We’re in Bangkok for the rest of this week!
D and I are on a flight to Thailand for a short vacation. As always, the flights are the worst part of our travel plan (no, Spring Airlines, don’t get on the loudspeaker and try to sell me an electric shaver at 1am while I’m so desperately trying to sleep) but D booked a us a hotel that can only be reached by boat, and I really cannot wait to get there (and not sleep at 90º angles). We’ll be visiting temples, going on a few floating market rides through the city, and eating our weight in pad thai (though judging by my last trip to Phuket, I may reconsider that idea). I am already kicking myself for leaving my Kindle at home (especially after just getting into “Snow Falling on Cedars”) but I did manage to bring cooling under eye patches from Taiwan on the flight, and they are making my under-eye area feel like it is being massaged by a soda can straight out of the fridge, which makes the whole red eye thing much easier to handle
Episodes of forgetfulness aside (I was all over the place today after having to drop off our puppy with friends and accidentally scootering to the wrong gym for that TRX class I’ll be feeling tomorrow), I’ve gotten packing for trips in China down to a science.
- A Kindle. On long flights, I love reading travel memoirs or Michael Crichton novels (or that one time I accidentally downloaded a cookbook and read the entire thing out of boredom/desperation)
- Wet Wipes (but you’re already carrying wet wipes in China whenever you go, right?)
- Hand Sanitizer (see above)
- Movies. Always three – a horror film, a documentary, and a superhero movie to gently fall asleep to.
- Neck pillow (another thing I forgot on this flight!)
- Under-eye roller cream or under eye pads, so as to not look like you’ve just landed from a red-eye flight
- A scarf to cocoon under
- Face Mist
- Hand lotion
- Melatonin (save this one for the 16-hour flights)
One more thing:
If you are going to take one thing away from this entry, let it be this: the cardinal rule of flying in and out of China is to never use the airplane bathroom after the first hour of the flight.
I am certain there have been massacres cleaner than Chinese plane bathrooms. Somewhere between the meal service and the drink service something happens. The plane enters the twilight zone. It is then that a single person decides to squat on the toilet seat instead of sitting down, which leads to the next several hours of squatting/missing the seat/always failing to lock the bathroom doors. For the sake of your sanity, and if you still want to keep loving China, stay away from that bathroom.
Ha ha. Try and stay away from all China’s public toilets I say!!!
Got to love Chinese toilets, especially on a plane…
I don’t even want to think back about the toilets each flight to and from China 😮
My favorite airplane bathrooms are the ones in the United airlines airports on the way to the states. The doors are meant to be pushed in to open but the signs are only in English, so there’s always a confused ayi that stands before the door for minutes trying to figure it out.
I did not even know that there are different doors than that 😮