Greetings (Sawadeekaa) from Chiang Mai, Thailand. After two of the longest days of my entire existence, we finally arrived here around lunchtime today. That’s midnight the day before back at home. I apologize in advance if this post doesn’t make sense or rambles, but I’ve collectively had about 12 hours of sleep since Thursday night.

Getting out of Nashville was a nightmare. Because they cancelled the earlier Chicago flight, they rerouted too many of them to our flight. They came on the PA when it was time to board and said they were overbooked and needed four people to volunteer to take a later flight or they would begin bumping people. This is United, by the way. I do not recommend that you ever try to fly United out of Nashville. They were extremely unpleasant about this whole thing.

Since almost everyone on the flight was with our group, and those remaining apparently also had connectors, they didn’t get four volunteers. So one of our guys was called up to be bumped. An older gentleman was also called up. He and his wife were trying to get to Vancouver to board their 50th anniversary cruise that they’d been planning forever. Two of our guys volunteered to stay behind so Tony wouldn’t have to travel by himself and the couple could get to their cruise. They ended up flying a completely different route, but they got bumped up to business class, so it turned out to be a pretty sweet deal for them.

Anyway, we were two hours late leaving Nashville. We were supposed to have a 2-hour layover in Chicago, so you can see the dilemma. Once we got on the runway, the pilot came on and said Chicago had put out a ground stop on all incoming flights, so we had to sit out there for about 30 more minutes. Once we got in the air, it was literally one of the worst flights I have ever been on. It seemed like it was the flight attendant’s first day. But she was cute and funny, so she got a pass. But it also seemed like the pilot was kind of new. We weebled and wobbled on that landing worse than I have ever encountered. I’ve never been so happy to get off of a plane.

Apparently United decided that it was too many people to leave behind (about 25 total) so they actually did hold our flight in Chicago. They changed the gate so we would be as close as possible, and they were strategically stationed all along the route cheering us on to our departing gate. We got on the plane, they shut the doors and we were gone. No time for bathrooms or calling home or anything. But we were so thankful that they held our flight for us!

After that, the trip was pretty smooth sailing. Our flight to Tokyo ended up being a little over 12 hours. I was able to sleep for about two. We arrived in Tokyo around 4:00 p.m. local time (2:00 a.m. in Nashville) It was a very, very nice airport. We had a 2-hour layover there, and I spent most of it walking around, trying to get the circulation moving again.

Our flight to Bangkok took off about 6:30 p.m. and arrived around 11:30, 2 time zones earlier, so it was about a 6-hour flight. We had a guy from our team meet us there and help us get to our hotel for an overnight stay. That was a huge help, because we were all too tired to even think. The airport kept our luggage for us, so we didn’t have to go through customs until we arrived in Chiang Mai today.

The hotel accommodations in Bangkok were a little gross. There were some bug issues in the bathroom, and it just felt kind of dirty all around. But for that matter, so did Bangkok. There is a very oppressive spirit about that city. We left the hotel around 8:00 a.m. and headed back to the airport for our 10:30 flight to Chiang Mai.

The flight this morning was lovely and uneventful. We met back up with the team that flew threw Newark because they are going to Hong Kong for a few days after our conference. A couple of our group was there to meet us this morning and bring us to the Lotus Hotel. Jeff and I got stopped going through Customs and they searched our conference bag that had supplies in it. They kind of put us through the third degree, and we were getting really nervous, but I looked over at Jeremy and he was nodding and telling me not to worry about it. I think the guys were kind of just messing with us. It was a slow morning for customs.

So we arrived here at the hotel and were greeted in an amazing way by all the team members who were already here. We had a short orientation meeting and got checked into our rooms. Our room, by the way, is AMAZING! I won’t be able to post pictures due to a really slow internet connection until I get home, but just trust me. This is not suffering in any way!

Our hotel is connected to a mall, so we actually ate Pizza Hut for lunch. But their Pizza Hut is much different from ours. It has a full menu, with things like mussels and shrimp on it. Quite interesting. On Sundays there is a huge street market, so most of us loaded up in these roofed pick-up trucks and headed over there this afternoon. I was able to buy some really fun souvenirs. But it is so hot. I feel every bit like I haven’t had a shower in four days.

We were attempting to stay up until 8:00 p.m. so that we could get a great night of sleep and be ready to go tomorrow. I’ve now accomplished that goal, so that’s going to be it for now. I’ll post as I’m able.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. Please keep them up. Tomorrow will be a full day getting everything set up for the conference. The folks who arrive tomorrow will not have any down time like we have had, because the conference starts bright and early Tuesday morning. Pray for some extra energy for those guys.

Sawadeekaa!