Last night our plane left from Chiang Rai, Thailand to Hanoi, Vietnam, with an overnight stop in Bangkok airport.
Because our flight didn’t leave until 9:30pm, we had the whole day to finish exploring the city of Chiang Rai. It’s a good thing too.
Otherwise, we would have missed this random parade.
And one more plate of mango and sticky rice.
And seeing the clocktower show one more time.
Mostly though, we stayed in the hotel room and worked.
When we got to Chaing Rai airport, and were waiting in the departure lounge for our plane to start boarding, we heard a rumbling.
At first I thought it was an airplane taking off or landing. Then, I was concerned because it was really loud.
Too loud to be an airplane. Then, the ground started moving. Not in a shaking way, but in a roller-coaster-up-and-down way. Then we saw the windows of the airport start to flex and wave. We weren’t that concerned though, until everyone in the airport started running for the exit.
What we felt was the 7.8 earthquake that hit the border of Thailand and Burma.
Thankfully we were safe, there was no damage. And our plane left only about 10 minutes late (mostly because everyone who ran had to go through security again).
When we got to the Bangkok airport, we only had about 5 hours between when arrived and when our next plane would take off. So, we sought out a quite spot (Baskin Robins), and Jonathan worked while I napped.
There was a massive line for checking in the next morning. If you’re flying out of Bangkok, I recommend that you get there 3 hours before your flight, as we were already checked in (just had to drop off our bags), and we waited for over 1 hour.
But, we did get to see these crazy big statues! See me? I’m riding the escalator right next to them.
See you in Hanoi!
An experience you’ll never forget! I’m so glad you’re safe!
Wow! How crazy is that. Glad that nothing terrible happened!
WOW! A 7.8 is rather huge. Good thing the center was far away.
I was only in a 5 on island of Vanuatu, & scared me like crazy.
Hongkong keeps having them. Seems like a lot more than usual around the globe now days? Take care. Thailand is the most unusual and beautiful of anywhere I think. Big statues like the one by the elevator are all
over the Thairland GRAND PALACE–I HOPE you went there.
We did go to the Grand Palace. Absolutely fascinating. We found Thailand great, though polluted and highly influenced by Western influences… we found Vietnam to have more of it’s authenticity still intact. But the Thai food… oh, the Thai food. So delish!