Do you know how hard it is to get a taxi in Bangkok?

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The answer is pretty damn hard. But I'll get to that in a little bit. Today was not one of my brighter days. Thank you to Kristin who tried to tell me that I was being a stereotypical guy and was being crazy. Well my legs are certainly paying for my "bright" idea. Anyway, I'll get to that soon enough as well.

Since I went to bed at 7:30 last night I ended up waking up at 5 this morning well rested and ready for an adventure. My goal for today was to get to the US Embassy to register with them and to find out if the photocopy of my passport that I had with me was acceptable or not. Last night I used Google Earth (my new best friend) to get directions from my apartment to the embassy and it said that it was approximately 7.5 miles, or a 20 minute car ride. Being I didn't have any other plans for today I figured I'd walk there and then maybe walk back or just explore some other things in the area. So I set off on foot at 7 and it took me a little over 3 hours to get there. After getting there I spoke with someone and told them I wanted to register and the woman there told me that I could do it online... which I already knew, but the embassy's website said I could do it in person as well. Needless to say I was pretty pissed that I had just walked 3 hours for that. So then I questioned her about my passport copy and I showed mine to her and she said it should be acceptable, but it depends on what I want to do with it. Since I don't need it for anything other than identification, it's going to be just fine so now I can leave my real passport locked up in the safe in my room. So at least it was partially worthwhile to spend 3 hours walking there.

After I finished up at the embassy I looked around at the map I had and decided to try walking to Khao San Road which is supposed to be a major tourist and nightlife area. Even though it wouldn't be night when I got there I thought it would take me a couple more hours by foot and that maybe I could just hang out in the area for a while and then maybe see what it's like after dark. So I kept walking... and kept walking. I stopped at a couple places on the way though. One was a mall I saw something about and it was absolutely enormous. It was called Central World and it was 7 floors, each of which was enormous. I walked around in there for a few minutes and then realized that I didn't come to Thailand to look at shopping malls so I quickly left and continued on my way. I kept walking on my way and after a while saw a sign for a temple I thought I had seen on my map so I followed the signs and was pleasantly surprised. It was a Buddhist temple called Golden Mount and it was basically a giant pagoda. Someone on the street later told me it was something like 400 steps to the top (there were a lot but the steps were like 2 inches tall each so they were miniature steps). There was a nice view of the city from the top and the pagoda was pretty huge so I was glad I got to see that. After leaving Golden Mount I kept walking to try and find Khao San Road. For a while prior to going to the Golden Mount I thought it was lost but I just kept walking anyway. After leaving Golden Mount I realized I was definitely lost, but again, I just kept walking because I didn't feel unsafe at any point. After a while there was a tourist place that had a large city map outside their door and a man sitting by it so I stopped to look at the map and asked him where we were. We were actually quite close to where I wanted to go, but way off the route I had planned on taking. Him and his co workers eventually talked to me for quite a while (they wanted to sell me a trip to Phuket and a tour or Bangkok which I had to politely refuse multiple times). But they did tell me that nearby there was a giant statue of Buddha. So when I left their store I tried to find the giant Buddha and unfortunately came up empty handed. By this time I was pretty pissed just because I had been walking for so long and had next to nothing to show for it. I tried to find Khao San Road one last time and by turning down some random streets I eventually did find it and was really disappointed by it. It could be simply because I was so tired and my legs were in so much pain by that point that I didn't even care that I had gotten there or it could be because I had read so many great things about the stuff on that road and I felt that it didn't really live up to what I had heard about it. There were a ton of street vendors selling mostly clothes and some jewelery but none of it interested me. There were some bars and clubs but I was too dehydrated to want to sit down for a beer and as much as a beer probably would have improved my mood, I was cranky and didn't feel like it.

By this point it was probably at least 4 so I had been walking almost nonstop for about 9 hours and my legs really hurt so I just wanted to get home by that point. I figured I'd get away from Khao San Road before finding a taxi because I felt like I'd be less likely to get ripped off if I wasn't in the main tourist area. So I just aimlessly walked away from Khao San Road for a while and I had so many tuk tuk drivers harassing me to let them give me a ride and one random white guy who looked like he had to be at least 30 who walked up next to me and asked me where I was from and where I was staying. That was pretty disconcerting to me so I told him I had to take a taxi and just stopped in my tracks and let him get a ways ahead of me before I kept walking. At this point I was still totally lost because I had made a couple of random turns but I stumbled out at one road that I recognized that I had taken earlier so I started to walk down that back in the way I had came. Once I got onto this road I decided to try and get a taxi to take me back to my place. So I hailed one taxi and I got in, showed him where I wanted to go and he said no and kicked me out. I quickly found another taxi and the same thing happened, so I kept walking. Eventually I felt like I wasn't in the right area so I took a look at my map and realized I had gone well past the road I should have turned onto. So I had to turn back around to get back on track to getting closer to my place. Once I was back on the road I wanted to be on I kept looking for a taxi but since it was around 5, all the taxis were full. I found one that was available and I hailed it and the driver just waved at me and kept on driving. By this point I was 0 for 3 and pretty frustrated and angry. After walking for a while again I finally saw a taxi that was letting people out so I showed him where I wanted to go and he also told me no. I couldn't believe it. I realized that I was totally on the other side of the city, probably at least 10 miles or more away from the apartment, but really, wouldn't a rational taxi driver jump at the opportunity to take a white guy all the way across the city? What better opportunity to completely rip someone off? This last driver pointed that there was another taxi not far in front of him so I tried that taxi and he agreed to take me there for 300 baht (~$9) and I took it. I really didn't care what he charged me, it was 5:25 at that point and I wanted to get home. After I got in we were stuck in traffic and didn't move for about 5 minutes so he told me that because of the traffic he would have to charge me 400 baht instead. I was annoyed but agreed to it because again, I had given up caring a while ago. After sitting in traffic for a few more minutes he turned around and drove me a different way. It took us about 35 minutes but he got me back to my apartment so I was happy.

Fortunately this place has a jacuzzi so I was able to help my legs to relax a bit but I'm probably going to be in pain for a couple of days. If not from sore legs, then definitely from enormous blisters on my feet. I've gone on long hikes before, but this blows them all out of the water. I was walking almost non-stop from 7AM until 5:30PM. Partially because I wanted to and partially because I didn't look at my map too often and figured I'd just walk and see where I ended up. Oh well.

But my adventure today did open my eyes to a few things around Bangkok.

First, I have to take back what I said the other day about Bangkok not being as dirty as people made it out to be. Maybe I just didn't realize it yesterday but the smog here is so thick that there is just a permanent haze outside. I now completely understand why so many people were face masks. If I ran my finger over any part of my body black dirt would just scrape off my skin even though it looked completely clean. When I got back to my room I wiped a towel on my face and it turned it black. Even when I blow my nose, dirt comes out. There's just so much dirt in the air that it's absolutely disgusting. I could probably start smoking a pack a day back home and my lungs would be cleaner than they'll be when I leave here. If nothing else, today made me decide that I will definitely use the apartment's laundry service to clean my clothes.

Second, all around town I've seen lots of signs and banners still up that say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. This is fine since I'm sure many people back home still have signs up like this. But it struck me as odd that they should say Merry Christmas since this is a country where over 90% of the people are Buddhist and Christmas is an exclusively Christian holiday. I really don't think there are many Christians here in Bangkok but I just thought it was odd that there should be signs like that in public places.

Thirdly, my apartment is so far away from everything that anytime I want to go out in the future I'm going to need to take a cab, because I am definitely not walking 8 miles again. I think TCNJ chose this place because it's close to the school I'll be teaching at, which I'm sure where make things convenient for me, but from a tourist's standpoint, this sucks. Not that I don't want to take taxis, but I do enjoy exploring the city on foot (today certainly proves that) and I guess I realize that until I start to figure out what a decent taxi fare is, I'm am going to get ripped off my first few times that I use them. This isn't really a big deal because I guess getting ripped off by the locals is part of the whole tourism deal, but it would be nicer if I were closer to downtown where there's more to see. My opinion may change on this as I explore a little more around my apartment (hopefully that will be tomorrow if my legs allow it) but for now that's my stand.

Fourth, the stereotype about Asians eating dog is probably not true in Bangkok. There are stray dogs everywhere. Now cats on the other hand, I've only seen a handful of, so who knows about that....

Finally, I'm not impressed with the food so far. Granted, I haven't had much of an appetite for the last few days so I haven't been eating much, but some of the smells from the street vendors is absolutely disgusting. I've seen one or two things that caught my eye that I would like to try eventually but so far that's it. Maybe as my stomach gets back to normal this will change too but for now I've actually been having a hard time trying to find places to eat out in the city. But again, as I explore more this should change.

Well I think I've exhausted my thoughts for now. Feel free to leave me comments or messages because even though it tells me how many times these have been looked at (which is actually more than I expected) it has been a little lonely here just because I don't know anyway so a message or comment would be appreciated.

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Photos

Central World
This is the enormous mall

The pagoda at Golden Mount
There wasn't much room to get a good photo at the top so this picture doesn't give justice to how large it really was

Some Buddhas at Golden Mount
The one in the back was also much larger than this picture makes it look

Democracy Monument
In my aimless wanderings on the way home I stumbled across this. It's a monument build in the 1930's to memorialize the establishment of a constitutional monarchy.

Comments

[Stayc]

Hi ooo Brian, Just doing my fair share of stalking here over in the US. I heard from Maria that you had finally left and then I saw you had a blog in your facebook profile so I came over to read it. Sounds like you're being the lil explorer over there! It sucks that you're getting ripped off at the beginning, but I think that's just part of the experience. The first taxi I took in Italy I ended up paying about $45 for, it was awful but like you, I was tired and scared and didn't care. Anyway...just wanted to comment like you asked for to show you people are reading this..hope things pick up a bit for you and you start enjoying your experience abroad!! Try and stay clean ;)

[cassie]

dirty city.
i totally had the same experience with having dirt in my nose. it's gross! as for the taxi's, the only advice i have is to have them turn the meter on. some won't do it because they lose money on it, but it will definitely save you if you can get someone who will. we were bargaining at first, and paying usually around 200 baht per ride, and then the first time we asked them to turn on the meter (as the advice of our hotel staff) it ended up being something like 80 baht. and i LOVE the pictures. you're blog is quite exciting to read =)

[Eric Steinberg]

Hey there brian
Wow that's a long walk. Now did you ask anyone why the taxis wouldn't take you back or do you have an idea why they wouldn't. Just out of curiosity. Also the pictures are great. Really enjoying these blogs though, bangkok sounds really interesting. Even though it may be dirty. Hopefully things will get better for you and you'll find what you want (like better smelling food which also hopefully tastes great too). Well hope your legs feel better! And I look forward to seeing your next blog.

[MoGrath14]

Answering Eric's question
I'm really not too sure why some of the taxis wouldn't take me. My only guess is that it's because I was so far away from my apartment. I live on one end of the city and I had walked completely to the other end, which was around 10 miles straight across and I guess drivers just didn't want to go that far. The driver I had took me on the highway instead of staying on the city streets and it still took about 30 minutes to get me to my apartment. Outside of that I have no explanation as to why I couldn't get a cab. I could have easily taken a tuk tuk because there were a ton of them but I didn't really feel comfortable taking one of them all the way across the city.

[cassie]

hey brian, i don't remember the specifics but while i was there someone from our hotel explained the taxi's to us. some of them can only got within certain areas, and it has to do with the colors. there are zones or some kind of set up and they stay within the zone, and then there are some that go all over. like i said, i don't remember the specifics about it, just that the concierge explained it to us one night when we were having trouble getting a cab.