Sawat-dee! I'm in Bangkok...and the adventure is about to begin!
Despite the multiple warnings and all the reading, I was not quite prepared for what lied ahead of me in Bangkok. While cities in general can be described as chaotic, confusing, smelly, and at time dangerous; Bangkok has the distinct ability to make even New York City seem calm. Even my first steps off the plane were confusing when I barely recognized Jon beneath his poufy mass of hair. Granted, I had just traveled across the Pacific, but you’d think he’d stick out in a sea of Asians. Apparently my years in San Francisco have made that scene “normal” to me.
Backpack on and already sweating (it was 1am), I was eager to get a cab and get to the hotel. Several offers later, a woman who looked official called us a “taxi” which I kid-you-not was basically someone’s car with all six windows (windshield too!) tinted completely black. Not good. Fortunately Jon had his wits about him and rejected the offer. We eventually found a metered cab and made our way out of the airport.
Of course I was completely excited to get outside and see the city, so without fail I was up at 5am eagerly waiting until the hour was decent enough to get out of bed. Breakfast was a quick bite from the fruit vendor (which BTW is a great part of Southeast Asia, fresh fruit is everywhere) and our mission for the morning was to buy train tickets and go see some local sites. Seems pretty straightforward, right? Well, we were immediately derailed by our first in a series of transportation-related blunders: taking a tuk-tuk.
Now, these vehicles are a charming, open-aired means of transportation, and after an hour of roasting in the sweltering city heat, it seemed a welcomed solution. Here is what the roads and pedestrians pathways look like:
Our driver appeared friendly enough, but we soon realized where the expression “taken for a ride” comes from: we were taken for a ride to a tourist booth, a suit shop, and around the block several times but somehow never made it to the train station! By now we were eager to get the tickets, and go to the Royal Palace to see the Reclining Buddha, and really had no desire to play the little tuk-tuk swindle any longer. Since we refused to enter any shops, our disgruntled driver whipped around the corner, tried to convince us again of the merits of a government-sponsored gas program, and eventually dropped us in an alley. Forty baht and two hours later we were still three blocks from the hotel, no train ticket, no sites seen, and vehemently determined to avoid tuk-tuks for the rest of the trip!
Finally, we found a taxi and made our way to the destination after paying slightly too much for a plane to Chiang Mai since by then all the train tickets were sold out. (Correction, all the first class tickets in private cars were sold out, and there was no way I was traveling 10 hours in a train with 30 other people in bunks. One of the benefits of traveling when you’ve been working for awhile is PAYING for comforts!).
Apparently we still had not learned our lesson about the helpfulness of the “locals”, and when we arrived actually followed the direction of a wily stranger pointing us to the tourist entrance. But golly gee, said the wily stranger, the Buddha is closed until 2pm for a ceremony…why don’t you come here instead? By now I was hungry, irritated, and did not want to go to wherever his friend was probably going to try and sell me something I did not want. I did an about face, found an old lady selling deep fried bananas, probably spent 10x the going rate on them and regained my sanity with my rising blood sugar levels.
When we finally found the entrance that, miraculously, was open at 2pm, Jon was ready to praise the Lord Buddha for our arrival. Despite the hassles, the Palace was beautiful, and at 45m long and 15m high, the Buddha was a site worth seeing. We finished the day with an iced-coffee at Dunkin Donuts (which I was about to discover would be one of many, many stops at the orange and pink wonder-chain). Next stop, Chiang Mai!!
No comments:
Post a Comment