Christmas in Bangkok
Trip Start
May 07, 2005
1
69
117
Trip End
Ongoing
Bangkok,
Thailand
Saturday, December 24, 2005
When we got off the plane we saw a sign for getting a temporary visa. Nice and clearly labelled in English. Great! We needed an assortment of paperwork and photos but we had it all. The only thing missing was 1000 Baht in cash. No problem, just go to the nearest exchange booth and... discover that they don't take Egyptian currency. That mostly makes sense except for the nearly daily flight from Cairo. And while I am at it, why doesn't Cairo have a Thai embassy? How can these two countries have direct flights but no embassy or currency exchange? OK. I had an emergency US $20 thinking that it would be enough to get us to an ATM from just about anywere we were likely to be. Sadly it wasn't enough to get our visa and all the ATMs were on the other side of passport control. Finally I found a place to get a cash advance from my credit card. I triumphantly returned to wait in line for a temporary visa only to be told, "USA passport. No need visa".
Our guidebook says the best way to get from the airport to downtown is to treat yourself to an airconditioned taxi but Kim doesn't much like taxis and after Egypt and reading about Bangkok Taxi scams I wasn't so thrilled either.
All Dressed Up For a Party
With some help from the tourist office we decided to take the airport bus. It wasn't much cheaper than a taxi but it was airconditioned and fairly pleasant. Driving into Bangkok was amazing! It was like driving into any big Western city with highways and billboards and skyscrapers. I've always lived in big cities so this felt like home. Heh, it's odd to say that something "felt like home" when that something was on continent I had never been on, the language is so different I couldn't even attempt to pronounce written words, and in my life I had only met one person who shared the predominant religion (Buddhism).So the bus stopped and the driver called out, "Asia Hotel" and we got off. We had a vague idea of where to walk but hoped we would be closer to the hotel. My first impression was how little we got stared at. Sure some people looked and one waiter even did a double-take but overall it was less than I would expect in America if two people walked through a sidewalk cafe wearing big backpacks.
On the way to the hotel we got some phad thai to go and ate it in the room. It was delicious! Finally we were in a land that makes yummy food!
The hotel was everything we hoped for. It was large with two swimming pools, had a big bed, a bathtub, and satellite TV. It had a direct connection to the skytrain. Best of all, it had a Thai Elvis impersonator. He was the greatest Elvis that has ever lived. Sure enough there were a lot of backpackers, mostly around our age. We were tired when we got our room so we plugged in our Christmas tree and fell asleep.
We woke up on Christmas morning and went gift shopping.
Anti-Money Laundering Office
We walked to MBK, the mall where cool teenagers hang out. They had an entire floor dedicated to cell phones. I'm talking over 100 individual shops that sell cell phones and accessories. The shopping was great. Everything was cheap and in the malls you basically don't haggle. Sometimes I would ask for a "special" price but I only got small reductions. One great thing about MBK is the food court. It's mostly Thai food with some Chinese, Japanese, and (bad) Indian. There are a few Benihana style cook-at-the-table places. Most of the food had English translations and there were tons of options. I had my first Tom Yum soup there and it was fabulous. After lunch we parted ways to do Christmas shopping. We were both happy with our gifts (I got shirts and an electric razor, she got a cell phone and an mp3 player). We spent the next few days eating, shopping, and watching movies. We hadn't been in a movie theater in months and loved the cheap ($3) movies. We decided to splurge and watched Narnia in a VIP theater. For $15 we got a soft drink in the waiting lounge, electric reclining overstuffed leather chairs, slippers, a blanket, and a pillow. It was the BEST way to watch a movie. At the beginning of every movie they play the national anthem for which everybody stands. We bought some DVD and VCD movies. Bangkok has a mall that is dedicated to entertainment electronics and thay have about 100 stalls selling pirated movies and music for about $2 each.
Like most hotels in Bangkok our hotel required us to pay for a New Years Eve gala.
Christmas Tree and Presents
We didn't have any nice clothes and Thailand is famous for cheap clothes so we spent a few days trying to find the perfect outfit. Eventually we settled on an elegant Thai silk sarong for Kim and a black textured shirt and slacks for Dave (I think I looked like a waiter). We were quite stylin'. The gala was fun. Lots of food - good but watered down for Western taste buds. They had some entertainment. A Thai boxing demonstration and a traditional sword fighting demonstration. Both were a bit cheesy and showy but still fun. They had Thai dancing and we participated (poorly). The best was Elvis, of course. Our table had a family from Sweden and a family from Israel. We were very smug about having visited both places. We took a Tuk Tuk once or twice. They are a bit infamous for being the sleaziest type of cab driver. The Tuk Tuk is onomatopoeically named for the noise the engine makes. Their bad reputation comes from trying to overcharge and trying to take customers to overpriced shops and massage parlours. We didn't have any bad experience although their price was more than a taxi. It was a fun little way to get around and actually a bit faster than the taxi because it is small enough to go down narrow side streets and between cars.
We spent one day going to Chinatown and the flower market. The flower market was amazing! So many flowers and they were all so cheap! I bought Kim 50 roses, some jasmine garlands, orchids, pussy willow looking things, two big lobster flowers and some more than I forget. We had a wonderful lunch in the front room of a Chinese lady's house. She had a yummy looking soup so we sat down at a table and she brought it over. Her English wasn't very good but we managed to get fish balls instead of meat. The granny kept trying to give us more food and filling up our bowl. The husband showed us which condiments were the best to put in the soup. Best of all when we left our backpack there the husband came and found us half an hour later to give it to us.
The other sightseeing we did was the Grand Palace. Wow! So much fantasitic art. We saw the Emerald Buddha dressed in his Spring clothes. He has three outfits and the king dresses him. Kim dripped water from a lotus flower onto Dave's head.
Bangkok was fantastic. Dave loves big cities and I think Bangkok is Kim's favorite. People complain about the noise and pollution. They were bad but not overwhelmingly so. The hot and humid weather made us very sticky and wasn't pleasant but there is a lot of air conditioning. The worst thing about Bangkok was probably the Thai massage we got. It was more like torture than massage. I guess we are just used to wimpy relaxing massage, not ones that are meant to made you appreciate a life without pain.
