2nd May - Arrival into Bangkok
As the first day of the trip comes to a close I think it's time to jot down some of the experiences of the day. These are more like first impressions of Thailand and more specifically Bangkok as I have hardly seen anything yet and a lot is left to be discovered.
What's with airlines and the duty free catalogue? Has anyone ever found anything in the catalogue whose duty free price is less than the full price one pays in a retail shop in his own city? And somehow there are a few people who would always manage to find a sense in buying the Skagen Titanium watch on the plane for $180 when they could wait for a few hours for the plane to land and buy it at $100 in a shop. The guy must be a partner in a big consulting firm if he really values his time that much!
The Visa on Arrival section at the Suvarnabhumi airport had a sign which read, "Thailand: The Land of Smiles". I was encouraged by the phrase I must say... I felt like I would see a lot of smiling faces along the trip. It was a long line for the visa and it took me about an hour to get to the front. As I reached the counter to get my papers reviewed, I witnessed the guy in front of me being sent back all the way to the end of the line because he had forgotten to write his passport number on the form! The visa guy seemed unmoved by his pleading for mercy... and I don't remember anyone smiling in the whole process... I had to re-calibrate my hopes...
The airport is huge and impeccably clean. I found the staff to be somewhat discourteous and undiplomatic but it could either be a language barrier or just the early morning effect. I will see how things are on my return flight which is in the evening. As you are about to exit the airport you are approached by a number of travel agents/taxi drivers offering you a ride, a hotel and a package you don't need. Ending up with one of these folks could mean a very bad start to your journey so make sure you have a hotel booked before coming and you know how to get there as well (the 2nd best option is to have the hotel pick you up but it would be expensive). The good thing is that once you say no, people don't pester you much after that. Some of them would even give you the information you need... like I said no to cab driver saying that I am taking the bus, and he voluntarily directed me towards the bus counter.
The airport runs a great air conditioned bus service to most parts of the city and in my opinion it's the best way to go to the city though it's slower than a cab since it stops for all passengers. Surprisingly, the bus didn't wait to get filled, it left on time with only 4 passengers though the capacity was about 25-30. A one way ticket to the city is 150 Baht, which is the cheapest alternative available. It doesn't take too long for the bus to reach the city but as soon as it hits Sukhumvit Road it starts to crawl. Traffic lights are quite a few in number and it takes a good 7-8 minutes at each red light. Interestingly enough, you will notice that on many occasions, the light is green but the traffic is still not moving. It's probably because the next signal is Red and the road is packed between the two signals! Sukhumvit happens to be one of the most popular neighborhoods in Bangkok with lots of options to stay, eat and shop for any sized pocket.
One thing that I have noticed on several of my trips is that if you are traveling to a country where its terribly hot, it helps if your flight lands early in the morning and more so if it happened to rain in the night. It creates an illusion as if the weather has magically improved... an illusion that gets shattered by the time you reach your hotel.
The hotel... yes... I want to talk about my hotel now. The bus dropped me at Sukhumvit and Soi 8 (Soi is the name for a side street shooting out of a main street) and my hotel was within walking distance. It was somewhat hidden and I had to ask for directions. The guy initially tried to sell me another hotel but as I mentioned earlier, once I refused he was happy to guide me to my hotel. The hotel is called Suk 11 Guesthouse (Suk for Sukhumvit and 11 for Soi 11). You have to see this place to get a feel of what it is. I had seen numerous pictures on its website and had read multiple reviews as well but I the picture I had in mind was nothing close to what it turned out to be.
I had the impression of an eco-friendly retro looking hotel from the website but it actually turned out to be a backpackers' hostel! Well, to be fair to the reviews and the hostel's website, it was still retro and eco-friendly! It was very dark because they believe in saving light, almost made of wood, the corridors felt like you were walking in a dungeon (see the photograph above of the corridors) but once you are inside your room you had all the usual stuff such as hot water, air conditioning etc. Breakfast was free and was fairly basic but was enough to get you started in the morning. Plus, the common area provided a good opportunity to engage in a conversation with the other backpackers. The internet was the most funny thing... they had a retro looking machine which accepted coins of 10 Bahts and once you insert a coin, the wireless would turn on and you can surf for 15 minutes... the machine had a timer as well! At the end of 15 minutes it would make a sound and stop! It was pretty cool though one could work the system by two or more people using it simultaneously and only one would need to pay. But like most things, people trust you with this in a backpackers hostel. If you take a drink from the refrigerator you can put the money in a jar on top of the refrigerator... no one asks you for it, no monitoring... you just do it.
5th May - Train ride from Bangkok to Chiang Mai
So my sojourn in Bangkok Comes to an end and quite an eventful 3 days these have been. I couldn't make a side day trip to Kanchanaburi (The Bridge on the River Kwai fame and the Tiger Temple) or Ayutthaya (remains of ancient Buddhist temples) primarily because I didn't want to make the stay in Bangkok too hectic for me and secondly Bangkok had in itself so much too offer that I felt it needed that extra day anyway. So, I decided to dedicate one full day to check out the Grand Palace, all the Wats (temples) and the river cruises and keep another full day to explore the multiple shopping options that the city offers. There are as many temples in Bangkok as there are Sois along Sukhumvit but to save time and retain some novelty I decided to pick the most popular ones only, namely Wat Pho, Wat Arun and Wat Phra Kaeo. Getting to these from my hostel was a breeze. I took the skytrain near my hostel to Saphan Takshin station which is by the Chao Phraya River. There are a few types of boats that run from this pier and take you to many stops along the river including the temples. The Express Boat costs 15 Baht for a one way journey and takes about 20-25 minutes to reach Tha Chang, the pier closest to Wat Phra Kaeo. For the more romantic souls there is the Long Tail Boat which takes only a few people along for a more speedy ride but at a handsome price as well. A group of 4 might pay about 800-900 Baht and a single traveler might have to shell out as much as 500 Baht. The lady sitting in front of me in this train took the long tail boat by mistake as she didn't know about the Express Boat! Moral of the story - Please enquire about all the options before choosing one, for anything anywhere in Bangkok.
As soon as you get off the pier you are greeted by a small market selling fresh fruits and lots of other things to eat which I didn't dare try! There are showpieces and other gifts to be bought but I doubt the prices were the best you could get in Bangkok. The Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaeo temple is a short walk from here and is so huge that it can't be missed. As I was walking along the boundary of the temple, I came to an entrance for the complex with a crowd standing there with no one being able to get in. The security guy told us that the palace was closed and another taxi guy suggested we come again tomorrow and meanwhile he offered his services to take people to another temple nearby. I walked around the complex to find another entrance on the other side and to my surprise not only was that entrance open, we were told that the entrance that day was free for some reason!! The free entry might explain why people were being turned away from the other entrance to be taken away to some other place with an entry fee!! A similar thing happened in Wat Pho. The entry was supposed to be free but quite a few tourists were being given fake tickets and charged a price. What was shocking was that the security personnel were involved in all of these cases. This was as good a scam I saw during my stay :-). Wat Arun incidentally was not free and I had to pay 50 Baht to get in but the money spent was worth it. The temples in Thailand don't allow you in if you are not well covered as they find it disrespectful. They can provide you shawls etc to cover yourself if needed. One of the American girls well, wasn't too well covered and asked the ticket counter if she needs to borrow a shawl and the they said it's ok. Later inside the temple an American man walked up to the girl and gave her a lesson on how disrespectful it was of her to walk into a temple dressed like that!
I am not going to tell you how beautiful or magnificent the temples looked plus I don't have the vocabulary to explain to you the kind of stones being used in the temples or the style of architecture followed so I will let my pictures do the talking. It was evening by the time I was done with the temples and I decided to take the boat back to Saphan Takshin. The sun had set by the time I was on the boat and lights had started to come up everywhere including some of the fancier boats and the numerous temples along the river which makes for a beautiful sight as your boat cruises along the river. Thailand's skyline is not as magnificent as most big cities, it nonetheless adds a good backdrop to the temples with the river flowing in the front.
The Train Journey - I had a decent company in Georgina, her daughter and two grand kids (Maxine and Luke) from Vancouver. She was very well traveled and it was fun talking to her about her experiences traveling in India and sharing notes on Bangkok and weather in Vancouver and Kayaking in Glacier Bay. Her dog chasing the bears into the river, the windstorm crashing trees into her neighbor's house and her grand kid Luke breaking his nose while snowboarding. We touched upon more sensitive issues such as Canadians loosing jobs to people in China, people having to trade their window office for a cubicle and how she gets free tickets to Cirque Du Soleil and how difficult it is to critique a bad play when the writer is a good friend of yours. She is a critic for the Vancouver paper Career.
8th May - Suvarnabhumi Airport
Ok, here I am at the Starbucks at the airport waiting for my flight 5 hours later. Wish I had booked an earlier flight to Singapore, would have given me some more time there. Right now I will get a little over two days, which seem clearly insufficient to do justice to the city and Supriya! Anyways, this is my first visit to a Starbucks in Asia and I must say I am pleasantly surprised that the Raspberry Latte tastes the same here as it did in Baltimore, Washington DC, San Francisco, London, Paris and Edinburgh. I don't think it's one of the best coffee you can get but you at least have to give credit to it for its consistency.
There is a lot that I need to write about as I haven't been very regular at jotting down my experiences from Bangkok as well as Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai in particular was quite eventful and exciting. A short trip but definitely worth taking. So the train journey ended peacefully. I slept well at night and got up early in the morning to catch some of the scenery from the train window. The view was quite scenic with lush green all over with mountains in the backdrop. I wished I was taking a car journey instead so that I could stop at will to take pictures. As a matter of principle I refuse to take pictures through a window. I arrived at the Chiang Mai station at about 7 in the morning and I immediately went to my hotel. Chiang Mai in addition to the tuk-tuks and the metered taxi also has a Red Taxi which is an open van that seats about 10 people and is the cheapest of all three. It took about 50 Baht to reach my hotel. The hotel was on a side street from one of the main roads in Chiang Mai called Moon Muang Road. It was in a quite setting and in addition to a nice breakfast/lunch place of its own, had a few good coffee places around it (for those who don't know me well, cafes are all I need to survive in any country). I just noticed a few monks pass by in front of the Starbucks... I have never seen monks at an airport before! Anyways, a nice girl in one of these cafes who had earlier helped me find the hotel, made me a nice cheese sandwich, salad and fresh carrot juice along with a lovely smile, all for just 60 Baht.
I had come to Chiang Mai with no plans whatsoever and had to quickly pull up my socks to make use of the short stay there. As soon as I reached the hotel I looked up on the internet and found the most popular tourist attractions and in a flash signed up for the No.1 activity - Flight of the Gibbon! As the name suggests it is related to jumping from tree to tree like a gibbon - or ziplining in more technical terms. Treetop Adventures have set up canopies in the tall trees of the Chiang Mai rainforests and have connected them through cables and one can go from tree to tree using the cables just like cable cars do, the difference being here you are the cable car... We were a group of 6 on that tour along with one instructor and an assistant of his. Apart from me, there was an Australian couple, an English guy an American guy and a local Thai friend of his (who inspite of living in Chiang Mai was trying this for the first time). We had to cover about 15 trees and it took us 2-3 hours to do so. It is scary the first time you let yourself go on that cable but is nonetheless easier than it looks in videos or pictures. And it gets more and more fun as you loose fear and start enjoying it by trying new things such as going backwards, making funny postures while on the way (the instructor was great at this - he looked like Jim Carrey on the cables!). After a few rides I got the courage to let my hands be free and not worry about hitting a tree branch on the way... I also shot a few videos while I was ziplining... I will put them up on youtube soon. Unfortunately the photographs or the videos don't truly capture the feeling we had while we were zooming past trees hundreds of feet above the ground but should be enough to give the uninitiated a good idea of what it is all about.
We headed back from the forest for our hotels at about 5 pm or so and I wasn't planning to do much after that, so I was looking forward to an uneventful and relaxed evening in the hotel but that wasn't meant to be. I had shared the cab with the Australian couple on the way to the forest but on the return trip I was moved to the taxi with the American guy and the Thai girl for some reason, which was ok to me. All of us were tired and so half way to the destination (it was about an hour ride) the other two people fell asleep while I was enjoying the village scenery from the navigator seat in the car. In Thailand you have these strange vehicles with a small trolley attached to a motorcycle on the side, used to carry stuff. One of this came ahead from the side of the street and suddenly started to change lanes. It was traveling quite slowly to be changing lanes ahead of us and our driver honked at him, he continued to do so, then our driver tried to swerve past him and he seemed to move still closer and then our driver jammed the brakes and the car skidded like crazy and ultimately went on to hit the vehicle. The impact was so strong that I was sure my airbag would open up but it didn't (later I checked, there was no airbag in the car!). I was scared that the cab had run the guy over but when the car stopped, the motorcycle driver was lying to my left... with blood on his face and on the road. I tried to get out of the car but the door had jammed because of the impact. The accident had woken up the other two guys and everyone got out, I used the back door to get out. Meanwhile a couple of vehicles following us had stopped to check the matter out. In a flash there was an American guy and a Thai guy with some medical knowledge checking the injured man, giving him first aid and talking to him to make sure he is conscious and remembers things. To my utter surprise no one attempted to or even thought of beating up the taxi driver who was standing in one corner talking to his taxi company. Fortunately, the man was not too severely injured, no visible fractures though his hand was hurting a lot, a lot of swelling on the head and some bleeding from the face. His trolley and scooter was badly damaged but our car had much more damage done to it.
We were not expecting to be able to go back in the same car. Soon more people stopped and a few rescue vans came. A couple of people took the responsibility of directing the traffic around the accident site. The rescue vans were followed by a couple of police vans. The first thing the policemen did were to take a few pictures of the man, his vehicle and the car (which I had done already as soon as I got out but I had kept my camera back in as soon as the police had arrived as I didn't know what to expect from them). The rescue vans took the injured guy to the hospital and the policemen interrogated the driver for a few minutes. He was later asked to drive the car (along with us) to the police station and I was surprised that the car was still driveable. I was expecting that we will have to give our statements at the station but that didn't happen. No one ever said a word to us and another taxi was called at the station to take us to our hotels. Not sure what became of our first driver... I reached the hotel safely but I am still amazed by how smoothly the whole process was handled. I don't recall anyone getting mad or angry at any stage or trying to put blame on person or the other... if it was India, the cab driver would have been in poor shape by now...
I am still at the Starbucks... you know why? No, not because I drink my coffee very slowly (well, I still have some coffee left but that's deliberate) but because they have electrical outlets so that I can charge my laptop... I plan to keep writing while I am on the flight.
I didn't do anything that night except going out for dinner. I couldn't find an Indian restaurant nearby so ended up having fried rice with eggs at a Thai place. I have found fried rice to be a safe bet at any Asian place as there is no likelihood of them adding any meat to it unless you specify it so. Another thing that I have noticed with fried rice in an Asian restaurant is that it fills you up quickly but then you start feeling hungry again in a couple of hours... so I went to the 7-11 after that and got myself a few cookies and a can of chocolate milk just in case I get hungry at night. Turned out, I slept too early to feel hungry... I got up at about 2:30 in the morning in a frantic mode as I had not yet planned the next day and I had to check out from the hotel at 10 am. I once again sought the help of my old friend, the internet, and zeroed down on a Thai cooking class for the next day. The timing seemed to fit my plan as well since I had to catch a train at 9 pm and this thing would get over by 5 pm. I went to bed and put an alarm for 7 in the morning and as usual got up at 8:15. Called up the thai cooking company to make a reservation and they were like, "we pick you up at 8:25" and I am like, yeah sure... how about 9? He said 9 is too late, and we eventually settled on 8:50! What followed was an act that I had mastered over several years of living out of a suitcase - getting fresh, ready, light breakfast and packing up and check out in 30 minutes flat! The instructor came to pick me up at 8:50 along with 5 other folks - a couple from Portland, two girls from Spain and a girl from Perth, Australia. The girls from Spain were a bit quiet and kept more to themselves but I had an interesting conversation with the rest of the folks. Victoria, from Perth, was two weeks into her 5 month round the world trip whereas Steve and Kate had just moved from New York City to Portland and were taking a one month vacation in south east asia quite similar to mine.
29th May - Suvarnabhumi Airport
I am back here, this time to take the flight back home. This has been a wonderful trip and as I walk along the same shops as I did 3 weeks ago I can't help but recall everything that has happened during this time. The memory of me sitting in the Starbucks, having coffee and writing this journal is still as fresh in my mind as is the smell of the coffee from Starbucks! I had a few hours to kill at the airport so I decided to grab a coffee and edit some of the photographs. This time I decided to try a different cafe, right next to the Starbucks as they had some very tempting ice creams as well. Free wireless internet on top of it clinched the deal for me. I had some trouble getting on to the internet as they had some weird encryption system but once I was connected I had to help a couple of other customers as well as the cafe staff had no clue how to make things work. The next few hours were just plain wonderful... extra hot latte with coconut, apple and kiwi ice cream and free internet... what else do I want? :-) I took this opportunity to recall some of my experiences while in Bangkok, some things that were very prominent or unexpected, things that I probably won't forget that easily...
Shop till you drop - For most people shopping is the biggest attraction of Bangkok after the temples. Bangkok has earned a reputation as a place for finding anything and everything at very low prices. This I found true only to an extent. The part about being able to find anything and everything is real but the pricing part is only partially correct. Bangkok has some of the biggest malls in Asia with big brand names such as Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Hugo Boss, Armani, Cartier, Rolex, Mont Blanc and even Ferrari. Don't expect to get anything cheap/discounted at these places. I don't think it makes much of a difference if you buy these things in Bangkok or some other country without much duty on imported goods. In fact I verified the prices of some of the electronic items with the prices in United States and US was consistently cheaper for electronics. I later on realized that US is one of the cheapest markets globally for electronics! Shopping in Bangkok becomes fun and cheap if you are content with local stuff... things made in Thailand, China or some other Asian countries. This mostly includes handicrafts, leather goods, wooden artifacts, accessories for electronics, cosmetics, clothes etc. These can be found (sometimes the exact same items) at big malls as well as at the numerous street shops along Sukhumvit. Just be prepared to bargain really hard if you want to get the right price. 30% of quoted price is a good place to start. If you pay more than 50%, you shouldn't be made incharge of the cash. Don't buy too much from the same shop. There are no golden opportunities... the same stuff is at hundreds of shops... so explore...
Meeting other Indians - This is a global phenomenon - Indians ignore other Indians. After I left the airport in Bangkok I didn't run into any Indians for the next two days. On the 3rd day while I was walking around in search of an Indian restaurant I heard a familiar accent. I looked back to find an Indian couple to my delight. I immediately exclaimed, "oh, you are the first Indian people I have run into here!" The response - the weakest smile you can imagine and they turned away... I tried making a conversation but soon realized they weren't interested... too bad. I wished them a fun trip and moved on. I don't recall interacting with any Indian for the rest of my stay there... though I saw quite a few. One place where you are guaranteed running into Indians is an Indian restaurant and there are quite a few of them in Thailand, particularly Bangkok. The place where I was staying was great in this regard as I had three Indian restaurants within 5 minutes walking distance. One called Bawarchi across the street from me, another one called Shalimar in the same lane as my hotel and another one called Dosa King on an adjacent street. After taking a look at all three I finally settled on Dosa King and stuck with it throughout my stay in Bangkok. It was relatively less crowded, reasonably priced and the food seemed authentic. Judging by the 2 BMWs that were permanently parked outside the restaurant, I am guessing the owner was doing well for himself. And as I mentioned earlier, I saw quite a few Indians while at the restaurant and not even once had any kind of a conversation.
Meeting Locals - You would expect that it would be much easier to interact with the local people simply because there are so many of them and that they might be excited to talk to people from other countries... well, not really... I found that many locals are skeptical of tourists and try to maintain a distance. If someone approaches you on his or her own to initiate a conversation you can be 100% sure that they are trying to sell you something. If you are in a shop and do indeed buy something from there, then you can get the shopkeeper to talk a lot and it might make for an interesting discussion as well. But just trying to engage in a conversation without buying anything doesn't go down too well with people. I found it very hard just to mingle with some local people and have a harmless non-financial cultural exchange. May be you have to look harder to find the right people... I just didn't have the patience and time I guess...
Young girls at work - Does anyone go to school in Bangkok? If I had not seen a few people in school uniform I would have thought no, as all young guys and particularly girls seem to be working somewhere or the other. Half of the MBK (one of the biggest malls in Bangkok) seems to be run by young men and women who are either of school or college going age. I was looking for a case for my iPod at one of these shops and the girls working there were... well, quite young. So, I asked them if they go to school and how do people typically manage studies along side working. They just laughed about it... I think they were not too serious about studies or it might just be that they didn't understand a word of what I said and were laughing at my weird accent or something :-)
Transport/Getting Around - Thailand in general and Bangkok specifically are very tourist friendly when it comes to commuting in and around the city to catch the major attractions. There are two distinct modes of commuting in the old city of Bangkok where all the temples are and in the new part where you have all the hotels, malls, shopping etc. The newer part has the Skytrain, the MRT (Metro), Tuk-Tuks and Scooters whereas you can get around in the the old city using tuk-tuks, scooters and a multitude of ferries/boats that run in the Chao Phraya river. The public transport system in Bangkok is extremely efficient, clean and well maintained. The BTS Skytrain although a bit pricey is very well connected, extremely clean and convenient. The route on which the Skytrain doesn't operate is covered by the MRT metro which is much cheaper than the Skytrain. Tuk-tuks are the Thai version of the Indian auto rickshaw, nothing more nothing less.
What is most fascinating about public transport in Thailand are the motor bikes - perhaps the only country where motorcycles are used as a paid taxi service. They do have motorbikes in Vietnam as well but those don't seem as official as the ones in Thailand and are primarily meant to con tourists by charging a ridiculous price for a one hour tour of the city and then forcing you to buy a beer for them at the end. In Thailand, the motor bike riders are wearing those jerseys which traffic police or road construction workers typically wear (the ones with fluorescent orange color that reflect light). Unlike Vietnam, this service is used by the local people as well to get quickly from one place to another particularly on routes where the Skytrain or MRT doesn't operate. While you are taking a ride on a tuk-tuk or a motorbike, one thing that you notice is that no one honks, no matter how crowded the road is. I didn't see any sign of a road rage while I was there, traffic somehow operates very smoothly. I can expect to see something like that in USA but I didn't expect it in Thailand. I must say I was impressed with the demeanor of the folks on the road...
Time went by pretty quickly editing pictures and living those moments once again in mind and very soon it was time for me to check in for my flight. The extra hot coffee had become super cold by now, suggesting that I better move out of the cafe.
Useful Facts/Tips for a trip to Thailand:
1. The electrical outlets in Thailand are the same as in US so, folks with laptops and cameras from US don't need any converter.
2. Cameras are not cheaper in Thailand.
3. If a local approaches you on his own, he is more often than not trying to sell you something. No harm in talking to him, just make it very clear that you are not interested in whatever he is offering.
4. The official word is not always the right one. I was asked to buy tickets at a few places which were meant to be free. A few cross questions or deeper digging will get you the right information. Look for prices, admission rules etc. in writing somewhere rather than believing your guide or security personnel.
Posts
