19 Nov 2 Days in Bangkok

I made it. And I must still be alive, since you’re reading my latest post. If it stops abruptly, send help. Unless I just hit a wrong button.

Anyways, let’s talk about all the great stuff I’ve learned in the first 2 days I’ve been in Bangkok!!

Airport

They tried to keep me out…. Well, not really, but my first flight from Portland to Seattle was delayed, which would have made me miss my flight to Shanghai. Then my NEW flight was delayed and, well, Luckily I got to the second flight in perfect time.

Bangkok airport isn’t so bad (Don’t even get me started about the Shanghai airport where my layover was). My airline apparently gave me the wrong arrival slip on the plane. The guard rolled her eyes at my incorrect slip, handed me a new one and I stepped into the ‘foreigners’ line. While waiting I went ahead and logged on to the airport’s free wi-fi. It’s pretty fast for a public network. It just asks you to log in with your last name, country of origin, and passport number, which seemed weird to me, but turns out it’s legit.

I had gone ahead and purchased my 60 day visa ahead of time in Portland since I knew I was going to be here for that long and I would rather not spend one of my Bangkok days waiting in line for an extension of a 28 day visa-on-arrival. Especially since I don’t have an onward ticket. 😬 (shhhh) Luckily, he didn’t ask and I didn’t tell, and I didn’t see anyone else have problems while I was passing through either.

My bag was a carry-on, so after passing through immigration I just stopped at an ATM to grab a meager 3000 baht (about 100$) to get me started. Word of warning – there was a huge, and I mean HUGE ATM fee! I don’t remember exactly, but between 2 and 300 baht, which is like 6-8$. I switched to Charles Schwab online banking before I left because they have no foreign transaction fees and they reimburse your ATM fees, and I am now SO glad I did. Thanks for the recommendation, Nowak! For anyone else, a friend recommended Vasu Exchange as a good bank for turning over some dollars if you bring some from home. I’m on day 3 and haven’t had to pick up more cash yet, so I’m unsure if the fees were high at the airport or everywhere.

Then I found these super nice electronic kiosks that give you any info you might need about the airport. Feeling slightly lost, I perused the menu and saw that the bus and train don’t start running until 6 (it was now 2am), so I followed instructions and walked outside of the airport and followed the taxi signs to some more kiosks. Taxis are much more expensive, but when you’re stuck, you’re stuck.

I pushed the button, got a ticket, and headed to the taxi in the numbered parking spot listed on my ticket. The driver was very nice. I showed him the directions I had printed, and pulled up the hostel on my maps.me app (best app for travel!!). He started the meter without me having to ask, and notified me what the toll fees would be and of the 50 baht surcharge which the ticket mentioned. I noticed he started with a 35 baht surcharge on already, but in the end I don’t know what’s normal, and is it really worth arguing over 1 dollar? He probably needs it more than I do anyways. So! 75B in tolls, 50B surcharge, 465B for the route. 590B total isn’t so bad if you really need it, and it is about what I was expecting.

Hostel

I stayed at the Home Hug Hostel Friday through Sunday. It sounds so friendly, doesn’t it? It was nice and clean, and the staff was really nice, but it didn’t have much of that community hostel feel to it. Most of my dorm-mates certainly weren’t very talkative. But I felt like my stuff was safe there and it was relatively quiet for the city. For 170B per night, I’m not complaining.

Day One

Practicalities

I had a slow morning. I was up early, but I re-organized my bag, wrote, had the hostel’s free breakfast (toast…classic). But I needed a SIM card, so it was time to get moving. I took my first step outside and looked down the street and suddenly it was all real. It was daylight and people were moving and the streets were crowded, and I just felt…right. I took that first deep, conscious breath of foreign air – an atmosphere that had never brushed my lips before – and my anxieties melted away. This is my element. I felt like I belonged.

I walked down the street and climbed the steps to a pedestrian bridge. They have these throughout the city. They are great! Most are just over the busier streets so people don’t get run over, but you get a wonderful view and see the city below from a new aspect.

In fact, the city is so crowded that it’s started growing up instead of out. Several of these pedestrian bridges lead directly to the second or third floors of department buildings and shopping centers. I went across this first bridge to the Indra shopping center and meandered through until I found one with cell phone cases. He sold me the 1-2 AIS card with unlimited data for 30 days at 600B (18$). Sweet. I didn’t add extra money for minutes because I can do all of my messaging and calling via WiFi or data on my iphone. Just need to get my parents to download Facebook messenger, so…I haven’t talked to them for a while. Just kidding!

Exploration!

Back at the hostel I planned my day – see a few shrines, head to Siam, check out Jim Thompson’s house. All of these are within walking distance of my hostel and should make for a nice calm first day in Bangkok.

I wandered out to Ratchaprarop Rd and meandered to a few shrines on the way to Siam. First the Ganesha and Trimurti shrines, which are side by side. Then the Erawan Shrine. All were lovely, but Erawan was also crowded as fuuuu.

Ganesha is this oddly beautiful pot-bellied man with an elephant head. He is the god of success, and those who provide offerings to him will find themselves blessed with good fortune in their endeavors.

Shrine to Trimurti, God of Love. Where broken hearts can come to pray and romantics can seek their true love by leaving a rose as an offering. If only love were that easy sometimes, right?

The Erawan Shrine is apparently really popular despite not being specifically Buddhist. It was raised because a hotel being built at the time (the Erawan Hotel, of course, which has since been leveled and replaced) had a bunch of horrible accidents happen during construction. In order to ‘appease the spirits’ they created a shrine of the four-faced Brahman god of creation representing kindness, mercy, sympathy, and impartiality. Guess it worked in a way, because people still love it.

Moving on, I found more pedestrian sky bridges (some of which only lead to the sky train, it gets a bit confusing) in the Siam district. That is one hell of a place. I was awed, disgusted, and hysterically laughing throughout the afternoon.

First of all…So. Much. Stuff.

I mean there is a shit ton of stuff everywhere, but goodNESS! All those fancy designer shops, top end, everyone looking like they walked out of a magazine. Security guards were everywhere. I mostly walked around and gawked, but I did find a few gems.

I grabbed my first taste of Bangkok at a place called Noodle House. The food wasn’t out of this world, but it was good. Noodles with shrimp, squid, pork, egg, and veggies, and a Thai iced tea for 2.50$?? I can see you and I are going to get along, Thailand…

I got bored looking around and went to try to find this thing I saw online: The Human Body Museum. It is located on the medical college campus just south of Siam shopping. It is similar to ‘Bodies: An Exhibition’, which toured the USA (if anyone else is nerdy enough to know what that is). This is a much smaller demonstration of the human body including bone structure, internal organs, muscles, and nervous and vasculature systems. It is just two small rooms on the 9th floor of a building on the edge of campus. Morbid? Duh, but it is a free/donation based, super cool (if you’re a nerd (I obviously am)), and air-conditioned thing to do on an afternoon in Siam.

I was going to go to this super awesome looking aquarium, but they jacked up the prices to 990B. I wasn’t prepared to spend that much yet, so I checked out the Art and Culture Centre! Another free or donation based activity, it’s 9 floors of…who would have guessed, Thai art and culture. The first few floors have shops and local artists, then there are composition rooms above. Most right now are, of course, focused on the late King Bhumibol. This was SUCH A COOL PLACE! Definitely worth a visit.

Then I moved back north and walked along the canal to the Jim Thompson house. I now totally dig all the hype on this place. I don’t know anything about architecture, but this is a way cool building with some truly beautiful art and atmosphere. It’s only 150B and you get a guided tour through the house. Very sweet, and again, very worth it in my opinion.

And then I got some delicious tokikari something-or-others that were delicious little balls of golden fluffy dough surrounding octopus, tuna, salmon, seaweed, or cheese. I can’t wait to try more street food!!! Of course as soon as I opened the box I spilled the sauces all over my shirt. Have I mentioned how clumsy I am yet?

Day Two

I had started talking to one of my dorm-mates the previous evening. When I finally got up at 6am from not being able to sleep it turns out she couldn’t either so we decided to join forces and create a TRAVEL-BOT! Anybody? Do I hear crickets?

We hopped on a bus, finally introduced ourselves (we hadn’t even learned each other’s names yet) and Violette and I headed to Chinatown to wander around. Luckily, the locals made sure we got off at the correct stop. Apparently Chinatown is much different at night, but I was not impressed. Not that it wasn’t beautiful, it just wasn’t that different from most other areas in Bangkok. There were some Chinese lanterns and different temple styling. I did find a monk who wanted many posed photographs, and we almost took a tuktuk scam just for the hell of it. We mostly just looked around some more.

We headed to the piers to look at the waterfront, went to Lumphini Park, saw an enormous 4 foot lizard, and ate a lot more street food! I’d love to create a whole post about street food alone, but I need more content. Don’t worry, I’ll get there 😉. We had some fruit smoothies, my FIRST Thai iced coffee (uuuugh so good, how do they DO that with instant coffee?), some good snacks, some bad, and I got 10B scammed from me as a ‘to-go’ fee (what a load of 💩). I wish they had an angry poop emoji, I’d use it.

Well, we had gotten such an early start it was only 1pm but we had walked 8 miles! My feet were killing me, so we napped, showered, then changed for a light night on the town!

….

And by night on the town I mean we were still so tired we didn’t want to leave our street for dinner. So we scratched our plans and went a couple of doors down to Ai Jook, had some pad thai and shared a beer. They even took our picture to put on their Facebook page!

Violette went back to pass out and I decided to finally go find a Thai massage. I popped into a random place called Body Relax. I had seen some other people in earlier (slight verification it may be a decent place?). Prices are about the same everywhere, so that wasn’t much of a decision factor. As much as I wanted a foot massage, my feet are covered in blisters after walking 18 miles in two days. I’m crazy, I know, but I love meandering through cities.

So I opted for the hour long shoulder and head massage for 250B. A girl led me upstairs, closed a curtain around a small mattress on the floor and I changed into a clean baggy shirt and pants. It was a good atmosphere, and the Thai girl was very nice and tried to hold some conversation. The massage itself was ok. She worked out a few of the knots in my shoulders and back, but I did not get much relief from it as a whole. When I came down and saw the clock it turns out she also only did a 40 minute massage. Oh well, it was 7.61$ and I didn’t feel like arguing. I drank the cup of tea provided and went back to the hostel. No worries I’ll try again somewhere else!

Moving On

I fit a lot of stuff into my first two days in Bangkok! It’s mostly been sight-seeing, but I don’t mind. I’m just doing what feels good. Time to move on to my new hostel on Khaosan Road!

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