Bangkok - The Arrival

I manage to get myself through passport control (filling out a landing card at the last minute after realising I’m the only person in a queue of about 50 people that doesn’t have one) and head into the lobby to find a taxi.  Confusingly the big desk saying ‘taxi’ offer limousines and I need to go outside for a normal taxi.  Oh silly me.  A friend’s boyfriend had made a comment about getting a taxi from the airport and getting killed on route which was a comforting thought for my first 10 minutes in the country.  Luckily they had a desk which logged your journey and I felt that was enough of a deterrent for a would-be murderer (and there wasn’t any other way of getting to my hotel) so I hopped on in a cab.  The driver tries to make conversation with me for the first 5 minutes but as it’s a 40minute journey this wasn’t going to hold up for the length of the trip and I find how you define these situations in the first few minutes is normally how it stays and I did not want to be trying to talk to someone who could barely speak English for 40minutes.  I needed to let him know that quiet time was completely acceptable for this passenger!  I wasn’t rude, I just answered his questions and didn’t really expand on anything or ask him much in return.  The few things I did ask him he didn’t understand and the few times my answers involved more than 4 words he didn’t understand so conversation was somewhat futile so we settled into quiet time quite quickly. 

My hotel is on Koh San Road and as we’re nearing the area he pulls up and calls the hotel to ask where abouts they are.  Then he drops me off at the end of the road and tells me to walk up for a few minutes then ask somebody on the street for directions.  I was about to tell him to do one and take me to the door when I look up the street and realise there’s no way you can drive a car up there so I let him off and grab my stuff out the back. 

Talk about being thrown in the deep end of Bangkok! This road is MENTAL!  It’s absolutely teeming with people, there’s shop after shop after bar after bar, all with outside illuminated signs, every shop has someone outside trying to call you in.  Then there’s all the food carts in the street selling Padthai or dried grasshoppers and crickets, plus there’s the mopeds that literally will drive ANYWHERE! (even down clearly pedestrian alleyways as I would find out momentarily) Then there’s the tuk tuk’s charging their way through all the tourists (they will not stop for you nor avoid your feet) then the odd taxi tries his luck and on top of that there’s hundreds of tourists wandering around in different levels of sobriety, most levels being at the opposite end of the spectrum to ‘sober’.  And then there’s me, the Bangkok virgin, trying to navigate my way up this road whilst trying to locate my hotel with this massive bag on my back plus my carry-on bag plus my camera bag. I’m hitting the 24^th hour of travel from leaving home and I was at the point of ‘just wanting a shower and bed’ about 10hrs ago. 

This is the end of Koh San Rd so it's very quiet, there's no way I'd have been able to get my camera out and take a pic just 50yards into this road but you get an idea of the amount of shops and things you're trying to take in even without all the people and other madness!

As I was still in the same clothes that I’d left England in I was still sporting my favourite woolly hat as it had been raining (shock, horror!) when I left home.  As anyone with hair knows, (folically challenged readers bear with me...) once you make a commitment to a woolly hat that’s a commitment that lasts until either a shower or bedtime.  There’s no going back on a woolly hat once you’ve had it on or about 15minutes I’d say.  Luckily it was dark and wasn’t overly hot at 7pm but I definitely looked like some kind of fool walking through Thailand in 26° wearing a bobble hat despite how much I do rock said hat.  I did see a Rasta mind and he had a woolly hat on and a either a large amount of dreads or a dead cat underneath and he was handling it fine, even though black people are built for heat more-so than us Caucasians and on top of that Rasta’s take hat commitment up about 10 levels as they seem to commit for years on end but despite all of this I did still take a mild amount of comfort from seeing someone else in knitted headwear. 

So I get to the end of the road and I’ve not seen the hotel.  I stop at a little hut with a white dude working (white means they must speak some English to be able to get by in Thailand) and ask him if he knows where this hotel is.  Before telling me he offers me a lick of his ice lolly but anyone who knows me will know that once I’m at the point of frustration waiting for something you could offer me £10 and I’d probably still bite your head off.  I don’t like distractions from my goal when my patience has been emptied and my tolerance is on empty.  Despite the obvious threat of herpes that could easily be passed between 2 complete strangers and the appeal that obvious holds I managed to politely decline his offer and at this point a passing friend of his said they knew where the hotel was and they send me back halfway down the road I’ve just dragged myself up.  By this point I’ve been walking for over 15 minutes and realise my limit for walking with this bag is about 13 minutes so I’m ready to be at the hotel about 2 minutes ago.  So I turn off the main street and start to walk around the back alleys, up and down and up and down each one with every person I ask for directions sending me back where I came from and there’s still no sign of the bloody place.  I end up walking back down the alley I initially walked up as I’ve exhausted all other possibilities and pass the hotel I’d initially gone into to ask for directions and realise the hotel I want is exactly opposite it!  There was a very badly placed hanging plant that had covered the sign from the direction I’d already walked so I didn’t berate myself too much (although my back was screaming a blue streak at me for the unnecessary exertion) but the hotel that stares the ‘Top Inn’ all day long had sent me off in the wrong bloody direction!  I had the excuse that I’d been travelling for 24hrs solid (plus the hanging foliage) and didn’t even know what day it was, what was there excuse?? Was I not literally about to drop I’d have gone in there to ask them why they were such a bunch o absolute cretins, but a shower and an air conditioned room with a bed was too tempting even for such a big fan of a rant that is me. 

I get checked in to what I presumed was a hostel type place and walk into my room expecting a single bed, a shared bathroom and possibly even someone else in the room.  What I get is a king size bed, TV, air con, en-suite and it’s all for me!  Not too shabby! 

Hey its not The Ritz but it's a lot better than the bunk bed I was expecting!

I take a well deserved shower in my ‘wet room’ and wonder, as I always do, why people design wet rooms? I get that it’s a good space saver and you don’t waste money on rails and shower curtains but this one had the toilet right next to the shower and then the basin in the dry area.  Why would you design it like that? They make little sense to me and I’ve even seen them noted before as some kind of bonus when trying to promote a hotel room.  I get into bed and am woken by a knock on the door.  Think it’s the next day already and I’ve slept for a ridiculous amount of time and the chambermaids are here to clean I bound out of bed like lightening.  Turns out it’s my friend Blake who’s meeting me here in Bangkok.  We’d been chatting on Facebook in the run up to the trip but not met face to face so he and his friend, Spencer, had the pleasure of first making contact with me in PJ’s, no make-up and my hair in plaited bunches.  That was a treat for everyone!  As it turns out I’ve only been asleep for an hour too!  After chatting to them for a while and feeling slightly better that they had a bit of a mission trying to find the place too (although I chose to hold back on the fact that I’d initially walked right past it) we all head to our respective beds and I then lay there wide awake for about a bloody hour!  But at least I’m here, I’ve made it and I’m in one piece. 

Let the adventure begin.