ubignut

Sawatdii-kah!

 

I’m here in Thailand experiencing my 1st full day in Bangkok.  The flight yesterday from LAX was great and actually went really quickly for being a 10.5hr flight!  I had the window seat and was lucky enough to not have anyone sit next to me on the way over to Tokyo.  The airplane food was great too – dinner was beef with black bean sauce & white rice and vegetables, along with a shrimp cocktail, salad and fruit.  I pretty much slept most of the way and somewhat watched Evan Almighty as I read and highlighted in my Thailand tour book for a few hours.  Later in the flight they gave us ice cream sandwiches (yum!) and then about an hour before landing we had breakfast – a sausage and egg mcmuffin like thing & fruit.  Once I was in Tokyo, I had about an hour and a half to spare so just kinda checked what the airport had to offer; lots of duty free shops!  The flight from Tokyo to Bangkok was another 6.5hrs so I slept half the way, then watched a movie and ate dinner again; this time chicken & rice with salad, fruit and a lemon cake like dessert.  I have to say, the airplane food was better than I expected!

 

Once in Bangkok and through customs, I started to look for my ride to the hotel since my friend Mike had arranged the hotel stay and on the website it said they offered hotel/airport transfers (he even confirmed with the hotel).  But what I didn’t know was that when he checked in, they said no, they didn’t offer it.  So I’m walking out of customs and not seeing my name and kinda started thinkin’ “uh-oh”… As i started to call the hotel, mike comes up behind me & boy was I pretty glad to see him!  We went to go get a cab to take us to the hotel, and one of the things my book had told me was to make sure the cab driver puts the meter on from the airport.  Well we get in the cab and as we take off we tell him “meter” and he keeps driving while giving us this poor excuse of why he can’t do a meter and basically wanted to charge a flat fee.  Mike’s haggling with him and the guys not buying it and basically was about ready to pull over to the side of the freeway and just drop us off!  So finally we settled on a price everyone was happy with. 

 

Got to the hotel, and…. well…. definitely not the 4 seasons – ha!  I know we’re trying to be a little cheap so we can do more stuff, but this is pretty cheap – about $12 a day for each of us I think.  The bed is very very comfortable at least!  Honestly though, since we’re not in the room all that much, I don’t really mind it.  It’s safe and all, but just very basic – kinda like a dorm room or a Motel 6.  There’s no elevator and we’re on the 4th floor.  The shower and bathroom are all together – meaning that the shower head is on the wall and you have to pretty much remove the shower head and use it as if you were sponge bathing yourself.  But as I said, it’s not all that bad, it’s just very different than what you’re custom to in the US.  Good news is that it’s very close to the area in which we wanted to be in for all the temples and everything to view.

 

So my first full day was very busy!  We woke up at around 8am and wanted to get an early start to beat all the heat.  We got out and hit a smoothie stand – WOW, sooo yummy!!  Fresh fruit and very refreshing.  Also had some freshly squeezed orange juice and it was really good.  It’s on stands around everywhere.  Then we walked over to the 2 temples (known as a Wat) we wanted to see.  The city is pretty busy, lots of traffic.  And everyone is trying to get you to ride in their tuk-tuk which you have to kinda be careful cuz they can end up taking you to like fabric and jewelry stores instead to get you to buy there.  The temples were absolutely beautiful – so much detail and so very spirited.  You have to obey the customs of the country of course so women have to cover their shoulders and have long pants, no open toed shoes.  You also have to remove your shoes before going in and you can’t point your feet towards the Buddha.  So I made sure I remembered everything as to not come off as disrespectful.  We walked to all our destinations, stopping at a local market to get some fresh foods.  I got a bag full of exotic type fruit – some I didn’t know what they were but they were sooo good!  And then there was a handful of lychee fruit in there too – it all really hit the spot.  Then I had my very first “street food” meal – rice with chicken and beef and green beans.  It was really good, really cheap, and ooooh weeee – really spicy!  haha…. I took some pictures of people in the market and the different things to see while we walked.  The people are so amazing, reminds me a lot of Mexico.  Most of the people are just so happy and helpful, smiling all the time.  Some you have to be careful of because since it is a touristy town you have to just think they are trying to sell you something (most are) instead of being helpful.  There’s a lot of American and European people backpacking, many young people.  It’s almost like a lot of hippy people!  

 

The rest of the day consisted of us making travel plans for the remainder of the trip.  I got $$ on my cell phone too so can now make and receive calls & text msgs.  I’ve pretty much been eating all my meals off the street since it’s convenient and cheap – about $0.75 to $2 for soups or rice and meat dishes.  In the evening we headed over to a different part of the city which was nice to see – it was the more upscale side!  We went to this night bazaar and they so some really cool and cheap stuff!  It was very hard to not buy things considering I didn’t want to lug it all around.  I definitely wouldn’t mind coming back here and bringing an extra suitcase just for shopping!  haha.  I probably did pack a little too much, but at the same time, I’d rather be safe than sorry.  Just in my first day alone too, I took 3 showers and changed 3 times just because it is so hot and humid here – more so humid than anything.  The better area we went to is called Lumphini and they had this really cool hotel there – The Banyan Tree.  It was just so absolutely gorgeous inside, and the views from the rooftop bar were incredible.  The decor in the many restaurants was stunning!  I wanted a glass of wine so bad, but since this past weekend was elections weekend, they stopped serving alcohol to the whole city.  So I settled on a virgin pina colada.  After about an hour or so we headed back to the ghetto side of town (ha!) and topped the night with an hour thai massage.  I was in heaven, and it probably was the best dang $7 I spent all day   I crashed immediately afterwards (around 1am) – it was a long and very very full first day!!  (poor mikey, I think he was dead tired too! ha).  Check out all the pics from Bangkok.  Notable touristy and historical things & places I saw today: