Arrival in Bangkok

We made it to Bangkok last night! Our flight landed at 1:15am. It took a while to go through customs then we found a verified local taxi with a meter and took it to Khao San Rd. It was a long drive through the city but the cab cost less than 300 baht aka ten U.S. dollars. When we got out of the cab with all our bags in the tourist section of Bangkok we were greeted with open arms and offered a beer.  We turned down the warm welcome since we had been mostly awake and traveling for more than 24 hours.  We took the first bed we found for a price a little higher than what we’d normally pay and it worked out because we were welcomed with a hot shower and nicely decorated room with air conditioning.

After a few hours of sleep we awoke excited to explore the city. We set out to find some breakfast and coffee. Andrew was excited to try street food so we found a clean one where they cooked our pad thai right there in front of us. The meal cost us each one U.S. Dollar. We walked along the street shops enjoying our delicious, spicy breakfast and trying to ward of tuk tuk drivers offering us too-good-to-be-true deals. One tuk-tuk driver did follow us around making sure we’d take his tuk tuk over his competitors. He was very friendly but I read a warning about scams in tuk tuks and it was too cheap to be a real deal, he was offering a scam. We shook him off and packed our things to get out of the tourist area.

We took a metered cab to another part of the city, practiced our Thai with the driver and ended up blocks from the hotel we wanted. So a nice business man helped us get a Thai -speaker deal on a tuk tuk. The tuk tuk experience was interesting and I see why most people prefer cabs. We rode along streets at a high speed with no seat belts enduring the humid, smog filled air. We made it to our desired hotel. This one is a good price and is a good location near shopping and the skytrain. The only complaint I have it that Thais like very hard beds (my survey of two beds in Thailand led me to this conclusion). That’s ok though jet lag allows me to sleep like a baby.

We spent hours making circles around shops near Siam square. Thailand offers great shopping. I practice my bargaining skills and talked a girl down to half her price for a new purse.  Andrew went into a tailor to get some pants and I ended up getting tailor made pants, skirts and shirts for a great price. We’ll see how they fit tomorrow.

Thailand is super cool so far. The locals seem very friendly. The food is good. Andrew likes to eat at the unsanitary street vendors as part of the adventure. I made him eat inside once and the food was great but so spicy! Andrew ate crazy seafood. I ate vegetarian.  He hopes I’ll be more adventurous in my eating by the end of the trip. I just don’t want to get sick!

Bangkok is a very busy, modern city. There are the basic fast food chains you’d see in America all over such as McDonalds (of course), Subway, Starbucks, Burger King. The shopping centers remind me of normal malls with Market style stalls mixed in.  The sidewalks are somewhat uneven and sometimes taken up almost completely by street vendors.  The weather is hot and humid and rainy.

We are enjoying the shopping and seeing other travelers in Bangkok but also look forward to heading down to Phuket in a couple days to meet up with some of my friends from New Zealand! Nicolina (from Sweeden) and Sophie (from Switzerland) have been there for almost a week and seem to love it. On every trip I went on in New Zealand at least one of those girls was there so we became quite close. I am really excited to get to see them again!

Well it’s time to try to sleep. The jet lag is getting to us. California and Thailand are 14 hours different so you can image the difficultly of switching your night and day. Despite our efforts to stay awake all day we passed out for a couple hour nap today but I’m confident I can sleep some more.  Good night. Will stay in touch!

--Jenny