The border itself was a bit nightmarish. No one in uniforms, old, worn out signs that were not in English and no lines. But there were lots and lots of people. Going everywhere. It seemed that everyone was trying to get to exactly the opposite of where they were, and in the most unorderly fashion possible. After looking every which way (including up) to see where to go, I found the emigration officer who stamped my passport and then sort of waved his arm toward everywhere except behind me. At this point, all I knew was that I had to go somewhere. Good work, Meg! I started taking the approach of “I’ll walk this way until someone yells at me, and then I’ll walk in a different direction. If no one yells at me, I’m not doing anything wrong.” And it worked out really well. I found the immigration lines to get into Thailand, all of my papers were in order and got my travelers’ visa, no problem.
Here comes the super fun awesome part. Probably my most embarrassing traveling moment ever. After getting through the immigration queue, I had to get in a line to have my bag inspected. Now, as I’m sure all of you are aware, I am a lady and all ladies have a monthly visitor to host, whether they want to or not. Long story short, they found my stash of tampons and were looking at them just like Derek and Hansel tried to figure out a computer from the 2001 thriller Zoolander. The woman inspector, who, by the way, was waving through every single Thai or Cambodian person who came through the line without even a glance inside their bags, was immensely puzzled about why I would have these strange little items. I tried explaining in broken English, but I challenge any of you to get this message across successfully: I need those for my lady issues and if you take those away from me, I will die! After she called over everyone who was working at this place (about 5 or 6 officials), I think someone either deemed them harmless or figured it out. In the end, they let me through and as I left the line I looked behind me to see dozens of other foreign travelers fighting back the giggles. Thanks, Thailand!
The town on the Thai side of the border is Aranyaprathet and finding a bus from there to Bangkok was fairly easy. After exchanging some dollars for baht, I hopped aboard a bus that was about 6 hours to Bangkok. I arrived at a bus station in Bangkok and got a tuk-tuk to my hostel. The hostel was clean and air-conditioned, and located right next to a train station. After an entire day of traveling, I found food and slept like a baby.
I had only one day to spend in Bangkok because I had a flight the next day to the southern province where all of the islands are located. I slept in a bit and then set off in the morning to find the famous reclining Buddha and then like dominos falling, I ended up having one of those days that does not go according to plan but was still pretty awesome. After about 5 minutes of walking while trying to find the reclining Buddha, I was staring at some street signs wondering what they said when a man who spoke English approached me, told me there was another temple worth seeing, very close, and no tourists knew about it. He took my map and started explaining to a tuk-tuk driver where to go. I shrugged my shoulders and went with it. He also told me to tell tuk-tuk drivers I was a student so I could get a discounted rate. Thanks Random Helper #1!
The driver took me to a temple, with a reclining Buddha, not THE reclining Buddha, but really impressive nonetheless, it was very close and there were zero tourists. RH#1, you are awesome. There was an old man working in the temple and he fussed over to me and gave me a handful of Thai pennies and told me to work my way down a long line of bowls, bowing and putting one penny in each bowl. He was very bossy so I shrugged and went with it. Afterwards, he insisted he take my picture with the reclining Buddha, let me explore a bit and then I left and entered the second building of the temple.
This Buddha was in the traditional seated position and there was a man already in there praying. I did not want to disturb him so I quietly tried to admire the temple without his attention. He finished praying and he soon became Random Helper #2. After the customary “where are you from? Oh! America! LA? New York? Chicago? Ah, Chicago! Chicago Bulls! Michael Jordan!”, he proceeded to mark up my already marked up map of Bangkok, saying I should go here, and go there. He recommended a market that was only open for a week out of the year and today was the last day to go. So, I shrugged my shoulders and went with it.
This “market” turned out to be wholesale jewelry. Each piece was on sale for face value and the price of labor was subtracted. Evidently this means that all of it was really cheap, but I can tell you how much time I have for wearing a bracelet that costs more than my school loans: none. But it wasn’t a total waste because there was a souvenir shop on the top floor and I did some shopping up there. Buying handmade scarves for about 15 USD seemed more my style.
After this, I returned to the hostel and booked a dinner cruise trip on the river that goes through Bangkok for that evening and then napped. The dinner on this dinner cruise trip was awful, although they did have kimchi, but the views of the city were pretty spectacular. Bangkok is a lot like Seoul, but dirtier. Packed with people, lots of traffic, but with all the signs of western influence, like a McDonalds, Burger King or Starbucks every so often. But the pollution in Bangkok is a lot worse than Seoul. I felt the congestion as I breathed just walking around. But, just like Seoul, when the sun goes down and the lights are turned on, it was transformed into a city of sparkling buildings and bridges.
After the trip on the river, I again slept really, really, really well in my air-conditioned room.
The next day, I figured out how to get to the airport via the Skytrain, an above ground express train system that is quite new in Bangkok. It took about a half hour and cost me about 30 cents. The flight left at around 2 in the afternoon, arrived in Surat Thani about 3 in the afternoon and then my ferry to Koh Tao left at 11pm. I had about 7 hours to kill before the ferry. 7. I can’t really tell you how I managed to pass the time, but card games and meeting new people were involved.
The town on the Thai side of the border is Aranyaprathet and finding a bus from there to Bangkok was fairly easy. After exchanging some dollars for baht, I hopped aboard a bus that was about 6 hours to Bangkok. I arrived at a bus station in Bangkok and got a tuk-tuk to my hostel. The hostel was clean and air-conditioned, and located right next to a train station. After an entire day of traveling, I found food and slept like a baby.
I had only one day to spend in Bangkok because I had a flight the next day to the southern province where all of the islands are located. I slept in a bit and then set off in the morning to find the famous reclining Buddha and then like dominos falling, I ended up having one of those days that does not go according to plan but was still pretty awesome. After about 5 minutes of walking while trying to find the reclining Buddha, I was staring at some street signs wondering what they said when a man who spoke English approached me, told me there was another temple worth seeing, very close, and no tourists knew about it. He took my map and started explaining to a tuk-tuk driver where to go. I shrugged my shoulders and went with it. He also told me to tell tuk-tuk drivers I was a student so I could get a discounted rate. Thanks Random Helper #1!
The driver took me to a temple, with a reclining Buddha, not THE reclining Buddha, but really impressive nonetheless, it was very close and there were zero tourists. RH#1, you are awesome. There was an old man working in the temple and he fussed over to me and gave me a handful of Thai pennies and told me to work my way down a long line of bowls, bowing and putting one penny in each bowl. He was very bossy so I shrugged and went with it. Afterwards, he insisted he take my picture with the reclining Buddha, let me explore a bit and then I left and entered the second building of the temple.
This Buddha was in the traditional seated position and there was a man already in there praying. I did not want to disturb him so I quietly tried to admire the temple without his attention. He finished praying and he soon became Random Helper #2. After the customary “where are you from? Oh! America! LA? New York? Chicago? Ah, Chicago! Chicago Bulls! Michael Jordan!”, he proceeded to mark up my already marked up map of Bangkok, saying I should go here, and go there. He recommended a market that was only open for a week out of the year and today was the last day to go. So, I shrugged my shoulders and went with it.This “market” turned out to be wholesale jewelry. Each piece was on sale for face value and the price of labor was subtracted. Evidently this means that all of it was really cheap, but I can tell you how much time I have for wearing a bracelet that costs more than my school loans: none. But it wasn’t a total waste because there was a souvenir shop on the top floor and I did some shopping up there. Buying handmade scarves for about 15 USD seemed more my style.
After this, I returned to the hostel and booked a dinner cruise trip on the river that goes through Bangkok for that evening and then napped. The dinner on this dinner cruise trip was awful, although they did have kimchi, but the views of the city were pretty spectacular. Bangkok is a lot like Seoul, but dirtier. Packed with people, lots of traffic, but with all the signs of western influence, like a McDonalds, Burger King or Starbucks every so often. But the pollution in Bangkok is a lot worse than Seoul. I felt the congestion as I breathed just walking around. But, just like Seoul, when the sun goes down and the lights are turned on, it was transformed into a city of sparkling buildings and bridges.After the trip on the river, I again slept really, really, really well in my air-conditioned room.
The next day, I figured out how to get to the airport via the Skytrain, an above ground express train system that is quite new in Bangkok. It took about a half hour and cost me about 30 cents. The flight left at around 2 in the afternoon, arrived in Surat Thani about 3 in the afternoon and then my ferry to Koh Tao left at 11pm. I had about 7 hours to kill before the ferry. 7. I can’t really tell you how I managed to pass the time, but card games and meeting new people were involved.
No comments:
Post a Comment