One Night in Bangkok

WE HAVE ARRIVED!!! 

After what seemed like forever, we finally arrived in Bangkok around 8:30 pm Tuesday evening.  We were extremely surprised at how easy it was to go through immigration.  They didn't even ask us how long we plan to stay.  Actually the immigration officer didn't say a single word to me.  She just swiped my passport, stamped it and I was on my way.  She did ask Garrett his name and that was about it.  She probably had no interest in talking to the stinky, sweaty American who looked like she was about to pass out.  They also have an interesting customs area.  Green lane means nothing to declare and red lane means you are declaring goods but there was no paperwork needed to be filled out.  

We headed to the taxi stand which is the most organized taxi stand we have ever seen. There were about 50 lanes and you stand single file in any of them until you reach the girl at the desk.  You tell her your destination and then you proceed to the taxi under the electronic sign of the number lane you are in.  That simple!!! All airport taxi stands should work this way.  We got in the taxi under the electronic sign 25 and off we went.  Our taxi driver was a very nice man who had absolutely no idea where Plai Garden Boutique Hotel was.  He ended up taking us about 20 blocks past our destination until we figured out where he needed to take us. Lesson #1 ALWAYS have the name, address, and phone number handy for anywhere you are trying to go especially via taxi.  

Plai Garden was fine. It was literally a place to crash for one night and close to the airport as we had tickets to fly to Chiang Mai the next morning. The area it was in was well, a bit sketchy. Certainly not an area I’d wonder around at night by myself or maybe at all. 

The view from our balcony

Garrett and I were pretty hungry after eating plane food for almost 2 days so we decided to venture out for dinner.  On the corner of our street there was a woman who owned a restaurant that was till serving at 10pm Tuesday night.  They were extremely hospitable and sweet.  We ordered a few local beers (Leo) and our dinners which seemed small by american standards but I couldn't finish mine.  Thats where Garrett and I seem to work.  I eat what I can and he takes the rest of my hands.  Its perfect!  Plus we save money cause we don’t have to order more food than necessary.  The glasses they brought us had ice in them and we are trying to be careful about water and ice. We decided to dump the ice, so Garrett pushed his plastic chair back to throw the ice onto the street and as he did, he broke the chair and fell to the ground! I couldn't stop laughing and neither could the owner. Garrett’s face was as red as the chair he broke.  The best part was as Garret stood up, he had the glass in hand and didn’t even break it.  The owner ran over and gave Garrett a chair made from metal instead of plastic. 

Drinking a Leo before "chair incident"

Dinner was really good. I had fried chicken and basil and Garrett had the pork version. It was pretty good. During dinner, Garrett looks down and points out a decent sized rat at the table next to us. I wasn’t that thrown off as I live in the city and have seen river rats twice the size of the Bangkok rat. After dinner and a few beers, Garret and I decide to return to our room and get some rest for the next day of travel.  On our way back to the hotel and past the back of the restaurant, we see a woman that works at the restaurant squatting by the road with a huge tub of dishes washing them in the dirty street while waving goodbye to us.  We waved goodbye and after walking a good distance past her we turned to each other and started laughing, so much for dumping the ice! 

yum!

The next morning, we woke up and wondered around the street to try to find coffee. We find a coffee stand on the side of the road and it smells amazing. Totally disregarding our no ice theory after seeing how our dishes were washed and how amazing the ice coffee looked, Garrett ordered an ice coffee.  Here in Thailand, they use condensed milk as sweetener and shaved ice and it is delicious. We headed back to the hotel to catch the shuttle to the airport at 8am.  We had a 10am flight on Thai Lion Air to Chiang Mai.  We get to the airport at 8:10 with plenty of time to spare and when we look for Thai Lion Air we can’t find the desk.  Garrett asks a woman at the information desk where we check in and she looks at us like we are crazy.  She tells us that Thai Lion Air only flies out of the other airport and it’s 45 minutes away.  We thank her and run to the taxi stand as fas as we can.  We are in the taxi at 8:15 and tell the driver to get us to the other airport as quickly as possible.  We are cruising to the airport and in great shape when we hit morning traffic.  We were racing the clock to get to this flight. Lesson #2: ALWAYS double check the reservation to be sure you are at the correct airport.  We arrived at the airport around 9:20am with 45 minutes to spare.  As we are waiting in the Disney World wrap around line to check in, one of the Thai Lion desk receptionists asks us if we are going to Chiang Mai.  We tell her yes and she takes our passports to check us in.  She then returns and tells us we are on the 10:50 flight to Chiang Mai. Lesson #3 ALWAYS check the reservation to be sure the departure time is correct.  We boarded our 10:50 flight and were off to Chiang Mai.