Bangkok, Thailand: The Land of Smile

So to keep things interesting instead of going through each day in detail, which would be fun, but daunting and tiresome for both of us, I decided to give you an itinerary view of what I did each day followed up by bits of randomness. You know the weird anecdotes, deep thoughts, and funny incidences which are inevitable when it comes to traveling.

Day 1 August 28, 2008
1:30pm Arrive at airport. Manage to get through customs, change my money and buy my bus ticket.



3:30pm-ish Arrive at Lub.d hostel and then venture out and find some food.
5-8:00pm SLEEP! I was so so tired!
8-10:00pm Waste time checking email, reading about Bangkok… and then go to bed for the night.

Day 2 August 29, 2008
8:00am Wake up, breakfast, meet a girl named Steffi from Germany.
9:00am Head out with Steffi and another girl, Margaret, to take the skytrain to the boat, to visit the Grand Palace and other impressive Buddhist temples.
3:30pm Amazing Thai massage at Wat Poh
5:00pm Visited the flower market. I love flowers.



7:00pm Washed up back at hostel. Went to the SkyBar at the State Tower.



9:15pm Dinner with friends from hostel at my favorite Thai place, Muvio.

Day 3 August 30, 2008
7:00am Leave hostel and head to weekend market.
7:45-1:00pm Weekend market 9,000 vendors!



5:15pm Enjoy an awesome dinner cruise on the Loy Nava.



Day 4 August 31, 2008
11:00am Wake up after sleeping in!
12:00pm Work on IWA stuff and pictures at hostel.
2:30pm Venture out to the MBK and ultra modern shopping area. Succeeded in finding USB wireless network adapter for my computer.



8:25pm Dinner at the Italian restaurant Scoozi.
9:30-1:00am Complete all my internet tasks, bought plane ticket to Kuala Lumpur, Skyped with parents :)

Day 5 September 1, 2008
8:00am Wake up, breakfast, postoffice and head for Southern Bus Station.
10:00am Bus leaves for Kachanaburi.
12:00pm Arrive and find awesome raft lodging at the Sugar Cane Guesthouse.
2:00pm Leave for visit to Tiger Temple
6:00pm Early dinner then picture processing while watching Pride and Prejudice, yes, yet again...

Day 6 September 2, 2008
8:00am Breakfast, leave for all day tour trip.
9:00-11:30am Exploring waterfalls at Erawan National Park.
12:30pm Elephant ride and bamboo rafting.
3:30pm Cave visit and train ride.
5:30pm Walk the Bridge over the River Kwai used during WWII, made famous my movie of the same name.
6:00pm Bus back to Bangkok
8:45pm Arrive back at hostel after an expensive taxi ride and a fruitful search for a small, cheap dinner of fried rice.
9:30pm Laundry, met Jay (another Stanford student on the course), booked hostel in Kuala Lumpur, headed to bed (1am)!

Day 7 September 3, 2008
6:50am Wake up, taxi to airport.
10:00am Leave Bangkok
1:15pm Arrive Kuala Lumpur airport, change my money, get bus to KL Sentral station
3:00pm Bought ticket to Warfa Bharu, found monorail and ventured to find hostel
3:30pm Arrive at hostel, chill out for a bit while writing this ;)

I arrived at the hostel thinking it was Wednesday August 27th, when in fact there was a two day time change and I arrived on Thursday August 28th instead. Luckily the hostel only charged me for the three nights I was there instead of the four I originally booked ;)

The tour guide was asking me if I wanted to “go to toilet?” But I kept hearing her say “go to Thailand?” and I’m like… duh, I’m in Thailand! Who would have thought toilet and Thailand could sound like the same thing.

On the bus back to Bangkok, I was starving… and then out of nowhere at this random stop this guy gets on selling these very tasty coated and fried banana snacks, which definitely hit the spot.

The Bangkok International Airport is more like a shopping mall than a gateway to international destinations.

The dryer at my hostel would not dry my clothes! After an hour they were still wet. It was like 12:30am at this point and I just want to go to bed, so I bit the bullet and put in 80 minutes worth of change and crossed my fingers that they will be dry in the morning. They were.

There are these great fruit vendors in Bangkok who walk around with carts of fresh fruit like watermelon, papaya, and pineapple for sale. Cold and already cut up ready to eat.

On Monday, I was surprised to see there were a ton of people walking around with yellow shirts on… then I remembered yellow was supporting the PAD. Tuesday, the Thai government declared Bangkok in a state of emergency. Even though it didn’t really affect me directly, I was happy to be leaving. In general, I would imagine things will get worse before they get better.

At the weekend market Steffi lost her camera. Seriously. She was resigned she would never see it again and was naturally pretty upset. I made her calm down and think about when she had it last. We determined it was at the booth where she bought her luggage lock. However, that was about 20 minutes ago and we have been wandering. Nothing is marked and frankly the place is a labyrinth. I was pretty confident we could find the booth, but less confident that they would have it and if they did have it giving it back would be another miracle. After retracing our steps, patiently, we found the vendor and he had it! And, he gave it back! Steffi was so happy she was literally in tears ;) Nothing is impossible.

Rivers in the rainy season are much less appealing to swim in than rivers during the dry season. The water is so cloudy it looks like you would have to cut your way through it.

On the day long tour there were 3 couples and myself. Awesome. Two of them were French and was a man man duo. I don’t even know… Anyway, there were three benches in the van and somehow I was in the middle row with the Lithuanian couple. The French people proceeded to talk to each other like the whole time talking very loudly across where we were sitting. It was being stuck in a cross fire of crazy fast French. I understood some of it, but frankly my head hurt too much to think about it. Oh and every other person including the tour guides and the driver smoked. At least not in the van. I count my blessings.

Laying your hand on a tiger is pretty exhilarating.

The little boy driving my elephant looked like he was about 11, but said he was 16! I don’t know if was lying or not, but he did have an incredibly impressive command of English. I was grateful to have a buddy for a few minutes.

Traveling alone means lots of meals by yourself.

I was quite adventurous at dinner tonight and ordered something that I had no idea what it was. It came and I was a bit freaked out, but once I got over myself and tried the food it turned out to be pretty good!

Enjoying a Mai Tai at the open air SkyBar 64 floors up is probably the most fun I have had in a while.

The shrines are pretty and all, but definitely not for me. The emerald Buddha is supposedly the most sacred, but FYI it is like 16cm tall. I much prefer the reclining Buddha which is unbelievably HUGE!

At the Italian restaurant I ordered this pasta and turns out it was really spicy. Like my mouth was on fire, and I was not enjoying the meal as I imagined I would. Sad.

Two things in particular I would like to go back to Thailand to do… 1. Learn Thai massage. 2. Learn Thai cooking.

The money exchange place I used when I arrived had a same rate buy back guarantee which was part of the reason why I chose that agency instead of another. Well, I wanted to take advantage of that guarantee on my way out today, but the guy didn’t want to give me the same rate because I didn’t have some flyer thingy. After explaining to him that I was never given one and being a bit of a pest he honored the buy back rate. Persistence is the key in certain situations.

They seem to have all sorts of fruit drinks and various smoothies here in Asia and I love them! They are also like $2USD or less which makes me really happy.

The MBK shopping mall was really more like an organized, permanent, clean and high tech flea market. Go figure…

I love the street vendors. I would support a comeback of such options for food in the US… not limited to hotdogs and candied nuts. But fresh fruit, spring rolls, and the like.