Welcome to Bangkok
About 12 hours into my 14 hour flight, I suddenly pulled out of the Tylenol PM induced haze just long enough to realize that I was drastically – even spectacularly – unprepared for the trip that had somehow slipped from being the one I was going to take, to being the one I was taking. It struck me that not only had I not reserved a hotel, not figured out how to get from the airport to a hotel, not asked which airport I was landing at in Bangkok, not learned even one polite phrase of Thai… but besides all that, I only had a vague notion of reading somewhere that I’d be able to get a visa on arrival, although I couldn’t remember if I’d have to pay or not.
This is not like me. I am the Queen of Research. But honestly, I’ve been so busy having a broken heart for the past million months that I couldn’t be bothered with details like making even a tiny little plan. And then there I was suddenly, on a flight across the Pacific. Oopsie.
Within a few minutes of arriving in Hong Kong I felt loads better. With Starbucks coffee in hand I strolled around my favorite airport. And that’s saying a lot because I am a real airport snob. Airports are the best places in the world. Which makes HKG the best of the best. I mean, how can you be freaked out in an airport? They are the safest places. Have you ever heard of anything bad happening in an airport? No of course not. Bad things happen out in the world but not in airports. They are like this bubble of safety because they are neither here nor there; they are purely transitional spaces. They exist outside the rules of real life. But I digress…
Turns out I did land at the New Bangkok International Airport (which has some complicated official name that I predict no one will ever use). It’s big. Really big. The biggest airport in Asia, I read somewhere. I can’t say I fell in love with it but it does have this huge atrium forest thingy, so although I’m not committing to anything just yet, there is a potential romance brewing. The whole process was very smooth – collected my bag straight away, customs took literally three minutes (30 day stamp, no fee), found the taxi line… as did about 37892 other people. I stared at the line for a few minutes in disbelief before a totally empty desk for airport buses caught my eye. For a third of the cost and a few less hours of my life spent queueing with other thousand-yard-stare jetlag victims, I got into the city via bus (150B #2 bus, same as the old airport, I think).
I rode it to the end of the line – Khao San Road. Which, by the way, is so much more ridiculous than even it’s loudest detractors claim. I walked up and down it once and that’s enough for this lifetime. It’s like a perverse cacophanous fantasy of what Thai people think crazy young foreigners want. Which apparently is to buy lots of t-shirts, get their hair ratted into dreadlocks, and drink overpriced beer to the accompaniment of competing sound systems blasting American top 40 hits.
I ended up walking a ways, around a few corners, down a few quiet streets, until I landed at a guesthouse. The room was small and cheap. Then I went out to explore and came across a room that was huge, with satellite TV (no CNN Asia – SAD! – but BBC World which I guess will do for now), a wood table to write at, big windows, hot water, etc. It was twice as much but when twice as much is $15 and it means being a hundred times more comfortable… well, you do the math. So here I am.
I’ve sussed out my neighborhood a bit. All along this block there are tons of cafes and art spaces and stuff so I looked it up in my guidebook and I guess I’ve wound up right in the middle of the Bohemian Artist strip of the Banglamphu district. Go figure.
PS: You know all the smack people talk about how Bangkok is this huge sprawling disaster of a city with horrid smog and traffic? Obviously those people have never been in Los Angeles. It’s a big city, yes, but way less gross than the LA basin on a good day, as far as I can tell.
Tags: Bangkok Sept 06, Thailand
sandra_101
Did you find anyplace to get hot dogs yet?
“buy lots of t-shirts, get their hair ratted into dreadlocks, and drink overpriced beer to the accompaniment of competing sound systems blasting American top 40 hits.”
actually that pretty much is what i’d want when going someplace. except for the deadlocks part.
I am very very happy that you are safe and have not been kidnapped/sold into slavery advertised as an “american lolita”. truly, this makes me very happy Sandy.
i find it funny that you realized twelve hours into the flight that you had no idea what you were doing once you landed, instead of twenty four hours prior to that moment when i said “GIRRRRL!!! YOU IS OUT YO DAMN MIND CHILD!”
really glad you’ve settled into your adventure! can’t wait to read more. be safe, love!!! HAVE A BLAST EATING EYEBALLS. wish i was there. xo