Wednesday December 26 – Friday December 28, 2018
The Long Journey Across the Pacific
Los Angeles to Bangkok Thailand via Incheon (Seoul), S. Korea

The journey from Los Angeles to Bangkok is a long, long day of travel, It takes about 24 hours from leaving the house to arriving at the hotel in Bangkok. The drive to Los Angeles International is close to an hour, then it is advised to be at the airport 3 hours before international flights. The first flight from Los Angeles to Incheon (Seoul), S. Korea is a 11-1/2 hour flight, then a 3-hour layover in the Incheon airport, then the flight to Bangkok is 5-1/2 hours. Finally, with this being the high tourist season, there is a wait of about an hour to get through immigration in Thailand, followed by about another hour of travel from Suvarnabhumi airport to central Bangkok on the Airport Rail Link train and then the BTS Sky-Train.

We left from Susan’s house in La Crescenta at 6:00. Traffic along most of the way was reasonable for peak time the day after a holiday, but very, very crowded near and around the airport. It has been reported that today is the busiest travel day of the year, and at Los Angeles International, it looked very much like an extremely busy day. But with some creative routing, I was dropped at the International Terminal at 7 PM, fully half an hour early. The terminal was very busy, almost crowded, but I went through check-in, then security, and was at the gate at 7:30 PM, three hours before the flight, and little to do.

The gate from which the Korean Air flight to Seoul (Incheon) will leave had the following announcement:

I’ve been told that “Paris is always a good idea” and was tempted. But a short while after the flight to Paris boarded and left, the following appeared:

and I knew I was in the right place. More waiting, and finally we boarded. I was sitting next to a young lady who was traveling with her father to Phnom Penh, Cambodia to do an internship with an American clothing company who owns a manufacturing facility there. She will be there for 3 months. They had come from Dallas, and had been traveling much of the day, so after chatting for a short time, she fell asleep.

I seldom sleep on airplanes, and these long flights are thus challenging. I watched a couple of very forgettable movies, read some, and was very grateful when we were arriving at Incheon International Airport.  The Incheon airport is fairly new, about 12 years old. One of the really nice features is that they have an economy international transfer lounge. This has many reclined chairs for sleeping, a section with tables for laptops for using the internet, and a place where you can check out a towel, go into a private bathroom with a shower. I took advantage of the shower and felt much better after. Then I caught up on e-mail messages personal and from work, and made my way to search for a meal. There are many good food selections in this airport, and I found an uncrowded cafe with a cranberry-chicken sandwich with a cafe-latte for lunch:

Delicious!

After this very satisfying lunch (at 8 AM local time), I made my way to the gate for flight KE657 to Bangkok (to be followed by a flight to Rome).

This flight was on a Boeing 747-400 (I did not get a picture). I was a little surprised, because most airlines are retiring the 747s in favor of newer, far more efficient airplanes. The 747 got us to Bangkok just fine.

As we were leaving the plane, I could see that the Bangkok airport was very busy, busier than I can remember ever seeing this airport. When we got to immigration, the lines were very long. There were two lines, one for Chinese passports, and another for all other nationalities. The two lines were the same length, and half the passport control stations were for the Chinese passports. It appears that tourism is up in Thailand, and many of the tourists are from China.

Also, while we were taxiing to the terminal, I could see a massive construction project underway. I have learned that the current airport, opened in 2006, has a theoretical capacity of 45 million passengers per year, but actual usage shows the airport receiving over 60 million passengers. The expansion will be done in four phases, involving an investment of $2.5 Billion, and when all phases are complete around 2030, the capacity will handle over 150 million passengers per year, more than doubling the capacity. The project includes a second main passenger terminal, expanding boarding gates from 57 to 151, as well as a third runway. The construction I saw is the first phase, will add another 25 boarding gates and is expected to open in 2020

Once through immigration and baggage claim, I made my way to the Airport Rail Link, a train to the main part of the city, at the Paya Thai BTS Sky Train stop. A taxi to my hotel would cost about $40, or over 1200 THB. The Airport Rail Link is 45 THB and the Sky Train from Paya Thai to Ploen Chit (in front of my hotel) is 30 THB, for a total cost of about $2.50. And it is reasonably fast at less than an hour, though crowded.

So here is my hotel for two nights – The Novotel Ploen Chit:

I am here for two nights on the 25th floor. A nice room. I am very grateful that the air conditioning works, because Bangkok is hot and humid – far worse than I expected; it feels almost like being in a sauna. Wow! This will be an interesting 48 hours, and maybe a sweaty 48 hours.

Next: A full day sightseeing in Bangkok