24 Hours in Bangkok

I arrived in Bangkok late at night, 11:15pm on St. Patricks Day. I wore a green shirt during the entire flight and was slightly disappointed that ANA did not serve Guinness, but rather a flavorless Asian malt "beer". I hadn't slept in over 24 hours and was tired, not looking forward to customs and immigration. It turned out to be a breeze. A stamp on a piece of paper, folded into my passport and I was on my way to baggage claim.

A strange thing happened when I grabbed my bag and headed for the exit. Someone said my name. I ignored it, thinking there was no possible way that someone at the Bangkok airport could recognize me. They called out again, louder this time, and I turned. I had never seen the guy before. There was a girl with him and she looked familiar, though at first glance I couldn't pinpoint why. "Hey, I'm Liliana from Couchsurfing" she said. "I thought that was you!"

A couple months ago during the planning stage of my trip, I posted on a Couchsurfing forum to find travel buddies in Thailand. Liliana and I exchanged rough itineraries and planned to meet up at some point, but had no idea we'd be at the same baggage claim at the same time in Bangkok. It was purely coincidental and a nice surprise to have two travel buddies lined up before leaving the airport!

Liliana and her friend, Kenny, flew in from LA. They hadn't booked anything for the evening so I invited them to get a room at my home away from home, The Phoenix Hotel. We caught the free shuttle to the hotel and turned in for the night, exhausted.

The next morning we travelled to downtown Bangkok from the airport area, a journey which involves several skytrain transfers and costs about $2.50. I had booked a room at U-baan Guesthouse in Thonburi, a place recommended to me by a coworker who stayed there last year (thanks Ian). The owner, a thirty-something Thai woman named Joy, is one of those people whose name describes them particularly well. An aptronym, if you want to get technical. She's not only friendly and funny, but speaks English and is a great resource on travel in Thailand.

Kenny and Lily tried to book a room at Joy's house but it was full, so she directed them down the street and around the corner. While they were gone I met my roommates: Anna from Wisconsin and Sergio from Mexico. Anna had been in Thailand for four months teaching English and it was her last night in town. We chatted for awhile and she offered some useful travel advice. Sergio had just arrived in Bangkok the day before and was pretty much in the same boat as me: curious, excited, ready to explore.

Eventually my Californians showed up and we took a cab over to Khao San Road, the famous backpacker ghetto, for dinner. It's touristy and overpriced, but a good way to ease into life in Thailand as everything is in English. We wandered down the street and came across a vendor selling fried scorpions on a stick. Kenny is the go-getter in our trio and just had to try it with three Canadian girls while I recorded the scene on his iPhone. He convinced Lily and me that it wasn't bad, so we tried it. Fried scorpion tastes something like burnt bacon, or maybe beef jerky. Not chicken.

We ate Phad Thai for dinner (150 baht, or $5) which was a little overpriced by Thai standards. A plate of delicious food at street carts only costs 35 - 75 baht in most cases (between $1 and $3). SO cheap and SO good.

We also ordered, upon Kenny's insistence, a 4-liter beer tower. Split among three people it was just the right amount of Chang to make our night a little more interesting. Everything was a blur after dinner: walking down Khao San, ordering dessert from a street vendor, drinking fresh cut coconut through a straw, realizing that we didn't have directions back to our hostel in Thai so the taxi driver got lost and went down a narrow ally, busting his left mirror on a wall and trying to charge us an extra 150 baht for it. We paid 100 baht for our should-have-been 65 baht ride and called it even. Welcome to Bangkok!

Note: you may have noticed the lack of photos in this blog post. I didn't have a camera for the first few days of my trip, so no photos. Hence the long, descriptive posts! More on the camera situation later...

Location:Bangkok, Thailand