Now it's time for the second installment of Darin's travel horror stories. Buckle up, it might take a bit. The group and I had just finished a great day at the Stone Forest and we all had a good night's sleep. When Peter went online to book a hostel, he also checked his email. He received a note from his mom that recent terror threats had occurred at the Bangkok airport and that American citizens should not travel into Thailand. If they do, they should use extreme caution and contact the embassy. This is the good news that started off our day. Since we had been pretty disconnected to the news and current events, we didn't know how serious these threats were or if the attacks had been carried out. Apparently, they caught the first guy who planned to set off a bomb, but the second guy was still on the loose. Our plane tickets were booked and we took the note of caution, but continued with our plans to Thailand. (I kept this story from my mother until now for various reasons.)
When it was time to depart the hostel and say farewell to the big group, Peter, Andy, and I continued on with our massive, heavy bags to hail a taxi and start our short jog to the airport. We planned to leave the hostel 3 hours before our flight's departure time to leave us plenty of time at the airport just in case anything went wrong. Oh, it definitely was not according to plan from here to Bangkok.
The airport was about a half-hour away by taxi and we were in the downtown of Kunming so finding a taxi would be easy, right? Wrong. Every taxi we saw was occupied and every free taxi was picking up people who shoved their way in front of us or could easily run to the taxi without huge bags on their backs. Yes, we were running after taxis. We tried different streets, splitting up, but after 45 minutes we still had no taxi. Kunming is not that large of a city, but it was now beginning to be rush-hour. Our next option was the bus system. The three of us have become professionals in Wuhan, so with a phone call to our friends still at the hostel we asked for a bus number and stop info. They had local knowledge from the hostel check-in desk.
We got on the bus and figured out at which stop to get off and transfer to the next bus line which would take us to the airport. At this point I will thank Him for technology, the capability to text Chinese characters, and friends with exceptional language skills to get things right. After serveral texts and phone calls, we got off at the right stop. Now we just had to transfer to the next line, go three stops, and then go into the airport. It was now about 5:45, our flight left the runway at 7 pm, we were still doing alright. It would be close, but the traffic was better on the outskirts of town and we were almost there.
COMMERCIAL: Check out Peter's blog (on the left) to read about the 16 hour train ride from another perspective. He includes a video which might help you visualize our adventure.
We ran into traffic again: construction. After three stops we got off and looked around, but it didn't look like the airport at all. In fact, it looked a lot like the street and building where we got on this bus. It was the same building and the same street only, we were on the exact opposite side of the street. We had just got on a bus, gone three stops to the airport stop like the bus maps said, but we got off on the other side of the street where we just got on in the first place! We pointed to the bus sign with the list of stops showing concerned and confused looks. We pleaded with the Kunmingers around us to tell us how to get to the airport stop by a series of points, arms thrown up in the air, and broken Chinese words. They pointed to the other side of the street and back in the direction from which we had just come. This road which we were on was like a major interstate/highway in America. This means that there was no real "legal" way of crossing safely. The slender Chinese citizens could fit through the fence sideways, but our "stronger" builds could not fit and it was a bit too tall and unreliable to jump.
We had to go down the road a bit and cross through a break in the fence line. We threw our luggage over and played Frogger among the traffic to get to the bus stop we arrived at 20 minutes ago. It was now just after 6 pm and we were within an hour of our international flight leaving the airport! We got back on the same bus and found out it was only one stop and not three. This bus just happened to say the English name of the stop too.
The three of us hustled to the check-in desk, which was empty, scrambled through customs and security, which was empty, and made it to our gate at the scheduled boarding time for the flight. 10 minutes later we found out that our flight was delayed until 9:30 pm. Now it was two hours of waiting instead of immediate boarding. The Father has a sense of humor and reminds us who is in control at all times. We finally got off the runway around 10 pm en route to Hong Kong to make our connection. The original flight plan had us spending two hours in the Hong Kong airport, but that time had evaporated in Kunming while we waited for the HK flight. As we went along, I did the math in my head and the connecting flight in Hong Kong was scheduled to depart before our estimated time of arrival in Hong Kong. If we missed our connecting flight in HK, we would miss our flight the next morning to Phuket from Bangkok. The connecting flight was crucial.
I informed the flight attendants and they assured me that we would be first off the plane and escorted right to our gate for quick departure. We were the first off the plane and we did get escorted to our gate, but that flight was delayed too. We sat for another 20 minutes to catch our breath before departing from HK to Bangkok. It was now about 1 am. Do you see how this is all working out no matter how bad it seems to get for us?
We arrived safely in Bangkok around 3 am and slept until our check-in time of 6:30 am. We slept in the airport; the same airport which just days earlier was dubbed a terrorist threat and dangerous for American travelers. When has He ever left you? When will he forsake you? Our Father and Brother are always with us, guiding, protecting, and guarding our lives. And when harm befalls us, we look to him for help and he saves us. That is why He came, that is why he will come back: to save us. Wherever we are, He is always with us, now and forever.
