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Published: December 17th 2010
After traveling from Cheongju to Incheon, Incheon to Beijing, and then Beijing to Bangkok we arrived at our hotel near the airport around midnight. The hotel picked us up from the airport so transportation was very convenient! We instantly noticed the number of scooters on the road. It's awesome and hilarious. We saw more scooters on the freeway than we did cars. Of course most of them are without helmets and have 2-4 people all riding on one scooter.
We were able to sleep through a number of planes landing because we were pretty exhausted. When I woke up to birds chirping and really warm air I couldn't sleep anymore! It was amazing to wake up to that after being in below freezing weather in Korea and China. I was so excited to finally be in Thailand, to finally be on vacation, and to go explore. You can imagine I'm sure.
We ate breakfast outside along a river that was full of nasty catfish. Then we checked out and got a taxi to downtown Bangkok. I was slightly nervous at this point, or maybe just frustrated with myself, for knowing hardly anything about Thailand. I didn't know the language,
I didn't have a map, I hardly knew how to convert the money....all of this lead to me feeling pretty stupid. I think many, if not most, tourists to Thailand are in the same boat but I don't like that feeling. In Korea you have to know some of these things otherwise you won't get very far. But in Thailand, there are thousands and thousands of tourists and I suppose the Thai people are used to it. It was amazing for us to hear so much English...and to see so many people smiling. It was wonderful. The differences between getting off a plane in Seoul and getting off a plane in Bangkok are very drastic. Incheon: suits, pushing, no smiles. Bangkok: shorts, dresses, smiles.
Anyway, we made it to Khaosan Road without any problems. This is the main street in Bangkok for tourists and I actually really liked it. I'm sure it would get annoying after a while. It's basically like Itaewon in Seoul. But it was so interesting to me. There are people there from everywhere in the world it seems. So many languages being spoken, so many different kinds of people. What was shocking to me was
that almost all of the white people we saw were not speaking English. In Korea, you just assume they are American and you're usually right. But in Thailand, I would say at least 90% of the white people we saw were European. It was awesome to be around such diversity. Let me just say this about my trip to Thailand: I've never seen so many dreads in my life. I guess I kind of expected it but every other person had dreadlocks. After a while, I was thinking...isn't this a little cliche? I actually saw a guy with dreads that touched his ankles. No exaggeration.
We checked into our hotel where we'd be staying the next two nights. It was a seemingly new and modern hotel surrounded by mostly old and run down buildings. It was very small but artistic and cute. I liked it. It had a beautiful pool on the roof that looked out over the city. After this we needed coffee of course. We found a place and our carmel macchiato's were DELICIOUS. It was enough to make me want to move there 😊 And CHEAP. Everything is so cheap it's incredible! Again, ordering coffee was
slightly strange at first because the guy spoke perfect English and was very friendly. Not common where I come from 😊
We wandered around the street like it was our first day in Thailand: impressed by everything and slightly stupid. I finally see a map and decide to take a picture of it with my camera so I can look at it later...because I have NO map. Stupid, I know. This was our only full day in Bangkok and there was a lot I wanted to see. As we're looking at the map a man comes up and starts asking us where we're going and shows us where we should go and asks us where we're from. He has great English and he approached us. Two things that we're not used to coming from Korea. So we of course talk to him and be friendly. Next thing ya know he tells us that it's the King's birthday so all the top sights in Bangkok have free entrance and all the tuk tuk's are cheap because it's a national holiday. Sounded slightly sketchy but again we don't know anything. He says he will use his English to tell the tuk
tuk driver where to take us. I'm sure he does this everyday all day to first timers like us ha ha. One of his first questions is "how long have you been here?" so of course he knew that we were clueless. He gets us a driver and tells us it's super cheap and we're so excited to be able to see all the main sights in ONE day for so cheap. PERFECT! but not. First he drives us to a school. A school with boys playing out front. Hmmm....this is weird. Then we go start talking to this guy, bowing to a statue, and then telling him about ourselves. Yes, I realize how dumb this all sounds now but we were confused. The guy tells us this is his school and we can make a wish to the buddha and blablabla. Then he starts telling us about Thai suit factories and how incredible Thai suits are and how they're the number 1 exporter of suits. We tell him we didn't come to Thailand to buy suits. Then the driver starts driving us to the next place....but says he needs gas. And then mentions a suit factory. Yes, very sketchy.
He drops us off at a suit shop and all these people come out and say welcome and start waving us in. We feel kind of stupid at this point. A guy tries to sell us suits, we say no, and we walk out to the driver, who never got gas. Jake decides it's a scam. For whatever reason, I think maybe it is a scam but he will still take us to our places right? HA HA. I say to him "grand palace?" He says yes and then gets a phone call. And then drops us off at a street, waves us into some place and drives away. We look in the place and there are signs all over that say "BEWARE OF FALSE TOURGUIDES." Yes, you can imagine how dumb we felt. We were so frustrated with ourselves. And now we have no idea where we are in Bangkok. We get a taxi and the driver is a super old man who speaks no English. Wonderful! We say Grand Palace, assuming millions of tourists have said Grand Palace before. This guy drives us across Bangkok in TRAFFIC, hardly moving, and then rolls down his window, asks some guy
Ripped off
in the back of the tuktukfor directions, and starts mumbling and grumbling in Thai. We ask him 5 times "grand palace?" and he says ya. Jake gets mad and starts yelling at him in English. He's done this in Korea too and it's pretty funny because they have no idea what we're saying and it doesn't get us anywhere, but it provides comic relief. I was getting BEYOND frustrated because it's already afternoon and we only have ONE day in Bangkok, I can't communicate anything and it's MY OWN fault, and I have NO IDEA where we are. The whole time we don't know if we should get out and get ripped off by another person, or just wait for this guy to find it. Terrible feeling. The meter is now over 100baht and we weren't far from the palace to begin with so I am so mad and I have to go to the bathroom extremely bad. FINALLY, we arrive at the grand palace. Finding a bathroom was a whole other story.
At the grand palace we borrowed clothes because you're not allowed to wear shorts or tank tops inside. There were tons of tourists there and although it actually WAS the King's
Hotel
purple! birthday, nothing was free or discounted. Duh. We walked around the palace which is pretty incredible. The detail in the buildings is unbelievable and very pretty. My little camera didn't capture it very well at all but it was awesome. After the palace I found an information place and finally got a MAP of bangkok, which was very helpful. Then we walked to Wat Pho, which is a buddhist temple that has a huge reclining buddha. Very cool. After this we walked to the river and took a river taxi across to Wat Arun, which was awesome. It is also a buddhist temple but it's made of shells and broken porcelain. You can climb up it and it has extremely steep steps and a great view of the river and the city. I'd like to thank AMANDA DOROUGH for helping me plan all of this! She lived in Thailand for 2 years and told me all the things I should see and do which was extremely helpful!
After this we went back to Khaosan Road which really comes alive at night. We got Thai massages which is pretty much the reason Jake came on this trip! He said it's
his duty to get one each day because they are so cheap. Some days he got two! They were awesome though. We ate pad thai and tried some new foods and did some shopping. I think we called it a night just as the party was getting started. We're lame like that 😊
Bangkok was great. Obviously I could have explored for much longer but we only had the day and then the following evening. I really liked it though and I'd love to go back!
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Jeanne
non-member comment
Amazing as always!! Thanks so much for taking the time to share your adventures!! Awesome pictures and stories!!