The initial impetus for this trip was to travel by train from Boston to Seattle via a redeemed Amtrak award. Additionally, I had a couple of business related issues in Colorado to attend to. So then, pretty simple, right? Fly to Boston, visit with friends in Connecticut, ride the rails from Boston to Seattle, make a quick trip down to Colorado and then return home. All told, I’d be gone for two weeks.

For most people – including many here at FlyerTalk - this would be an exciting, well-rounded trip. In the planning stages, it was for me, too – for a couple days at least.

I’d already booked flights from Fairbanks to Boston as well as my train reservations across the continent to Seattle. A cheap $69.00 fare on Alaska got me from Seattle down to Denver. Now all I had to do was find myself a flight back to Alaska from Colorado. That’s where the “problem” started.

It was the usual “problem” for me – an excess of free time on my hands. Since I didn’t have to report back to my job in Denali National Park until early May, there was no pressing need to return home right away. With a big glut of miles built up in my Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan account, why not redeem some of them and have a little fun?

With three extra weeks to work with, I began to consider the possibilities. I’d already taken a three week trip around Australia back in September, so that was out. Besides, I may be back next there next fall. Europe might be nice but it costs a fortune relative to other destinations and outside of the very expensive award options available on British Airways, premium class seats to Europe – especially in First Class - can be very difficult to come by. South America or Africa might be nice but… for the time being at least, I just wasn’t feeling it for either of those two destinations.

How about South East Asia? I’d always wanted to travel by train on the 1200 mile overland route from Singapore up to Bangkok. Now would be a great opportunity to do that. Additionally, a trip to South East Asia would present an excellent opportunity to check out Hainan Airlines and its highly regarded Business Class service.

So – I got to thinking…

I’ve got an active imagination steeped in years of practical experience that includes 5.4 million miles of flying and 300,000 miles of train travel across 36 countries. For the most part, if I think of it I can usually figure out a way to make it happen. And because I love the planning involved in figuring out how to get somewhere every bit as much as I enjoy actually being there, I’m content to spend hours checking out all the various options, fares and times involved.


* * * _  _ * * *


I wasn’t necessarily set on Singapore as a destination. I’ve also wanted to ride trains in Indonesia and Vietnam, but then I wasn’t totally sold on a train ride either. I would also have been happy to visit the Philippines for the first time. All of this meant I was considering a variety of airlines and destinations.

After a few days of cogitating over the myriad options, I got lucky. In the same week – two months out no less – I found single First Class seats on Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong and on Japan Airlines from Tokyo back to New York. Even better, they were perfectly timed departures – the 12:30pm Cathay flight out of Los Angeles and the 6:30pm JAL flight out of Tokyo. Holy cow, Batman! Here I had started out the week looking forward to checking out Hainan Airlines’ five star service aboard one of its new 787-9s across to Beijing and beyond but hey - First Class beats Business Class any day, so now I’ve got to figure out where to go beyond Hong Kong.

I’ve really been looking forward to flying aboard Airbus’ new A350. Booking this award with Cathay Pacific provided an excellent opportunity to do just that as they operate their A350s on a variety of intra-Asian routes emanating from Hong Kong. I was sorely tempted to book any number of available flights to everywhere from Singapore to Manila to Ho Chi Minh City. There was however just one problem…

I’ve flown Cathay Pacific many times before. Dating back to my very first flight in March of 1987, I’ve had the good fortune to have logged thirty flights totaling over 170,000 miles with the jewel of the Swire Group. And here’s the kicker – all of those flights have been in International First Class. Yes- you’ve read that right. I’ve never before flown in Business or Economy on Cathay Pacific. That streak has provided a cache of indelibly wonderful memories in addition to being a pretty sweet record if I do say so myself. Indeed, it’s one that I’d like to maintain if at all possible.

Airbus’ A350 is a well built and popular airplane that is operated by dozens of the world’s finest airlines including three (LATAM, Finnair and Singapore) that are affiliated with Alaska Airlines’ Mileage Plan. I’m sure I will have many opportunities in the coming years to log a flight or three on it.

In the meantime, Cathay Pacific just happened to be offering a rare First Class configured 777-300 between Hong Kong and Bangkok. The benefits to me in booking this flight were twofold. First, my streak of First Class flights on Cathay would continue unabated. Second, because I was flying out of Hong Kong in First Class I’d have an excellent opportunity to check out Cathay’s recently refurbished First Class lounge The Pier. Heck, with a twenty hour layover in Hong Kong I’d have time enough to lounge hop through The Wing, The Cabin, The Bridge and The Pier if I so chose.

So it was settled. I booked myself a connecting seat in First Class from Hong Kong down to Bangkok. Now then, where to next?


* * * _  _ * * *


Keep in mind that in the planning stages, this trip started out with me trying to figure out how to get back to Alaska from Colorado. Although I’d now booked myself halfway across the world to Southeast Asia, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to play with. Indeed, as with more than a few of my trips of late, I wouldn’t even be over here in Southeast Asia were it not for an abundance of mileage in my Mileage Plan account just waiting to be redeemed. As it were I’d be spending just ten days in the region.

Many people would consider expending 150000 miles on such a short trip to an exotic destination such as Thailand and Laos a waste of time and money – or miles as the case may be. Once upon a time, I probably would have, too. I would have wanted to get as much value as I could off of those miles but then back in those days, if I’d have redeemed 150000 miles, it likely would have depleted everything in my account. How times have changed…

In the years prior to my joining FlyerTalk, I used to take much longer trips, living out of my backpack and often staying in the destination countries for weeks, sometimes months. Back in the eighties I spent a lot of time around Southeast Asia, too. It’s a shame FlyerTalk wasn’t around then because I could’ve submitted some pretty good trip reports with the focus having been on the destination more so than the mode of transport. That’s right – I used to keep a hand written diary of my travels, writing about all the usual things people typically like to read about – where I went, what I did, who I met, where I stayed, etc. Back then, my writing was no different from what most people post in their travelogues these days.

As a budget traveler my intent was to stay and travel around wherever I was for as long as I could. The focus was totally on the destination, less so on how I got there or the quality and comfort of my accommodations once I was there. As such, my travels were generally quite a bit rougher than what most of you who post here enjoy because I was often using the cheapest local transport and staying in hotels and hostels that no self-respecting FlyerTalker would ever think of staying in. Still, it was so exciting to just be out there seeing and experiencing the beauty and culture and tastes and smells of all of these new places that I look back on those roughhewn travels as some of the finest times I ever had abroad.

By the time the new millennium arrived, I’d already visited 34 countries and logged over 2,000,000 air miles. It should be noted however that many of those air miles were garnered while taking advantage of Unlimited Mileage Fare promotions that were common through the late seventies and early eighties. Over a half million miles were flown as a result of having participated in United Airlines’ 50 State Marathon promotion. All told, in the days before I joined FlyerTalk in 2001 I’d already had the good fortune to have traveled more than most people get a chance to do in their entire lifetimes. I still have those old diaries from trips all over the South Pacific, Southeast Asia and South America, too. They take up about nine inches of space on my book shelves and they’re still fun to pull out and read every now and then.

So what’s changed? First and foremost, I’ve become a lot more skilled at accruing airline miles. I did my first true mileage run in 1988 in response to a triple mileage offer from United Airlines. That trip involved three transcon roundtrips that I paid about $225.00 each for. Throughout the nineties I’d take advantage of the occasional deal but for the most part my flying was limited to necessary business or pleasure related travel.

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, some of you may recall that airfares here in the United States plummeted to levels never before seen. I remember roundtrip trans-cons going for as little as $105.00 all-in. I remember buying five roundtrip tickets between Denver and Philadelphia priced at just $55.00. Roundtrip. Nowhere else in the world could you travel by air so inexpensively while accruing so many miles. I couldn’t help but take advantage of these great deals and as a result I started flying a lot more. Prior to 2000 I averaged about 60000 miles of flying per year. Since 2000 I’ve averaged just over 181,000 miles flown per year. The mileage I accrued began to reach unprecedented levels and with it came top tier program status. As a result, I began to fly a lot more in the First Class cabin – both at home and abroad.

I was just starting to get a touch of grey in my sideburns when I discovered FlyerTalk in early 2001. I’d been searching the internet for information on First and Business Class services aboard the world’s great and not so great airlines and most of what I’d found up to that point was through the airlines’ websites or via comparatively dry reports published in magazines such as Business Traveler. Imagine then my surprise and delight to stumble upon a website called FlyerTalk where I came across this beautifully written trip report detailing First Class travel aboard American Airlines’ Flagship Service between San Jose and Tokyo. More than just a basic description and assessment of the services offered, this report captured the writer’s excitement and passion for the First Class experience as he anticipated and experienced every aspect of American’s once excellent International Flagship First Class Service. Perhaps most amazing by today’s Trip Report Forum standards was that the reporter accomplished this without the use of even a single photograph.

The writer was tfung. There were no pictures in his report because back then the ability to imbed photos had not yet been established. That was a real positive though because to me at least a collection of photos – while certainly colorful and eye catching – was never able to adequately convey the sheer excitement and anticipation of flying First Class, and that’s what I was looking to experience while reading a trip report. tfung was a real pro and although he no longer writes trip reports, we were fortunate to have him while he lasted.

I should add that my preference toward written reports does not in any way mean that I consider photo-reports less appealing in a universal sense. They are clearly the most popular format in the Trip Reports forum today and for good reason. They are much more easily accessible than having to slog your way through a few thousand words of text and you can still get a pretty good sense of what the flight and service are all about. My preference for the written word has more to do with the fact that I’ve always enjoyed reading and besides, I’m really not all that good of a photographer anyway.

But I digress. Getting back to tfung’s report - after my second or third read of it, I then headed over to the Trip Report Forum title page where I discovered dozens of other written reports focusing on inflight premium services, some of them very nicely composed as well.

I’ve always had a fascination with and appreciation for the actual performance of traveling, i.e. flying there, riding there on a train or driving there in a car. In particular I’ve always been particularly taken with the style of travel - or perhaps more to the point – traveling in style. Most traditional travelogues – including the ones I’d written in my pre-FT days - gave only short shrift to the actual experience of getting there. Now suddenly here was a forum where people actually wrote specifically about their flight experiences. It was almost too good to be true!

In FlyerTalk I saw not only a fantastic opportunity to write about First Class travel but also an audience that included a significant number of people who actually wanted to read about it. Believe me, readers of Travel & Leisure magazine or Fodor’s guide books have next to no interest in any of this – but then most of those folks are perpetually sat back in Economy Class so who can blame them?

Additionally, one of the best parts of publishing at FlyerTalk is that I didn’t even need to be an accomplished writer. I can’t believe how forgiving you all are of my long winded descriptions, occasionally poor grammar and/or disjointed sentence structure. So thank you for that because it’s certainly been a lot of fun trying my hand at this travel reporting thing.

It was back in February of 2002 that I submitted my first trip report covering international premium class travel for FlyerTalk. That report was titled Alaska to New Zealand ~ The Long Way and it involved First and Business Class travel aboard Alaska Airlines, British Airways and Air New Zealand traveling via Los Angeles, London, Singapore and Melbourne. Some of you old timers may recall that particular trip lasted from early February all the way through to early May and included a return via Finland and Canada. Over the course of those travels I submitted a total of six trip reports, none of them inclusive of pictures. Judging from the comments however, people still seemed to enjoy those reports even so.

Those initial positive responses provided the impetus to crank out another seventy-one reports. If it weren’t for the volume and sincerity of those early comments, I probably would’ve shrugged and let it go after just two or three reports. So thanks for the love, gang! It’s been fun cranking out these reports for an appreciative audience.

In any event, since those halcyon times in the early days of FlyerTalk, I’ve earned and redeemed literally millions upon millions of air miles. Where once the redemption of a couple hundred thousand miles would have left my account distressingly low, these days my accrued mileage totals have gone from a couple hundred thousand to well over a million – enough so that I don’t feel so bad about burning the odd 150,000 now and then on a seemingly frivolous short trip such as this.

Which brings us back to Bangkok and the question of the moment: With six days to work with, where do I go from here?


* * * _  _ * * *


Some might say why go anywhere? Bangkok is a fascinating and exotic city with more than enough amazing places and attractions to entertain anybody over six days. That’s all well and good but alas, for me it really is a case of been there, done that. I spent about ten days in Bangkok back in the eighties and felt like I saw enough of the city and its environs then to satisfy me for a lifetime.

One thing that has inspired many of my travels has been the opportunity to ride trains from all around the world. Over the years I have ridden and reported upon First Class rail journeys everywhere from Argentina to Australia, from Scotland to South Africa, across Russia to China and of course all over the United States. I’m always open to new rail adventures and as such remain ever vigilant about new routes, equipment and affordable deals.

Anytime I need to find out anything about rail travel anywhere in the world, my go-to website is Seat61.com. Whatever you want to know about traveling by rail in most any country on the planet, it is available at this excellent website. That includes information about the trains, the accommodations, the routes including schedules and even descriptions and reviews from fellow travelers.

My first plan was to ride the rails between Bangkok and Singapore. Alas, two things put the kibosh on that plan. First and foremost, there is no longer train service between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Secondly – and equally importantly – there was no First Class space available between Kuala Lumpur and the border town of Hat Yai. Oh well. There’ll be other opportunities someday.

During a more thorough perusal of the Asian section, I took note of the fact that Thailand Railways recently invested in some new First Class rail carriages. They are modern and look quite comfortable – much nicer than what passed for rail transport during my time in Thailand thirty years ago. As an added bonus, a First Class compartment on these new cars can be had at exceptionally affordable rates. Now seemed like an excellent opportunity to check them out.

After consulting the Thailand Railway schedules, I settled on Vientiane - just across the border in neighboring Laos. The 8:00pm departure of the First Class train also meant that given my late afternoon arrival at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport, I’d have more than enough time to catch a taxi downtown to Bangkok’s Hua Lamphong railroad station to pick up my pre-arranged tickets. Los Angeles  Hong Kong  Bangkok  Vientiane. Bim, Bam, Boom! I like it.

From Vientiane I found a $78.00 flight back to Bangkok aboard Lao Airlines - my 195th airline flown. Then I booked a flight aboard Bangkok Airways up to Chiang Mai for just $65.00. Check off my 196th airline flown. I’d visited Chiang Mai briefly back in ’87. I always liked the town, the setting and especially the delicious cuisine of northern Thailand. Now would be a great time for a quick return visit.

Following a return to Bangkok, it would be time to return to the U.S. via Tokyo and New York. Unfortunately the only Business Class seats available out of Bangkok up to Tokyo on Japan Airlines did not depart until later that night on the 11:30pm redeye to Narita. My train from Chiang Mai was scheduled to arrive in Bangkok at 6:50am, leaving me an almost seventeen hour layover. As such, I’d need to book a day use room at one of the many hotels nearby Suvarnabhumi.

While all of this was easily doable, the fact of the matter is that I abhor flying on redeyes. Unless there’s absolutely no other option, I avoid short overnight flights as much as possible. Six hours up to Tokyo may sound like a long flight to some of you, but for a guy who really looks forward to enjoying the premium class experience, I knew I was going to want to check out the food offerings either upon departing Bangkok or prior to arriving in Tokyo. That meant I’d be left with perhaps four hours to sleep with maybe only three of those being anything approaching quality sleep. Now back in my younger days, I could have pulled this off without a hitch. These days however I don’t do so well on anything less than about six hours of quality sleep. Add to this the fact that our early morning arrival in Tokyo would leave me with a 12 hour layover at Narita - much of that time spent wandering around like a zombie even if it were in JAL’s First Class Lounge. I decided to explore other options.

Vietnam Airlines had an affordable and nicely timed 11:20am departure out of Suvarnabhumi to Ho Chi Minh City. The next morning JAL had Business Class seats available on its 8:10am departure from Ho Chi Minh City up to Tokyo, arriving Narita at 4:00pm. This would leave me with a much more amenable two and a half hour layover prior to my flight to New York. An abundance of affordable hotels were available surrounding Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport and, as an added bonus, by flying with Vietnam Airlines I’d be one step closer to joining all of you who’ve logged flights on 200 or more airlines.

So then, here’s the plan: Depart New Haven, Connecticut on a bus up to Boston, take a couple of trains across the country, make a quick trip down to Colorado, then fly off across the Pacific to Southeast Asia via a First Class suite aboard Cathay Pacific. While in Asia I’ll check out a couple of First Class overnight trains and fly three never before flown upon airlines before returning back to the U.S. via a First Class suite aboard a Japan Airlines 777. My return back home to Alaska will be via North Carolina and Ketchikan before boarding the Alaska Marine Highway’s M.V. Columbia for a short cruise up Alaska’s Inside Passage to Juneau where a pair of Alaska 737s will deliver me back home to Fairbanks.

So - does this sound like something worth reading about? Keep in mind that for those of you unfamiliar with my reporting style here at FlyerTalk, my focus is on the transport, NOT all the usual things people typically like to read about such as where I went, what I did, who I met, where I stayed, etc. You want a typical travelogue about travel through Thailand and Laos - they’re a dime a dozen here at the Trip Report forum or by googling “Travelogue Thailand Laos”.

Additionally, the primary reason I don’t include airlines in my trip report title (such as “CX & JL First Class to Thailand and Back!”) is that I’m not one to do extremely detailed product description reports that include specific descriptions of every aspect of the lounge, the seat and the inflight product with dozens of pictures highlighting things like all of the lounge foods, the seat control buttons or a close-up of my IFE control set. While I recognize both the validity and popularity of this style of reporting, where I’m coming from is the simple joy of travel. As such, I acknowledge some things as part of the normal course of discovery – such as stuff that stood out about my First Class suite – but where others provide extreme detail via dozens of photos I tend toward just a few photos augmented with commentary and/or relevant memories.

So then, if after all these caveats you still want to tag along for the ride, might I suggest you grab a bottle (or two) of something tasty to drink and maybe a plate of canapés or a sandwich to tide you over. We’ve got a long way to go and only 57000 words to get there.

Alright then – ready? Let’s hit the road!