McSolars take Thailand – Getting There + Bangkok

Note: This is post 1 of a 12 post series of our family adventure in Thailand with our wonderful friends, the McManus family. 
We knew going in the journey there would be a bit rough. KC->JFK->spend the night in a hotel->taxi to LGA->Beijing (13.5 hours!)->Bangkok (6.5 more hours!). We knew there would be battles over sleeping on the plane. We knew we’d be missing meals, so we packed a LOT of snacks. But, we made it. Now, the first few days of our trip were mostly spent on airplanes and in airports aimlessly wandering around and finding any sort of activity or reason to move around a bit. Good thing the Beijing airport is so wide open.
After our layover in Beijing and 6.5 hour flight to Bangkok, we successfully navigated our tired families (4 adults + 5 kids) on a train to meet up with the hotel shuttle. We got checked in and rested a bit before heading out to the Grand Palace. Now, we knew it was going to be hot (over 100 degrees!) and we were informed we had to wear pants and long sleeve shirts, but let’s just say heat + exhausted kids + too heavy of clothes = disaster-ish. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal except for the fact we only had 1 day in Bangkok before we headed out to Chiang Mai, so we were determined to see something awesome. Long story short, we survived. We only had a few breakdowns from 2 of our 3 kids. The Grand Palace was gorgeous and worth the fits we dealt with.
After exploring the Grand Palace, we got suckered by some Thai peeps when they handed birdseed to our kids while we weren’t looking, then asked us for money 45 minutes later when we were about to leave. Oh well, we had a blast feeding the nasty pigeons. Then we got in a taxi, decided he was trying to charge us too much to get back to our hotel, got out, walked back to where the pigeons were only to realize we jumped out of a taxi for 9 people over $11 (dang Baht conversions!), so we got back in a different taxi for same rate because we were all tired and hungry and wanted to chill by the pool.
Once back to the hotel, I passed out, so did Max, and everyone else went to eat. Ava was so tired she fell asleep eating with chicken in her mouth and Lia fell asleep waiting for the train on the dirty ground. LOLZ. The next day was basically getting to the airport and waiting for our flight to Chiang Mai.
Once we landed in Chiang Mai, our driving skills were tested (they drive on the wrong side of the road! and they drive crazy as heck! with motorcycles everywhere!). After about 45 minutes of driving around, I got some directions in broken english and we (luckily) found our Air BnB for the week. The dads took the kids swimming and got yelled at a few times for having way too much fun. Apparently in Chiang Mai, pools aren’t supposed to be fun. And that was the end of our night.
Notes for next time: Don’t pack your own long sleeves + pants. They sell lightweight elephant pants (insanely comfortable!) and you can get them for about $3.