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Published: February 25th 2008
Tuk-Tuk
You know you've arrived in Thailand when you see your first Tuk-Tuk. Translated, it means "cheap-cheap"After a four-hour flight overnight from the airport in Mumbai (which can be roughly approximated as a cross between a bus terminal and an OTB), I arrived in Bangkok early Saturday morning. Once I got in the cab, I was immediately excited to be travelling in a vehicle for the first time in a week that was able to achieve speeds in excess of 40 miles an hour without having to climb to 35,000 feet first. After dropping off my bags at the Hilton Millenium and having some breakfast, I took a short ride on the hotel's free ferry service down the Chao Phraya River to the central ferry terminal. They even let me pilot the boat for a few minutes! I then caught an express ferry back up the river to visit the Grand Palace and Wat Pho. While I took dozens of pictures, I didn't have the benefit of a guide, so while the pictures are nice to look at, I don't have any of the context behind them (and I'm too lazy to research them on Wikipedia right now).
After leaving Wat Pho, my plan was to walk to the Golden Mount (Wat Saket) and Wat Ratchananadda,
Piloting the Hilton Shuttle Ferry
More difficult to steer than you'd think. Lucky it was a wide river and then take one of the canal boats east to MBK mall. However, after a 30 minute hike in 80 degree weather, I got to where I thought I should have been able to at least see them but couldn't. Being pretty tired from 2 hours of sleep on the plane and being somewhat behind schedule, I elected to just hop in a cab and head to the mall. I spent around an hour there, and then rode the Silom line of the BTS Skytrain to its last stop of the central ferry terminal, and then caught the hotel ferry back.
I checked into my room and indulged myself with a bath, which after a day of walking around Bangkok and a week of living in India, felt like heaven. My room with its 28th floor nearly panoramic view of the city was probably the best hotel room I've ever stayed in. Dinner at the Thai restaurant Yuan at the hotel was not up to the standards of the rest of my hotel experience (I enjoyed every one of my meals in India more), and to my great surprise I found out that it was "pre-election weekend", and that
Hilton Millenium Bangkok
View of the hotel from the express ferry no restaurants or bars in the country were able to serve alcohol! Afterwards I headed up to 360 Bar on the top of the hotel, and while the views were spectacular, it was basically empty due to the alcohol ban. Too tired to push my luck by going into town, I decided to call it a night and vowed to return another day...
On to Manila...
Jason
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Justin
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The Beach
No visit to the beach? What am I saying, it looks like you did a bunch in just one day. You must have been exhausted.