Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Surviving Bangkok
We're back! After some 6 days, time sure flies past in a blink or two.
Being the 1st timer in Bangkok, shopping is aplenty like most urban legends about the place suggests. I'm surprised at the guys' stamina though, dey didn't whine about it dat much.
But expect the normally breezy activity to be coupled wif alot more crowd, heat & much larger area to cover. Just imagine our Bugis village is merely a fraction of Chatuchak itself.
Their market is like dis huuuuge grid where u can comb the areas till ur legs start to quiver. Their alleys r a tad too narrow for my liking tho, and ventilation could b better to make shopping more conducive. But who m i kiddin', tourists still swarm to the place nevertheless, so dey must b doin' something rite.
Well, i didn't quite manage to buy as much stuff as i had hoped i wud. In fact, it was a lil' disappointing coz more often than not, i just got abit too hot & bothered to concentrate on lookin' around proply & going thru the whole bargaining routine. Plus, i was tryin' veri hard not to get claustrophobic while navigatin' around.
Then again, there r a couple of occasions where i saw something i wanted to buy but kept bearing the tot dat the next shop mite hv the same item at a better price & missed the chance to geddit coz either i dun c it at the other shops subsequently or it's steeper. Dey stil do sell repetitive stuff but wif d exception of a few items i got my eyes on. Not fated i guess. It's almoz impossible to back-track there without getting disoriented. So, some regrets there, but nvm i will noe better nxt time. Seize the moment. Hehe.
Besides plenty of shopping, another abundant thing is the number of taxis dey hv on the streets. Stiff competition dey've got goin'. Fortunately, i'm proud to say dat we have till date, survived the Initial D-driver, the cabby lad on drugs & the one wif physical/ mental disability who agreed to take us home but drove us for a small distance b4 offing his metre n decided he's not familiar wif our hotel area n wanted us to get off instead.
We pretty much cabbed our way around since we r somewhat stayin' at the outskirts. Brother was quite disturbed by it since there was a whole lot of uncertainty wif the reliability of the cabby. Going out was less of a problem as opposed to coming back. It's still cool coz accomodation is cheap, bout $140 for 5 nights twin-sharing, peeps r frenly & there's much civilization around our area. Quite happening still.
Some of the cabs even spot the decal saying "I love Farangs" wif fine prints "We welcome foreigners", even tho dey dun speak much english. But an observation thruout the trip was dat the locals r stil very much pro-whites. Quite abit of a discrimination, for dey seem to perceive all whites to be rich & r Robert Tohs for dem to potentially ketok.
Fortunately, we hv our fren & his wifey, who brought us around most of the time as it's their 3rd time back there. Save us quite abit of trouble, thanks to dem. :)
I've alwaz imagined locals in Bangkok to hv better command of english though, mayB coz i've been to other states of Thailand, supposedly less touristy & was expecting the better of their capital. It's abit inconvenient, especially when we r trying to ask for something & everytime we say something to dem, we r worried how it might be misinterpreted.
But then again, no biggie there, since we can alwaz rely on international gestures & charade our way thru.
Food is good & cheap, as usual. We tried roadside stalls selling food in local style, Pad Thai, omelette rice, and some of which i duno the name to. No tummy runs even tho the hygiene is expectedly, not dat fantastic. Dey've got peddlars walking in the middle of the road in between stopped cars at traffic lights to sell fried banana, flowers etc. Whoo! We saw a man who alighted from a bus which was crawling in the jam, ran about 40m over to the roadside to get a drink & den ran back n boarded the bus again. Boy, is he thirsty or is he thirsty...and of coz, we had to hv their Tom Yam Goong. It's Thailand leiii.....But we didn't try everything dey hv la...dey had deep fried grasshoppers, worms & scorpions wch i'm not dat gamed.
Oh anyway, not much sightings of their political situation 'cept for a few gungho-looking military men on patrol at the airport & fortunately, the flood has cleared by the time we got there. Similar to Krabi like previously mentioned, many of the locals in Bangkok r also donnin' the same yellow polo tee to rejoice their King's longevity, dey've even got yellow shirts & jackets spotting the same logo. Talk about patriotism, we're nowhere near manz.
Btw, speaking of airports, all AirAsia's flights will operate at their new Suvarnabhumi Airport w.e.f September dis yr, no more from Bangkok International Airport (Don Muang). AirAsia got shuttle buses to ferry people directly to the plane u r supposed to board after u check in at the boarding gate.
The service is totful, but abit mafan coz normally the boarding gate opens like 30mins b4 the flight & people normally dun reach on time since dey alwaz predict chances of budget airlines being delayed r higher. Well, the shuttle service is not dat infrequent; it's like 5 mins away, but for late-comers, it might make a diff. U might wanna consider checkin' in at the boarding gate on time or slightly earlier subsequently, especially if u wan a gd seat.
Well, dat's all for now. Photos later hopefully. ¶ J poppycocked at 4:25:00 PM
Being the 1st timer in Bangkok, shopping is aplenty like most urban legends about the place suggests. I'm surprised at the guys' stamina though, dey didn't whine about it dat much.
But expect the normally breezy activity to be coupled wif alot more crowd, heat & much larger area to cover. Just imagine our Bugis village is merely a fraction of Chatuchak itself.
Their market is like dis huuuuge grid where u can comb the areas till ur legs start to quiver. Their alleys r a tad too narrow for my liking tho, and ventilation could b better to make shopping more conducive. But who m i kiddin', tourists still swarm to the place nevertheless, so dey must b doin' something rite.
Well, i didn't quite manage to buy as much stuff as i had hoped i wud. In fact, it was a lil' disappointing coz more often than not, i just got abit too hot & bothered to concentrate on lookin' around proply & going thru the whole bargaining routine. Plus, i was tryin' veri hard not to get claustrophobic while navigatin' around.
Then again, there r a couple of occasions where i saw something i wanted to buy but kept bearing the tot dat the next shop mite hv the same item at a better price & missed the chance to geddit coz either i dun c it at the other shops subsequently or it's steeper. Dey stil do sell repetitive stuff but wif d exception of a few items i got my eyes on. Not fated i guess. It's almoz impossible to back-track there without getting disoriented. So, some regrets there, but nvm i will noe better nxt time. Seize the moment. Hehe.
Besides plenty of shopping, another abundant thing is the number of taxis dey hv on the streets. Stiff competition dey've got goin'. Fortunately, i'm proud to say dat we have till date, survived the Initial D-driver, the cabby lad on drugs & the one wif physical/ mental disability who agreed to take us home but drove us for a small distance b4 offing his metre n decided he's not familiar wif our hotel area n wanted us to get off instead.
We pretty much cabbed our way around since we r somewhat stayin' at the outskirts. Brother was quite disturbed by it since there was a whole lot of uncertainty wif the reliability of the cabby. Going out was less of a problem as opposed to coming back. It's still cool coz accomodation is cheap, bout $140 for 5 nights twin-sharing, peeps r frenly & there's much civilization around our area. Quite happening still.
Some of the cabs even spot the decal saying "I love Farangs" wif fine prints "We welcome foreigners", even tho dey dun speak much english. But an observation thruout the trip was dat the locals r stil very much pro-whites. Quite abit of a discrimination, for dey seem to perceive all whites to be rich & r Robert Tohs for dem to potentially ketok.
Fortunately, we hv our fren & his wifey, who brought us around most of the time as it's their 3rd time back there. Save us quite abit of trouble, thanks to dem. :)
I've alwaz imagined locals in Bangkok to hv better command of english though, mayB coz i've been to other states of Thailand, supposedly less touristy & was expecting the better of their capital. It's abit inconvenient, especially when we r trying to ask for something & everytime we say something to dem, we r worried how it might be misinterpreted.
But then again, no biggie there, since we can alwaz rely on international gestures & charade our way thru.
Food is good & cheap, as usual. We tried roadside stalls selling food in local style, Pad Thai, omelette rice, and some of which i duno the name to. No tummy runs even tho the hygiene is expectedly, not dat fantastic. Dey've got peddlars walking in the middle of the road in between stopped cars at traffic lights to sell fried banana, flowers etc. Whoo! We saw a man who alighted from a bus which was crawling in the jam, ran about 40m over to the roadside to get a drink & den ran back n boarded the bus again. Boy, is he thirsty or is he thirsty...and of coz, we had to hv their Tom Yam Goong. It's Thailand leiii.....But we didn't try everything dey hv la...dey had deep fried grasshoppers, worms & scorpions wch i'm not dat gamed.
Oh anyway, not much sightings of their political situation 'cept for a few gungho-looking military men on patrol at the airport & fortunately, the flood has cleared by the time we got there. Similar to Krabi like previously mentioned, many of the locals in Bangkok r also donnin' the same yellow polo tee to rejoice their King's longevity, dey've even got yellow shirts & jackets spotting the same logo. Talk about patriotism, we're nowhere near manz.
Btw, speaking of airports, all AirAsia's flights will operate at their new Suvarnabhumi Airport w.e.f September dis yr, no more from Bangkok International Airport (Don Muang). AirAsia got shuttle buses to ferry people directly to the plane u r supposed to board after u check in at the boarding gate.
The service is totful, but abit mafan coz normally the boarding gate opens like 30mins b4 the flight & people normally dun reach on time since dey alwaz predict chances of budget airlines being delayed r higher. Well, the shuttle service is not dat infrequent; it's like 5 mins away, but for late-comers, it might make a diff. U might wanna consider checkin' in at the boarding gate on time or slightly earlier subsequently, especially if u wan a gd seat.
Well, dat's all for now. Photos later hopefully. ¶ J poppycocked at 4:25:00 PM