Thailand Before Janet

Thailand, Tuk-Tuk, and Touts

Now Thailand was planned into our trip because two of my old co-workers and I had been talking about going to Thailand together for most of the time we worked together and since I was in India and my other co-worker was in Korea we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to meet up. Unfortunately, the trip didn’t go as planned. My friend in Korea couldn’t come anymore because of her job and my other friend booked her ticket later than we did and we only had a week in total in Thailand. But despite the not to successful reunion in Thailand we still had a blast with plenty of adventures.

The best part about the trip was it started off with an over night in the Mumbai airport. That day we headed up the coast from Goa back to Mumbai to catch our flight the next morning to Thailand but we didn’t want to stay anywhere and waste money since we didn’t get into Mumbai until after 10pm. Not knowing if you are allowed to sleep at the airport we caught a taxi to the airport and grabbed a pair of couches at the Café Coffee Day that is open 24 hours. What more could we ask for…couches and coffee for a night in the airport?

We arrived in Bangkok at night and headed straight to the tourist section to book a hotel. The place was pure crazy amazing madness! It is like Marde Gras on crack….almost every night!People everywhere, food stands everywhere, out door markets and shopping everywhere! It was like chaos all the time except during the day but when it gets dark….oh goodness.

The first few days in Thailand we spent wondering the streets discovering a very small part of the enormous city……and trying to figure out our toilet. I won’t go into too much detail about our toilet dilemma at the hotel because it was that bad. But I have to say, in our defense, that it was a regular sit down toilet. It just didn’t have a flusher. So we assumed when we were first using the toilet that we could put toilet paper in it but realized that you can’t when we couldn’t figure out how to get rid of the contents of the toilet. We started to get concerned. After a few days a situation like that can get really bad, but Christina was a super star and came to the rescue to unclog one of the worst looking toilets ever. Then we realized no toilet paper and add water just like Indian ones. Lesson learnt.

Don’t worry we didn’t spend most of our time in Bangkok trying to figure out how to flush our toilet…it was spent wondering the enormous city. One of the first days we were there we went to this weekend market that sells anything that you ever needed except for many cars or big animals like horses and cows and stuff. But if you wanted house decorations, a puppy, clothes, food, any wardrobe item, jewelry, or just plan second hand items this market had everything. It was a mad out door bazaar with a million and half booths that easily turned into a maze of consumer goods waiting to be bought…even bunnies dressed up as baby dolls.

Another day was spent visiting the incredible Buddhist temples. Having to be choosey we only went to a handful of the most popular ones since there are billions – not really. One of my favorite parts about one of our trips to a temple was afterward we wanted to figure out how we could walk back to our hotel and catch food along the way. Street food is everywhere in Bangkok and so lunch was not hard to find. After lunch I had the smart idea to take the canal ferry back to our hotel considering the fact the canal was right next to where we were eating. The boat comes and we rush to get on not having a clue if we are going in the right direction and we feel useless since we don’t speak Thai and it is difficult to communicate to others in English, so we decided to just take a risk and see where the boat takes us. After several stops and not feeling like we were in the right area we asked one of the ticket collectors if we were heading to Khuo San the tourist area. The reply was clear, nope, got to turn around. We got off at the next stop and switched sides and to our convenient surprise the boats last stop was right where we started. We had gotten on the canal boat at its last stop which took us in the wrong direction. Back where we started we just decided to take a tuk tuk and make it back.

Mmmm, I almost forgot to mention our ferry experience. There is a large river running through Bangkok which has much larger ferries moving up and down stream as a mode of transport….for us a tourist attraction seeing the city by the river….but none the less something in which we all thought worth trying. This time we decided not to risk walking since that didn’t seem to get us any where, I was just leading the girls in the wrong direction. We kindly asked a tuk-tuk driver to take us to the ferry at the river, after trying several other drivers he was the only person who knew what we were talking about. He ended up taking us to the river but he leads us to an empty dirty fisherman dock point with a few guys standing around the dock which they mentioned was closed for the day – no more tourist boat rides. Annoyed I mentioned that we didn’t want a tourist ride but the main ferry which is where we were trying to go. After we tossed words around the tuk tuk driver said he could take us there he knows where it is….i was like hell no but the girls thought to give him another go. I didn’t like him after he knew he took us to the wrong place. Guess what? The next dock he took us to was the same scene except with a few more people. I was like were done ladies, even after he tried getting us into the tuk tuk again….i was thinking does this guy really think we are idiots? Sorry. We managed to get to the right dock on our own and had a fun 5 minute ferry ride along the river getting off at a stop that we had no idea where we were again – part of the fun though, discover where you are. It was nice it dropped us next to a restaurant on the river with music…sweet!

Flower market – a fun tourist outing that most other travelers in Bangkok spend a day of their travels in Thailand. It was quite fun I have to admit despite the fact the three of us got 3 hours of sleep the night before. We go to see Thai dancing, ‘the best elephant show in the world’, hold tiger’s tails, and were rushed from place to by the tour guides. The best ending to the day was what was about to unfold that night…….

I need to back up the day to explain the story of picking up Janet. First, Janet my co-worker from back home was coming to meet us in Bangkok. Then after she arrived we were going to head North to Chiang Mai so she could visit friends and family. She had arranged a van to pick us up at our hotel after the flower market then pick her up at the airport at 12am and then drive 8 hours to Chiang Mai. Turns out I get an email from her friend arranging the van explaining flying would be the same price as the van…so why not fly since we only had 2 and half days there. The morning we are leaving for our flower market tour at 7:30 in the morning I am running back and forth from the pay phone (cause I kept on running out of change and getting cut off) calling her friend in order to book tickets for all of us. After three times we quickly ended the conversation with her booking the tickets for us and emailing us the info, relief right? Well we get back from our trip in the evening and find that she couldn’t book our tickets for the next morning because she didn’t have our passport numbers. So, 16 hours before we are supposed to be in Chiang Mai and 4 hours before we have to go and pick up Janet from the airport we book tickets. Little does Janet know that we are not taking a van through the night, but picking her up, spending the night in the airport, and then taking an early flight out the next morning.

Thailand After Janet

The three of us head to the arrivals section of the airport with all of our luggage – clearly confusing the taxi driver. We walk into the airport scanning for a place to settle in for the night while there are loads dreary eyed people coming out of the arrival terminals. We spot lounge metal waiting chairs at the end of the arrivals section and snag a few benches worth of chairs to try and get a few hours of sleep. I nap for a small period till I get up and wait at the second arrival gate for Janet to come out. Her flight arrives on time. There are people coming out of the gate. But I am waiting. Waiting. Waiting. No sign of Janet yet after an hour of her flight arriving, but I think maybe there is a long line at the customs office, maybe she got lost in side coming out…..not to worry. 2 hours later no Janet. So I keep waiting. Waiting. Trying not to get worried I hope that there was a possibility her bag was lost? Did she miss one of her flights? Three hours later and still no sign of Janet and it is pushing 2 in the morning. By now she should have come out….and I won’t deny that I was freaking out. I try using the new high tech trashy pay phones at the airport and can’t seem to get through. I try calling her mom I, try paging her about 4 times in the airport but still no Janet. She mentioned that her phone might work so I try giving her cell a call and she answers….! I am desperate to find out where she is. She answers telling me she is in the middle of Bangkok trying to find our hotel at Khuo San in the middle of madness. And I am standing in the airport and had been waiting for her for the past 4 hours. Not seeing us at the airport she thought that we didn’t pick her up and we’re still at the hotel….some how she found out that we weren’t taking a van so she knew not to look for a rent-a-car. She heads back to the airport to the arrivals department to meet up with us. I pass out for about 30 minutes since I am exhausted and wake up in a fright sacred that she has come and missed me again!! I jump out of the chair and start wondering around the arrivals department and she finally sees me trying to call her again from the pay phone since I don’t see her. Goodness I was so relieved! Turns out she came out of the first arrival gate…the one not assigned to her flight number and walked right past everyone and didn’t see us because we were at the other arrival gate!!

Both exhausted and barely functioning we get something to eat in the middle of the night while the other girls are sleeping. I walk them up to their relief as well that I found the mystery Janet. Christie was starting to question if I even had a friend Janet. By that point it is almost 5 in the morning and our flight leaves in over 3 hours…after chatting a bit we decided to head to the domestic airport across the city. We rent the only taxi that will fit all four of us and our luggage after several taxi drivers thought we could all fit into a small Toyota corolla. I tell the taxi driver we need to go to the other airport and he repeats the name of the airport and I say yes. After our conversation the whole car falls asleep – of course except for the driver and an hour later I wake up in we’re in the middle of no where with small houses and businesses on the side of the freeway. I quickly ask Janet where we are and why we haven’t arrived at the airport that was a 20 minute drive away. She asked the driver and he said that we are on the way to the beach!!! I quickly was like what the hell!! I clearly remember saying we need to go to the airport! Well turns out he thought we were going to the beach that happens to have the same name as the airport – the beach is about 2 hours outside of Bangkok which is where we were headed. I thought my night, my morning, whatever time it was couldn’t get worse…well it just did. With 2 hours to spare we turn around and head back to Bangkok with at least 1 hour to get there not including morning rush hour traffic. We get to the city with an hour before our flight leaves and hit the traffic we expected with a detour to the gas station. Fortunately the driver remembers a short cut on the freeway that gets to the airport faster but costs money….like we care! Trying to stay calm we pull up to departures a half hour before our flight leaves and run to check in – with about 1 and half hours of bad sleep and 3 hours of sleep the night before I was waking dead. Thank god this is a small airport and we are able to get through quickly and run to our gate before it closed and were the last people on the plane.

Again I am exhausted and I pass out on the plane for our hour flight to Chiang Mai. Arriving in the morning and after a quick hour nap at the hotel we head out for the day. Thanks to Janet we had plenty of places to visit in Chiang Mai. A temple in the mountains, an amazing botanical garden with amazing intricate displays and a huge temple yet again….by dinner time that same day that we had to run to the airport I was about to pass out at the dinner table. It was the most exciting dinner tho, a buffet of all different kinds of vegetables and meats that you are able to grill, boil, or cook on your own little stove available at each table. After about 10 minutes at the night market all of us could not stand up any longer and passed out at our hotel.

Oooo! I forgot to mention that I got to drive, can you believe it? running off of 4 to 5 hours of sleep in two days I drove on the wrong side of the road. Not to be worried I was alert for sure, and had a car full of people to help me. It wasn’t too bad and I thought I did rather well considering it was Thailand and the other side of the road. The next day I was able to drive again, a day jammed packed with places to visit; including the highest mountain top in Thailand, like 4,000 feet, more temples, a Karen (a tribe of Thailand and Burma) camp, waterfalls, hot springs, KFC, and Thai messages! Yes all of that happened in one day……the bad news was the three of us had to leave the next day. I did all my last minute shopping with Janet, which was the main item on her agenda, and then ran back to Bangkok to catch our flight to India. Phew, no more weird beach driving taxi drivers that make us almost miss our flight. Upon our arrival to the Mumbai airport we spend yet another night their in our corner and in the morning I had to part ways with the girls as I flew to the Northeast! And they fly home. Super excited and super sad I was looking forward to discovering my internship and the backwaters of the Northeast.