs to get to a gate number on a boarding pass.  The flights were in no way painful, but you certainly don't keep your brain heaviliy stimulated during the flight, the survial trick on a 15 hour flight is to keep it as non-active as possible, you really don't want to think too much about what is going on around you.  The entertainment system rocked, 100+ movies on demand.  I make a different kind of movie selection on a 15 hour flight than I would when going to Blockbuster for a night in at home.  On a flight I want something that is going to make me laugh whilst at the same time putting me to sleep.  There is nothing more satisfying than chuckling to a movie in an airline seats and making those around you twist their neck to see what you are watching.  The job has been well done when the chuckles alone convince a fellow passenger to changes channels to your movie.

We got into Bangkok airport at around noon on what I think was Friday.  A good sign that the trip is going well, you just don't know what day it is and have no care to know.  A reminder of Denver airport really, a newly designed set of functional gates with a material of sorts covering it.  I am sure that was Bangkok airport and not Hong Kong, really I am.  Hong Kong might of had some material domes as well, but Bangkok did for sure!  Immigration and customs was easy, but on exiting customs we were bombarded with tour company and taxi's.  I had been warned about this so we pressed on well past the taxi representatives.  I knew that there would be better options elsewhere.  After passing a second and third layer of taxi selling folks I negotiated a cool 500 baht (15 USD) for a ride to a hotel that I thought was within 15 minutes.  Nobody knew for sure where our 20USD a night hotel was but they figured it out.  

Airports are never good indicators of the country you have arrived in.  You have to step off the "International Airport" to start to know a place.  If I were to count airport stopovers as countries visited then my world travels would sound impressive, but I would know nothing at all about that country.  Stepping off from Bangkok airport was of course a great example of this, within minutes we were imerse in a culture driving on the left side of the road, traffic lights with countdown counters to tell drivers when the next change was coming and small pickups with large toppers in use on bus routes.  We weren't in Colorado anymore.