A prayer tour of the temples in Bangkok followed by a 7:30 PM sleeper train ride to Chiang Mai was the plan. Transportation included (but was not limited to) a bus, boat, tuk tuk (see picture), taxi, sky train, and yes, a train. But, the adventure really began at the scene of the last temple located on the only hill in Bangkok.
As we sat the last wat (temple) praying for the monks, the city, and the lost, a few world racers began to pray about rain. It not only 
began raining, but an entire thunderstorm hit. The hundred stairs we walked up were now flooded and resembled more of a waterfall than a walkway. Yet, keeping in mind that we had a 7:30 train to catch, we had no time to wait out the storm and only on way down. So out goes team Luminous, cameras and all, in the rain, soaked within seconds and laughing hysterically at the predicament we were in. We found two tuk tuks willing to take our soaked selves to the only landmark we knew near our hostel (to be perfectly honest, we had NO idea how to get back…and…if you have ever been to Bangkok, you would quickly see that this is no laughing manner. Bangkok is roughly the size of New York City but that night it seemed like NY and LA combined!)
Around 5:00PM, we arrived at the Siam Discover Center and sky train where our tuk tuk drivers forced us to get out and refused to take us any further in the evening traffic and downpour rain. So with only 2 1/2 hours to go until we needed to be with our bags at the train station, we began to RUN. We made it onto the nicely air conditioned sky train, accept for the fact we were soaking wet and quickly realized our clothes felt more like ice than warmth against our aching bodies. For the first time, I was thankful when our 30-minute sky train ride was over and I was able to step back out into the humid warmth of Bangkok.
Next, we waited for 20 minutes to catch bus 38 (one I thought was never going to come) and rode it towards what we hoped was a recognizable landmark. We sat for the next hour in the worst traffic known to mankind looking for any landmark, a sign that we were hopefully on the right track. Suddenly, I noticed a sign for the university near our hostel. Too bad it took us another 30 minutes from that point to actually cross the bridge where I told the team “get off…we are here”. At this point, it was 6:15 and we had a little over an hour to get our stuff and get back out in this horrific traffic to the train station (which happened to be on the other side of the city, of course!). Once again, we RAN!
Within 5 minutes, we were in the foyer, changed and ready to hail the nearest taxi cab…. but wait…to our dismay…. we could not find an available taxi cab in miles. We stood there in desperation with our body bags and at one point, assured each other the Lord was leading us to ask this cute couple with a truck to drive us to the train station. They rolled down their window, smiled and said to us politely “no English” and drove away.
