March 20, 2019

We knew when we woke up that it was going to be a heavy travel day – so we woke up early and decided to get breakfast. One thing we avoided for most of the trip was a breakfast crowd because we were up so early most days. This day in particular, we were shocked with how large the crowd was. And I don’t just mean how many people there were at breakfast.

I can safely say that I thought Americans took the title for “heavy weight,” but there were definitely quite a few European countries that made Americans look small at breakfast.

Immediately after breakfast I wanted to say goodbye to the Gulf of Thailand. Yui had warned the group that parasailing wasn’t safe in Thailand. However, when we were on the beach we could see easily 30 different companies parasailing in the Gulf. (Be safe everyone! I think they weren’t safe because they were all clustered in the same area).

Went for a quick swim and then headed back to the hotel. Andy had desperately wanted another Thai massage. We didn’t want to travel far, so we decided to check out the massage parlor in the hotel.

If our last Thai massage was sketchy – this one was also sketchy. They had bed sheets hanging up between the massage tables – but because we had just come from the beach I didn’t care too much. We were just happy that we both could get massages at the same time.

Yui took the rest of the group snorkeling – so we had said goodbye to her the night before. There were eight of us on the bus – and Yui’s colleague, Alice was taking us to the Bangkok airport. Two women were heading to Cambodia next, and the rest of would head back to China for a few days there.

We were thankful that Joe and Lorraine were on this leg of the trip with us, and two other girls were going to the Great Wall with us.

We took off around 5:00 PM from Bangkok – and it was about a 5 hour flight to Beijing. We landed well before our designated arrival time – which we were grateful for. However, a visa is required for travel in China. Unless, you stay for less than 144 hours, but you still needed a dedicated form for that. Affordable World made sure that we knew that on our itinerary so once we got off the plane we got in line.

This line took forever. There was a couple who didn’t have their travel itinerary – and another man who was having issues. And there were two other individuals who didn’t cause too many problems, but still took up time. This had me very nervous because our shuttle would only wait for 90 minutes after we landed. (Granted – we had landed so early, so I wasn’t sure if the clock started ticking from when we landed or our original arrival time). Once we got our sticker from this agent, we still had to go through the customs line. And pick up our luggage – and the Beijing airport is MASSIVE.

Thankfully, the rest went off without a hitch. Our suitcases were waiting for us on the baggage carousel. Once we made it out of that area we saw Joe and Lorraine waving us over. Of course they wouldn’t leave without us!

That was when we were introduced to our new tour guide, Journey. She was very kind. She got us on in our shuttle – and to our hotel.

We were grateful when she said that we wouldn’t meet until 10:00 AM the next day – since the other two girls got in so much later than us. (For some reason they were on a separate flight – and landed around 1:00 AM). The hotel is very nice, The Great Wall Hotel in Beijing is a Sheraton Hotel.

Logistics:

1. Left Long Beach Garden Hotel & Spa (Pattaya)
2. Arrive at The Great Wall Hotel – Beijing