Clearing you out for some new delight

January 21, 2023

Flying home to Portland

Dear little friends,

I set the alarm but knew in my bones I would never need it. All the years I worked and set the alarm for 5:45, I nearly always woke up five minutes before, that’s how I roll. Our flight was at 9:45, the hotel had reserved a large taxi for us at 6, we needed to shower and get ourselves together. 4:30 am it was.

We hauled our large duffels and carry-on panniers and a daypack and a handlebar bag down the long hallway to the two tiny elevators. The driver was waiting and we got the bike boxes that we had left in the lobby the night before, and all the other stuff into the back of the taxi van. The night doorman was dozing upright in his chair, but the reception ladies returned our farewell wais and one of them came all the way out to the van to bid us farewell with the classic, “See you next time.” I love this farewell because I hate goodbyes, this one always has this beautiful polite fiction that there may actually be a next time. It leaves that open for us.

“Happy Chinese New Year”, the driver smirked to us. After a pause, “We have own Thai New Year, Songkran.”

“Yes, in April, with water,” I answered. “Happy Chinese New Year today.” Songkran involves a lot of splashing people with water, which is nice because April is the hottest, driest month of the year in Thailand. Not good for cameras or people who don’t relish splash water of questionable origin landing on or in us, or those of us who would die in Thai April heat, so I guess I’ll probably never see a Thai Songkran and I'll have to make do with the other three New Years we had seen on this trip. When we made our flight reservations we had no idea when the lunar new year was, maybe we would have stayed one more day if we had, so we could see the doin’s in Bangkok’s Chinatown and gaze at more fireworks reflected off of glass-windowed skyscrapers.

Suvarnabhumi Airport is busy these days, quite a change from the pandemic lockdown. But we were pleasantly surprised to see that our airline did not have a ridiculously long check-in line and they had plenty of staff.

A few days ago it occurred to me that I should look at our flight seats. Oops. This was something we weren’t able to do at booking because it had been so many months before. I’d completely forgotten to reserve these seats! My heart sank as I saw that there were no seats together on the two longest flights. There were only middle seats, the purgatory of flying. I grabbed some but was disgusted with myself for not thinking of this sooner.

But Air Nippon Airways has been kind to us in the past, and at check-in I explained the situation and asked if we could be seated together. She didn’t bat an eye, just tucked into her computer and did some sort of magic and yes, we had seats together for those two long, long flights. Win!

As per usual, we had to take our bike boxes to the oversized baggage area, a minor annoyance given that our boxes aren’t actually oversized, but whatever. As long as they aren’t charging us for oversized I guess we can humor them on this. Then we were free of our biggest four burdens but hung onto our carts and trolleyed our panniers/smaller bags downstairs to the employee dining hall where the food is nearly at regular Thai street pricing and the choices are many. That last meal in Thailand shouldn’t be at some chi-chi astro-priced airport chain restaurant. It should be here.

Our last meals in Thailand. This food court is on the first floor at the south end of the main hall. You buy vouchers at a desk and then spend them on one of the many different vendors.

Magic is right! Aroi means delicious, so also correct.

Then it was time to brave immigration and security. Bruce’s pannier got emptied and his foil packet of curry paste confiscated which had him grousing but we soldiered on. He stated that our gate wouldn’t be very far. Why he always says this when he never has a clue where the gate is is kind of an airport tradition. Aaa-nd of course it was at the very far end of that arm of the terminal, thank you, Mister Jinxalot. After running the gauntlet of stupid stores (who buys a Gucci/Louis Vuitton/Rolex at the g.d. airport, anyway?) and being relieved of our helpful rolling carts, we shouldered our bags and schlepped them to our gate.

Gimme two of everything and make it snappy.

Near our gate at Suvarnabhumi Airport, a station for charging phones. They should be available at every seat, as far as I'm concerned.

This happens in airports, it's hard to explain.

I had a window seat, he had the middle, and we had beautiful views all the way to Japan. I ordered Western meals, because of my eel experience on the flight over.

Let's not talk about water landings, okay?

Beer and orange juice, a winning combination.

These flights were both on Boeing Dreamliners which are pretty cool aircraft. The windows don’t have slide down shades but a touch button to dim the light coming in. The filtering for photos out the window was actually really great.

Farmland was traditionally plotted in these long, narrow strips, and you see housing projects or factories or other built infrastructure built in the same strips of land.

Looking south, that's the Mekong below, the Thai/Laos border is just off camera to the right. We cycled a road hugging the mountains in the middle, to Champasak in 2014. The bridge over the Mekong to Pakse is barely visible in upper middle. It is remarkable to look down at a place you have cycled and see it all from a new perspective.

The Bolaven Plateau on the east side of the Mekong.

The Dreamliner's curving wingtips are very dreamy.

Popcorn marshmallow skies over the South China Sea.

Approaching Tokyo the pilot promised a view of Mt. Fuji. I think perhaps it was shyly hiding behind the wing.

There was a pretty long layover at Haneda, which is an undistinguished airport but has plenty of recharging plugs so it’s all good. I took the Thai Sim card out of my phone and put the American one back in, got on WiFi, and did some reading and writing. Haneda does have the lovely Japanese toilets though, and it was a pleasure to visit them. I will remark that on landing we were only two gates away from our departing gate, hurray! Oh, wait, we have to walk to hell and back, go through security AGAIN, then turn around and find our gate. This had something to do with people either staying in Japan or just transiting through Japan, and a super inefficient way of controlling these two different groups. Tsk, tsk, Haneda.

This maybe alternates as an operating room?

ANA is still requiring masks on flights, thank you ANA. Japan was one of the last countries to really open up after the pandemic and they are still very cautious, which works for me. We had been larking around for 11 weeks in the open air, so to be in a tube with hundreds of humans was scaring me a little. But they patrol up and down the aisles and politely keep people masked.

Our new seats on the flight to San Francisco were bulkhead seats. I haven’t sat in one of those since 1985 when my daughter slept in a bassinet from Calgary to Montreal. You know what? I’m sold on bulkhead seats. Yes, you have to stash your stuff in the overhead bin instead of down under the seat in front of you. And yes, the video screens fold up and out from the arm instead of on the seat in front of you. But man, we had the legroom. And you can get up to visit the loo without disturbing your seatmates, just step over their legs, which means I stopped obsessing over whether I had to pee or not, and whether my neighbors were awake or not. I loved my bulkhead seat.

The flight wasn’t completely full, there were empty seats in First Class, so the guy in our aisle seat said, “I might be back!” and made a beeline for one of those. We were rooting for him, but eventually after takeoff the game was up and he was politely herded back to us. And what a good thing, too, because he was a delightful guy and he and Bruce talked for a long time. The other passengers were masked, silent, and sleeping. The inflight instructions asked people to not talk, it spreads germs when you’re trying to talk over the sound of plane engines. Naw, these two yakkers ignored that and had great fun.

This is secondhand knowledge, I was wearing my noise canceling headphones and listening to podcasts. My particular video screen had a wonky holder dealiebob and wouldn’t stay up. The flight attendants were distressed at this and offered solutions that didn’t work, tape, seat change (nope) and in the end, some kind of paperwork I could fill out to compensate me for the terrible inconvenience of not being able to watch any of the lackluster movies on offer. I waved that away, and told them to just get the thing fixed, no problem for me.

The flight home rides the jet stream like a downbound raft on Niagara Falls. The agonizing 13 hours west, on turnaround become 8.5 hours eastbound. I ate my Western eel-free meals, stretched my legs out, listened to podcasts and music, and went to sleep. It was a really good flight.

Outside it's full on sunlight, but the captain has turned off the window controls to keep it dark for the sleepers.

It’s also an endless day of a flight. January 21 just goes on and on and on. We landed at SFO and staggered off to go through immigration, collect ALL of our bags/boxes, pay EIGHT DOLLARS. EIGHT DOLLARS! To use a cart for all of 300 feet where it gets rechecked. Nobody looks at that baggage. Nobody asks you what’s in them, well, they did at immigration but in a manner that did not indicate any sort of interest in the answer. Did we have eight dollars on us? Nope. Did we have a credit card reasonably handy? I did, but it was mysteriously declined (worked fine at the grocery store the next day). The last many many times we’ve entered the states at SFO the carts were free. Our kind aisle seat friend noticed our distress and came to the rescue and paid for our cart. Just one, we certainly weren’t getting TWO carts. So it was piled high. There is also really confusing/or no signage to indicate where you recheck your baggage. It’s really an unwelcoming thing, which is sad because SFO used to be dynamite, helping us navigate to the correct place, providing carts. One time our boxes (there were no bikes in them) got soaked in a gullywasher rain at the airport in Bangkok and arrived looking like a bowl of Wheaties left on the counter for a day. A wonderful SFO employee sprinted off, found those large plastic bags used for skis or surfboards or what-have-you, and we poured our boxes into those.

So we were feeling a bit sour and stressed. We had a long layover in San Francisco but we were meeting friends in a pre-security lounge area and we walked and walked and walked and walked. This area was called Sky Terrace and was pretty new, so new that nobody seemed to know where it was. But we got there finally and Bo and Gregg were waiting with coffee, snacks, and a lot to talk about. Our mutual friends in Bangkok were safely asylumed in a third country (not the USA, sadly) and we wanted to hear more of the details about how that all went down, and to celebrate! It was a wonderful meeting.

Then it was back through security and hustling onto a tiny plane, four seats across. Bruce was on the opposite side of the plane but I could wave at him. It was time to go home.

Waiting for our puddle jumper to arrive.

My son-in-law, Wes, met us at the airport. He’s got a large vehicle and shoulders that can heft a bike box like no tomorrow. He’s been our faithful servant for several of these bike trip sendoffs and homecomings. I pulled out my hat and put on my jacket. January in Portland, after January in Thailand, is a rude awakening indeed. After 4 airports and 16,777 steps in those airports, we were done.

Then we were being driven home in the dark evening. I pulled out my phone and turned on the heat. That morning in the dark, before my unnecessary phone alarm went off 36 hours ago, it was hard to imagine what it would be like to be home again. It always is. But there it is, your chair, your bed, your kitchen. Our wonderful friends, the Grumbys, had left soup, cookies, and apples for us in the fridge. The flannel sheets so cozy and the mattress and pillows just right, and in the morning, well, the mornings will be rough for awhile because jet lag will take around 2 weeks to overcome, one hour for each day of the 15-hour difference. But the shower so hot and all my things in their places, no need to dig them out of a bag.

In the morning we really return to our old life, one with wintry weather but warmed by my family of littles and their parents so beloved, the tiny plants outside braving the cold and trying to grow, the days getting longer, the food I had missed. It’s not that it’s the perfect life, it’s that it’s part of the perfect life, of coming and going, leaving and returning, one part of yourself left in the place you are not, and part of yourself where you are at that moment. I struggle with that, but it’s a good struggle, a love of place alloyed with bittersweet, like the dark chocolate hiding in the freezer, waiting to be thawed.

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Rachael AndersonWhat a poetic description of a long journey home!
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1 year ago

Ron SuchanekYou guys should write a book.
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesI have to confess to not having read every word of this blog, but I have read a lot. Certainly enough to rate it totally excellent. I have been able through the writing and photos to share the intense experience of it. Yes, like Ron Suchanek says, book quality. Thanks!
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1 year ago

Andrea BrownTo Steve Miller/GrampiesWell, you were busy with your own adventures! I haven't read every word of yours either, but we all sure know how to have fun, don't we? And it's good that we all came home safely, I don't take that for granted at all. Thank you for the lovely compliment.
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1 year ago

Bruce LellmanTo Steve Miller/GrampiesThank you, Steve, for yet another one of your very nice comments.
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesWow, I got two thanks for one comment - that's a good investment!

Hey, we just bought our tickets for Porto, from which we will follow EV1 and then EV 8, in the direction of Barcelona. This follows in the tracks of Andersons, Maher-Wearys, and Classens. We are leaving in two weeks!
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1 year ago

Bruce LellmanTo Steve Miller/GrampiesYou guys are simply amazing, real inspirations. That's very exciting. Have a great trip without any mishaps.
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1 year ago