Bangkok, oriental city

Storyline: Home to home westward

It actually is “Bangkok, oriental settings”, however the first time I heard the song One night in Bangkok, I thought it was “city” and it stayed with me that way.

Bangkok was our last stop before home. And it is the only city that left us feeling ambivalent.

We had great, though very short, time with our hosts Shannon & Pierre before they left for vacation in Europe. We stayed in their spacious apartment in perhaps one of the best residential areas of the city, close to public transportation, shopping malls and the green areas, such as Lumhini park.

However, we felt somewhat on edge. Little things, mixed with oppressive heat, extreme noise and air pollution, accumulated in the first two days, ending with Alex’s stolen phone.

Equipped with a SIM card that we bought from the airplane for convenience, just to discover that we had to register it at the airport anyway and not surprised the same cards were cheaper there, we downloaded the Asian cousin of Uber – Grab – and ordered a car to Pierre & Shannon’s place. To be on the safe side, we confirmed with a clerk at the information desk the address the Grab app was sending us to. This was, after all, an alphabet not resembling anything we could make sense of. Yes, this was the correct address she confirmed and helpfully wrote it in Thai on a piece of paper, together with the phone # of the residence reception desk. From exiting the airport, through concrete jungle and busy highways with endless traffic jams, Bangkok did not impress us.

After a long ride and sitting in traffic for about an hour and a half the driver pulled into a small alley, with the residence nowhere to be seen. Not his fault – it was the Grab’s location, confirmed by lady at the information desk. At that point we gave the driver the Thai written note with the address and phone number. Shortly after he pulled back onto the road and continued driving down Langsuan while calling the building’s reception, we noticed the street numbers and knew he had passed the place. Due to heavy traffic, we hadn’t gone that far. We tried to get driver’s attention but he was deeply engaged chatting with a female voice and slowly advancing down the one-way street.

At that point Alex called Shannon and after explaining the situation, Pierre apparently took the phone and told him, “just get out of the car and walk back”. And so we did. It took us quite some time to get the driver’s attention, which included strong tapping on his shoulder. He was still on the phone chatting and almost at the end of the street ready to plunge in the heavy traffic and circle around. Apparently, it would have taken another hour to get us back to the address and he wasn’t going to miss such an opportunity. He wasn’t happy that we wanted out of the car, so reluctantly stopped and threw out our luggage between cars, not even close to a sidewalk.  Luckily traffic was almost at a standstill so we could cross the street somewhat safely with our carry-ons. Shortly after, Pierre came to meet us and led us back to the apartment.

We had great welcoming dinner with them that evening.

Our next day started slowly. We would have plenty of time when we returned from Chiang Rai, so were not in a hurry. We decided to explore the nearby area, find the BTS Skytrain stop, grocery stores and shopping malls.  Shannon had given us plenty of information, so we just had to check the lay of the land for ourselves.

Walking out, just a building away from ours, a lady dressed in dark navy-blue suit asked in pretty good English “Where are you two going?”. She was quick to tell us she worked for the police and pointed to the t-shirt under her suit which had “police” embroidered on it. “You don’t go there” and she pointed up Langsuan where we were headed. “It’s dangerous! Where are you from?” “Canada” “You need to go there” and she pointed in the opposite direction towards Lumphini park. “There is a park, you can walk in…there is a metro station there”. “Thanks, but we are going to the malls.” “It is dangerous there… there are student protests. A few weeks ago, there were 4 students shot…”

This continued for a while and she offered to call a tuk-tuk for us. We politely declined and off she went into the tuk-tuk that we then noticed was conveniently waiting for us on the street. Perhaps it was there the whole time. There are so many of them anyway. At that moment it dawned on us she was trying to get us into that particular tuk-tuk. But why? Trying to share the cost? Or get a free ride? Was this a scam? But if it was, why in the world would she be dressed in a pantsuit in bloody hot weather, where women wear dresses. It’s an expensive way to get some small change from a tuk-tuk or save some money. She also spoke pretty good English. We have not figured this one yet. Was it a scam and if so, what exactly was the expected result? If you are reading this and have an idea please leave us a comment.

So up we went, soaked in sweat, to Chit Lom, up the skywalk, through uber expensive malls to cool off and have some refreshments.

In Amarin Plaza we found a nice food court (street food) and had wonderful omelets with all organic herbs, accompanied by blue and brown rice. The blue came from butterfly pea flowers.

Then we walked down to Saen Saep canal, observing how people jump off the still moving bus-boats that are not quite docked,

walked through a street market in front of Central World Mall and the mall itself and then back home. With the heat and air pollution this was enough for the day. The evening was spent with our lovely hosts at a nice restaurant across the street.

So far so good. Then why are we not happy with Bangkok? Perhaps small events had a huge impact on our feelings. Or perhaps it was the overall hot, humid, noisy, highly trafficked and highly air polluted concrete jungle that simply didn’t fit our lifestyle and desire to walk to everywhere (which we did, despite all).

On our very interesting and intense second full day Alex’s phone was stolen. We spent the last day of our first leg in Bangkok doing damage control and trying to communicate with Apple, which I personally found useless. It is exactly 3 weeks after we contacted them that Alex’s Apple ID was restored (Alex – this was not entirely Apple’s fault, but their instructions and lack of clarity sure didn’t help).

The second leg of our stay was slow. We were winding down our three months on the road and were pretty low on energy: this combined with the heat and pollution, our discomfort in big cities, and our first experience in Bangkok, didn’t motivate us to be too adventurous.

One of the days we did walk to Chinatown, to Wat Pho (aka the Reclining Buddha Temple), by the Grand Palace and many government buildings, then eventually turned towards our area, walked to Bamrung Mueang Rd and took it all the way to the Skytrain station at National Arena. At that end, Bamrung Mueang becomes Rama I Rd, past Central World Mall where at the first opportunity headed up to the Skywalk and then to home. We would stop often for refreshments (cold drinks, mainly fresh juices), lunch and grocery shopping in our area.

There is a lot more of Bangkok that we actually covered, and perhaps at another time we would have rushed to do as much as possible. But there was also the home nostalgia effect. We were going home; we were ready to go home and we wanted this as soon as possible. We were tired of noise, heat and dirty streets and we could not absorb any more. It is not excluded we’d give Bangkok another chance one day, when in the area.

One thing worth mentioning though, is that people everywhere were very polite. They’d greet you with a big genuine smile and the typical Thai bow with wai (placing the palms together in a prayer pose just under the chin).

If you go (travel tips):

1. Grab vs taxi: We used Grab in Malaysia and it was cheaper than the taxi. Not so in Bangkok. It appears that metered taxis are substantially cheaper in Bangkok. The trick is – don’t ask “How much?” (and this is for all the cities we’ve been to in Thailand). If you want to flag a metered taxi (they do have a sign saying so), just give them your destination and watch the meter. If it is not turned on, ask for it “Meter, meter”. If the driver ignores you, just ask him to stop and get out of the car. We personally have not experienced such thing. Meters were on and drivers were honest.
2. If your trip takes you on the highways (e.g. to or from either international airport), there are tolls to be paid, and these are the direct responsibility of the passenger. The driver will let you know the amount as you approach each toll plaza. There are two toll plazas between the city centre and the airports. To/from Don Mueang the tolls total 120 baht (50 and 70). To/from Suvarnabhumi, it’s 75 baht (50 and 25). Our driver to Suvarnabhumi paid the tall and included it in the final price. I guess it depends on the driver too.
3. Taking a taxi at Don Mueang International Airport: We had read a lot about taxi scammers at that airport. This is why we ordered Grab at our first arrival. However, figuring out that taxi was much cheaper we later used taxis only (we did check the Grab price just to confirm it). Once in the arrival area there will be many screaming “taxi, taxi”. Just ignore them. These are the grey market operators. Find the information desk and ask where is the official taxi stand. They will tell you how to get to there. At the entrance to the hall, you take a number and once your number is called, an English-speaking clerk assigns you a driver, gives them your address written in Thai (in this way there is no language misunderstanding) and off you go.
4. Tuk-tuks might be a cheaper alternative, but unless it is a relatively short distance you may not really want to breathe through the blanket of heavy aboard another high-polluting vehicle.
   

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Bangkok

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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