Day 1 ? As we arrived to Bangcok airport, the craziness begins. As expected, everyone wants to be your taxi driver and take you to your hotel or help you make reservations for all you might need. Just ignore it and go straight to the public taxi line. There will be some people at a desk, asking you where you going and writing it down in Thai so that the taxi driver knows where to take you. They will probably also tell you how much you will have to pay? Ideally you should simply ask the taxi driver to put the meter running and add 50 Baht to it in the end (airport fee). He will also ask you if you want to take the highway or the normal road... Up to you, toll fees are about 60 Baht if my memory is not failing me and it does get you quicker into town.
For a clearer idea, the first time we took the taxi from the airport we paid what the guy at the stand told us to pay (without meter):550 Baht and we didn?t take the highway ? which was actually cool for the fact that it took us ages and I actually slept for the most of it. Next time, by the end of our trip, 2 weeks after our first taxi ride and much more ?taxi experience? :) we just asked for the meter and ended up paying something around 300 Bahts + toll. So, we ?saved? about 10 Dhs (2 Euros) which is really not that much! That brings me to the point that sometimes you will find yourself in a situation that you don?t really want to bargain or go through the hassle for just some bucks ? and this comes from a Portuguese person (we just love to bargain) so you can imagine! This also reminds me that in Bangcok many taxi drivers will simply refuse to start the meter, especially at night or if you are near touristy places. Obviously, they prefer to simply quote you a price and try to get a little bit more out of you, you rich tourist!! :) Once again, up to you... at one point we had to go through 4 taxi drivers until one accepted to use the meter. Needless to say that at that point Nadine and I were already melting due to the heat, desperate to just go and would have probably paid twice the normal price to get there, but luckily the next taxi guy was a nice one and we gave him a nice tip, so all ended well :)
Moving forward... Accommodation: For the nights in Bangkok, we decided to stay in Khao Sao Road (I swear, for some reason I kept forgetting this street name? the stupidest things would came to my mind every time I was trying to mention it: Cola Cao - a chocolate drink, Dartacao -Portuguese name given to that cartoon in which D?Artagnan was a dog, Cao San - cao means dog in Portuguese, so I guess this means son of a dog. Anyways, I know.. its not relevant but just felt like sharing. And sharing is caring :)
So.. where was I? Oh, yes.. Th Khao San. Basically it is a backpackers hangout area.. you will see 99% of the people on the street and surroundings are young people just like you, just cruising around, having some beers, and doings loads of shopping?You will get loads of fake t-shirts, flip flops, Lonely Planets, bracelets, fake IDs (yes!! You can get student ID?s, driving licenses, etc etc.. all in 30 min and with quite OK quality), paintings, bags, henna tattoos, hair extensions and dreadlocks, and so on. Its pretty cool and just cruising around and seeing people walking by is quite an experience.
Accommodation wise, there are loads of guesthouses and you will not have difficulties in finding something for your taste. We ended up staying at this really nice place called Mango Lagoon Place which is listed in Lonely Planet (its located at Soi Rambruti) and paid 700 Bahts a night. It is now a 3* place and it is quite ok (own bathroom, pretty clean, A/C, electric plugs) which seemed like heaven after we checked another guest house in which we would pay only 300 Baht but for a really dirty room, with no window or AC, would have to use a public toilet and bathroom and leave anything that we wanted to charge (mobile phone, camera, etc) at the reception as there were no plugs in the room. Basically, my suggestion, as Lonely Planet also mention is to just check a couple of guesthouses and then decide which one to go for. Most of them are within walking distance and all in the same area.
Walking around ? From Khao San you can easily walk around the surrounding streets and also walk into the ?historic? part of the city, which is quite close by. During our first day in Bangkok we basically walked around Khao San and then walked towards the river? There is a pier nearby and we took the public boat (there are also private tourist bots you can take, obviously for another price ? I think we paid 4 Bahts) all the way to the last station (well, its actually station no1 - Lumphini) which allowed us to get an idea of the city from the river and just chill out and enjoy the day. Once we got there, we took the monorail into Siam area. As Lonely Planet will also tell you, this is pretty much a shopping mall area, which is normally full with young Thai people just walking around and socializing after school. Its quite interesting to walk around and once again just check out people and the way they interact.. You can simply cruise along the streets with all the shops or actually get into the shopping malls. We were not in a ?high fashion? shopping mood (we do come from Dubai where we get enough of that) so we decided to stick to the streets and this shopping mall called MBK (quite a big one, but for me it just seemed that all the shops were selling the same over and over again, a bit like Chinese shops). After, we got into the closest pier, Ratchathewi ? not at the river but at the khlong (small canals, that flow through the city) and just jumped into a taxi boat. It was definitely a crazy experience as these boats go crazily fast and are essentially used by Thai people, so it was nice to get away from the ?tourist? way of moving around? From the boat you can also notice the ?other side? of Bangkok as you can see many old houses, where people live in really poor conditions. We ended our ride, once again at the last stop and then realized we were really close to the Golden Mount, so we went and checked it out. Unfortunately it was already closed (8am-5pm) but it was still worth to go all the way up as it offers an amazing view over Bangkok. After, simply grabbed some fresh sliced pineapple from one of the street vendors and walked back to the confort of a nice shower and some AC. After all, we had to get prepared to our first night in Bangkok! :)
