New York City to Luang Prabang, Laos: February 10-12, 2007

As I have been going on about ad infinitum on this blog, I took a trip to Southeast Asia last month. In case you are not as geographically nerdy as some, Southeast Asia is essentially located on the other side of the planet from New York -- there is, in fact, a 12-hour time difference, and it takes virtually the same amount of time to fly there whether you go west or east.

Naturally, it takes a long time to get there. When I was shopping around for tickets, the shortest itinerary was also the cheapest -- Thai Airways flys non-stop between New York and Bangkok in about 17 hours. So the flight to and from New York was pretty much a no-brainer. My first real "stop" on the trip was Luang Prabang, Laos, but in the absence of any direct flights there from the United States, Bangkok seemed the logical connecting point. At noon on February 11, I took off from New York.

The good things I heard about Thai Airways turned out to be true. There was plenty of leg room in economy class (for me, at least -- I make no promises to Shaquille O'Neal), and they served three meals. In the interests of excruciating detail, my first meal was cucumber salad with marinated baby shrimp, followed by grilled marinated chicken with teriyaki sauce, and chocolate cake. My second meal was a mixed green salad, pork in pa-naeng curry sauce, and a strawberry chocolate confection. The final meal was Pad Thai with prawns. They also went around offering wine (and after each meal, cognac) to everyone, and cup-of-noodles were available at the rear of the plane if you got hungry between meals.

The in-flight entertainment was pretty voluminous. I watched a movie and an episode of America's Next Top Model, but, as is my tendency, I read for most of the flight.

I can't prove it, but I suspect the guy next to me may have been going to Thailand for shady purposes. My proof? (1) He was middle-aged; (2) he appeared to be travelling alone; (3) he watched "Titanic"; (4) he said all of two words the entire flight (one of which was a grunted "sorry" when, in his sleep, he slammed his elbow into my ribs); (5) he had a little white canvas duffle bag as his carryon; and (6) he chose the fish for one of the meals, proving he never saw the movie "Airplane" and thus has lived in some sort of bubble his whole life. Creepy.

Among the flight's other delights was the Skymap, where you could track the plane's progress as the flight went on. I was taken a little by surprise, as the map on Thai Aiways' website suggested the flight would go eastward. When the pilot got on the intercom at the beginning of the flight, however, he mentioned that we would be flying over countries such as Sweden, Afghanistan, and India, none of which are located between New York and Thailand if you're flying westward. Anyway, the flight, though long, was without incident.

When I landed and got through customs, around 5:30 p.m. or so on February 11 (the magic of timezones!), someone from my guesthouse (the owner's son) was there with a sign to meet me and drive me to where I was staying. I know the new Bangkok airport has gotten reviews that are almost universally bad, but at least at this point, it looked fine to me.

I stayed overnight at the Sanawan Palace Guesthouse, which had a nifty-looking pool, though the rooms were a little shabby for the price. As they are a little closer to the new airport than most of the guesthouses in town, I suspect they can charge a bit more. However, other than a big roach in the hallway on the way to my room, my stay was relatively creepy-crawly free (and I killed a mosquito with my bare hands!). As would be the case with most places I stayed, I had hot water and a shower which was really just a shower head and a drain in the bathroom. It did its job. I slept like the dead, and early the next morning, headed for the airport for my flight to Luang Prabang.

Once again, I saw few problems with the new airport (though, the woman at check-in, a trainee, got pretty confused about my e-ticket, necessitating some trips back and forth between counters while we all politely tried to fix the issue). Once I got through the first security check, I really should have gotten coffee, but foolishly, I went right to my gate. Since this requires another security check, and there are no restaurants after the second check, I was pretty much out of luck, and at the mercy of caffeine withdrawal, until I got on the plane.

As near as I can tell, the Bangkok to Luang Prabang route is essentially held by two airlines: Lao Airways and Bangkok Airways, so you can't really get a cheap flight there. I flew Bangkok, which was perfectly nice, and once I got my coffee, I even started to enjoy the experience. They had us on a little prop plane with vibrant fishies painted on the fuselage. The flight itself took about two hours.