Just got back from our maiden voyage to Thailand last week and I have so many things to say about it. Firstly, I’d like to thank members of this forum for all the helpful tips and advice in my previous, probably annoyingly naïve, postings here. A lot of it was spot on and really helped us during our stay. I found myself going, “Oh…….yeah” several times recalling things said here on TeakDoor.
The big trip’s purpose was twofold: One, to get an initial orientation with the country and it’s culture; to get a feel for the place (well, as much as you can in 2 weeks anyway) and see if we truly want to follow through with our idea of moving over there for an extended time period to attend college later this year. Secondly, to just do the “tourist” thing and enjoy our vacation. I’m happy to say our first visit to Thailand fulfilled both of those things beautifully.
I’m going to try and write this thing in chronological order and I apologize in advance if I get too wordy. When I’m feeling inspired about an experience I’ve had, I tend to get keyboard diarrhea writing about it. I also want to preface my report by providing a little background on myself for those that may not recall or have read my initial postings here months ago.
I’m a 31 year old American, 10-year Army veteran, married to a lovely Filipina girl for 4 years now. (my 2nd one I’m bashful to admit). I separated from the military almost 3 years ago now and have been running my own web design and online marketing business since, enjoying the freedom self-employment has to offer versus years of authoritative submission. Currently living in the northeastern U.S., I spent 7 years living in South Korea, during which time, I literally made about 80 trips to the Philippines of varying lengths. I was without a doubt, what you could call, a “PI Junkie”.
Over those years, I had many friends and acquaintances always telling me I should visit Thailand; guys who had visited or lived in both places and had nothing but great things to say about the latter. They all, to a man almost, said Thailand topped the Philippines in so many ways: better food, better hotels, better beaches, better infrastructure, better quality of life, etc. The one thing the PI had on Thailand was better spoken English, which in turn, for those, ahem “sportsman”, like me at the time, made for better “companionship” experiences if you will. So mainly for that reason alone, I stuck to the PI during all my years in South Korea. But time inevitably changes things and people…
About 8 months ago, an ex-military friend of mine emailed me one day to reconnect and said he was living in Thailand, using his GI Bill to go to school. Soured and bored with life in the States, my wife and I were really intrigued by the idea ourselves and began to research things more and more. So researching forums such as this, watching youtube videos, reading lonely planet books, and everything else we could find about Living in Thailand became part of our daily routines. We quickly decided an initial “scouting” trip was in order before even considering such a drastic life maneuver.
So tickets were bought, hotels were booked and the trip to find new frontiers in life was all set for mid November.
And then the rains came.
Having to postpone everything until February was a major disappointment after so much built-up excitement. We both felt very deflated at that point, having to wait 3 more months, but the time went by and the big trip was finally upon us again.
Since we were to be in the same hemisphere, we decided it would be nice if my wife’s mother could join us on the trip from Manila. So we booked her tickets and accommodations as well. Added to that, another American friend living in the Philippines would be coming with his wife also. So now it was a full-fledged group tour, with about only 11 actual days on the ground and so much to see and do.
The winter had been unseasonably mild for the Northeastern US to that point. Temps in 50s and 60s in December and January. Naturally, the day we set out to fly came the first snowstorm of the year. The first flight left on-time ok, but the second flight from Detroit to Tokyo was delayed about an hour as we sat on the runway being “de-iced”.
Not to stray too far off on a tangent, I must say after years of flying on Korean Air, Asiana and Philippine Air, making this entire trip on Delta made me downright embarrassed as an American. Horrible….horrible in-flight food. Older, crappy looking planes. No “personal entertainment” things in the headrests for watching movies to kill time on the 13-hour flight to Japan. Rather “robustly” built, crotchety-tempered flight attendants aged not much better than the visibly “matured” 747 we were on.
But it got us there nevertheless. Flight from Japan to Bangkok was another grueling 6 or 7 hours. That trip is never easy. I can’t imagine making it with a young child, or as an older, larger or unhealthier person. You never really can sleep. You’re just in this weird state of semi-consciousness, trying to get comfortable, shifting again and again, but never getting it right.
So we arrive into Bangkok finally and getting off that plane was the only thing on my mind for starters. Head to immigration and it’s packed full of foreigners of all ages and nationalities. We get through, get our luggage, but then had to wait for my mother-in-law, who’s plane arrived about 20 minutes after ours did. Of course she had to go through immigration also, so it was another 45 minutes of standing in the baggage claim area waiting. Original plan was to have her fly in the next day, but this saved us another trip back to Suvarmabumi, which was best in hindsight.
So she got through with no issues, we got her bags, changed about $300 into Baht and headed out the door. This is where the actual trip report begins believe it or not.
I momentarily recalled some of the advice on here and the advice from my buddy living there, then pretty much forgot all of it. It was about 1 a.m. local time at this point and we were so deathly exhausted we just wanted to get to our hotel. I initially brushed past all of the touts asking where we were going and if we needed a ride. It’s the same type of scene in Korea when you walk out of the arrivals area so no surprise there. So we went downstairs and outside to the “public taxi” area and were shocked to see a huge line of people waiting with their bags. One of the touts, a female, who followed us out there door, said “see? No taxi now” with a devilishly delighted grin on her face that just made me laugh in resignation. I guess due to the late hour, there was not as many taxis as there were tired foreign travelers, so you had to wait in line there by the curb for Buddha knows how long.
Being it was our very first time in the country, how uber-fatigued we were, and having her mother-in-law in tow, I turned to the woman and said those infamous two words: “How much?” I remembered my friend saying it shouldn’t be more than 300 or 400 so when she said 1200, I laughed out loud. I replied with 500, and she pointed to the stagnant, snaking cue of smelly foreigners waiting for cabs that weren’t coming. Ok, 800? She agrees and motions us to come with her to an awaiting car.
Even an ice-cube filled bathtub with our organs missing sounded comfortable to me at that moment, so I took the risk and we loaded our stuff in the car with the steering wheel on the wrong side. Strange sitting in the seat where I’d normally be driving, but I had experienced it once before in Hong Kong. Don’t think I’d ever be able to drive there myself though. So we head towards the city and there’s no traffic of course since it’s 2 a.m. or so by now. We are booked at the Woraburi Sukhumvit for the first 4 nights of our trip which I based on decent reports from sites like TripAdvisor and Agoda.
What I wasn’t ready for was the route our driver took to get there. Now as I alluded to earlier, I’m no stranger to “playground” type of areas what for my previously-led “sporting” lifestyle in Korea and the Philippines, but remembering this is literally the Mecca of such things, and having my mother-in-law in the car with us, it was quite a “welcome to Thailand” sight driving through what we later learned was Nana/Soi 4 at 2 a.m. (*I think*) to arrive at our hotel only a few blocks away. Let’s just say I found my “second wind” at that point and was wide awake all of the sudden.
We check in to Woraburi and I liked the open-air, patio-style lobby & restaurant/bar area there. We are shown to our rooms, but are hungry so we head downstairs. I have my first Singha with a meal of beef-something & rice. The waitress speaks to the wife and her mother in Thai and looks befuddled when they don’t even acknowledge. This would be a comical, awkward, and sometimes unsettling occurrence the entire trip. Everywhere we went, they assumed my wife, her mother and my other friend’s Filipina wife (they would arrive tomorrow) were Thai and reacted with disdainful, almost offended expressions on their faces when the ladies did not respond or react to their words.
Looking back up at this monstrosity of what I call a trip report so far, I see now that my keyboard has once again had loose-bowel syndrome and feel it needs a break to make for an easier read, if it’s to be read at all. So I’m cutting this off here at the end of our first “night” in Bangkok and will continue the report in segments; hopefully breaking them down in some reasonably logical fashion.
But then again, probably not.....