Arriving in Bangkok

(about Bangkok, Thailand, added on Aug 18, 2007)

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Finally I am back in Bangkok. My trip was alright, I was flying with LTU and it turned our to be very convenient. One thing that was funny was that now they charge €60 for the Emergency seats, how funny. "Would you like an upgrade to Emergency, Sir?" How funny is that. Anyhow, I did not upgrade and got my upgrade once I was on the airplane because some guy was sitting on my seat. The flight turned out to be super comfortable, the food was decent and I was able to a good amount of work while on the flight, since I now have 9hrs of Laptop battery life:)

Flying over the old Bankok Airport which now serves as a domestic airport only awakened a lot of anxiety in me. While flying over familiar places my memories were flying by me. The rice fields surrounding the Asian Institue of Technology where I spent more than 6 months; the highway I used to take almost every night on the way to "Night Stadium". There are a few things in life that make you feel the way I felt suddenly. I am back to the place that I had longed to be at for such a long time.

I got into Bangkok at around 10am, it was quite different this time, as the Airport is really new and well structured. You still have the Taxi rip off when as they ask for about triple the price when you take a Taxi on the upper floor. The taxi driver was perfect, talking and laughing a lot, with this continuous smile on his face, go to Thailand and you'll see what I mean. Traffic was horrible as always but I finally made it.

The place I found online is in Nana.... I didn't know it was in Nana, as I was just looking for something on Sukhumvit, but then what can you do. I think I will change hotels tomorrow, so I can get to a better area. Nana is ok during the day, but at night it's a disaster and I can only recommend not to go there.

Anyhow, the hotel is ok, I have WiFi in the lobby and there are a ton of little food places around, well I guess that's nothing special as all of Bangkok has that. I took a shower and immediately left to go to Pantip, so I could find a camera and eat some fun street food. Yep, Khao Kha Mu, Pad Thai, and the standard dark soups you can get everywhere - gotta love that stuff, I was so craving for it. I ended up not buying a camera as I thought it was too expensive so I ended up just walking around a lot until I was so tired that I had to take a quick nap back at the hotel. In the meantime one of my old AIT friends had called me and we met for dinner. We were joined by yet another good friend from AIT had fantastic food, too much beer and a little too much fun.

After dinner we hopped into a taxi and went over to RCA. The club was packed, you have to imagine a club that can probably host about 3-5000 people on a good night. Quite amazing, we went home after that and I actually stopped for some food. I sat down next to a lady boy who was trying to convince me to have some "fun" together... ouch... that's why you better stay out of Nana. It wasn't uncomfortable, because the guy/girl was totally normal about it. Anyhow, it was interesting to chat with someone like that, very weird and yet very insightful. I could only imagine what could be going on in someone's head that is working the streets like this since age 11. We obviously went separate ways after finishing the soup:) This is the other side of Bangkok and I try to stay away as much as possible of course.

Today was great. After I woke up, I had some great lunch and walked the entire day. I did end up buying the camera after I had checked the prices on the Internet. I think I saved about €300-400 and I will be happy testing it a little. I already took some pictures for you guys to see. I tried to capture some basic city life without taking pictures of any tourist areas. Take a look at the gallery, my favorite picture is that Gym billboard, I am sure when you see that ad, you just have to become a member at that gym.

I will write later again... gotta go for dinner now.

1. Aug 18, 2007 Arriving in Bangkok (Bangkok)  ( 13)