September 16, 2004
Thailand! - Day 7
My funny story: So last night, after returning to the hotel, I hung out with Diana and Jen in their room for alittle bit. As it got late, I decided to go back to my room to get some sleep. My room was on the 16th floor, while theirs was on the 15th, so naturally I took the stairs. It's quicker than waiting for the elevator, of course, but on this night I decided to take the stairs at the other end of the hallway, just to see what kind of view is seen out the window. Not much, is what I saw, so I proceeded up the stairs to my floor, but then the door to my floor was locked.
Strange, I thought. So I went back down to Diana's floor and that door too was locked! Oh no, I thought, I'm trapped in the fire escape! I had no choice then, I must go down the stairs to the bottom floor to get out. Fifteen flights of stairs, and I stopped on each floor to check just in case a certain door was open. But as my luck went, nothing was open, and I continued my way down the stairs.
The bottom floors took several turns, as these were the conference levels, kitchens floors, and service floors, until fire doors began to seprate these floors as well, each one locking behind me, as I made my way through. On one floor, I heard a conference going on, but I didn't want to disturb them, as my new plan was simply to exit at the bottom of the stairs and just re-enter the hotel from the front. However, as I got to the 2nd floor, the last emergency door was locked! I was trapped again! I can't go down, and I can't go back up! There was an emergency phone on the floor, so I gave in to the embarassment of being trapped in the stairwell, and decided to call. Who would have thought, the phone was dead! The emergency phone!
I took a look at my surroundings, and found the stairwell opened down into the courtyard in front of the hotel. I flagged down a parking lot attendant in the courtyard, who waived over his buddy to look at the funny-looking guy waving at him on the second floor stairs. They radioed the hotel security and they escorted me back to my room, back through the conference where I had heard people talking, just before. Wonderful.
The next morning, news about my travel had spread, so one of the ladies chimed in, "Were you dressed at all?" My tour group was filled with funny people.
Homeward bound! One more picture for the road.
