After dumping the rest of our Yen on typically crappy
over-priced airport food (worldwide thing) in Tokyo, it was now time for
Colleen and I to leave the expensive confines of Japan and make our way to
Thailand, and what should hopefully be not as strenuous on the wallet. Our flights to Bangkok were booked only a few
days prior, so we went with the cheapest option available to us, which was to
take and eight hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, settle in for a five hour
layover, then continue on to Bangkok via a short two hour flight. We were flying with Air Asia, which promotes
itself as the world's number one low cost air carrier, although at $600 per
ticket each for a one-way flight, I definitely didn't feel like we were getting
that great of a deal! Oh well, I was
proud of the fact that I could now say I had been to Malaysia aka my first
visit to a Muslim country (we ended up returning to the country on two other
separate occasions on our trip. Goes to
show you how travel plans can change quite quickly).
Our flights all came and went with little drama and before
we knew it we had arrived at the airport in Bangkok. Once we disembarked from the plane, we were
hustled along to Customs, where we were told by an official to stand in line
with all the Chinese tourists. I can
only assume it was because of my Asian style hair. After standing there for a while, we were
then instructed by a different customs official that we were in fact in the
wrong line and that we were to proceed to a different customs area as we had
Canadian passports. Great start we were
off to! After a fairly lengthy and
confusing process, we were eventually given our 30-day visas and sent on our
way. Next order of business would be to
find a cab and arrive peacefully at our hostel..cause it's always that
easy!
After waiting in the horrendously long cab line with
hundreds of other foreigners, we eventually reached the front of the line and
handed the girl a piece of paper with the name and address of our hostel. She nodded as if to say "ok" and
summoned a driver for us. When the cabbie
approached, they had a quick conversation in Thai, I assumed it was her telling
him where to take us. In fact, they may
have been commenting on the weather or my ridiculously large eyebrows, because
once we got in the cab it became clear that the driver had no idea where we
were going. The first thing you notice
as soon as you arrive anywhere in Thailand is the fact that the King's picture is plastered everywhere. It seemed as if
75% of the billboards on the way out of the airport were adorned with his
picture. To say they love their King
would probably be the understatement of the century. Shortly after departing the airport, we hit a
couple of toll booths, which as I understood from the tourist books we would
have to pay. That was fine, except
during both toll stops the driver pocketed the change from the toll operator
after I gave him the money! After we
were through the tolls, our driver started yelling at us and it quickly became
apparent he had no idea where our hostel was located. Add in the fact that he was an angry
motherfucker and spoke not one word of English and you have yourself an
interesting situation. The taxi driver
from hell kept motioning for us to phone our accommodation, but I kept trying
to use my best sign language to indicate that we didn't have a phone. This went on for several minutes, and I could
see that Colleen was starting to get extremely stressed out by the whole situation. Eventually the cabbie used his own phone and
called the place and wouldn't you know it we somehow arrived in one piece! For all the stress we endured, it was nice to
finally be out of Mr. Grumpy's cab. It
was also a welcome sign that a half-hour cab ride, plus the airport fee, plus
him pocketing some of my cash, plus two toll booths amounted to less than
$10. Yup, we weren't in Japan anymore!
 |
| Colleen in the alleyway outside our uber-classy hostel. |
Our hostel (HI Mid Bangkok) was located down a side alley
off of one of the main streets in the Victory Monument area of Bangkok. This was Colleen's first ever time staying in
a hostel, so I decided to book a pricier one by Thailand standards, with a
private room and bathroom costing around $50 a night. Having stayed in some pretty terrible hostels
in my day, staying in a "modern, boutique hostel" was quite alright
with me. Colleen was going to need some
time to warm to the idea of budget travel though, so we unpacked our bags and
headed out into the city.
 |
| Traffic around Victory Monument. Pictures can't do Bangkok traffic justice. |
We ended up just exploring the area around Victory Monument
and decided to eat our first meal in a not-so exotically named place known as
Jeffer Steak. What was completely
foreign to me though was the pricing!
Steak dinners, pasta dishes, Asian food, you name it. It could all be had for only a few bucks per
meal. This I could get used to. One thing I also got introduced to and would
become a lingering theme on our trip was the terrible customer service you
would get in restaurants. I am not one
to normally whine and complain about restaurant service because I hate when
people do it to me at my job, but to say a lot of the service in Thailand was appalling
would be a vast understatement. It was
downright non-existent at times. Rant over. After enjoying our cheap and delicious dinner,
we checked our Lonely Planet guidebook to see what was in the area as far as
nightlife. We ended up settling on going
to some joint called the Saxophone Pub that was only a few minutes from our
hostel. The pricing ended up being
atrocious (see: on par with North American bars) so we only stayed for a couple
of drinks before heading on our merry way.
On the way back to the hostel, I stopped at one of Thailand's favorite
institutions, the 7/11 and picked up four Chang Beers for $3. Now that's more like it!
 |
| Victory Monument. Looks like a giant sex toy to me. |
Once back at the hostel, I was starting to get snuggled in
to bed, when Colleen with her expertly trained eyes, spotted some ants in our
room. Now for those of you who don't know Colleen, let me just say this: she
is deathly, and I mean deathly afraid of bugs.
I often think it's the main reason she still lives in the Arctic and
puts up with me is because our bug season only lasts about 6 weeks of the
year. I have been called at work to come
home and kill spiders. Let's just say
that every bug that finds its way into our apartment has the ability to cripple
a grown woman with fear. After
closer inspection, we discovered that there was in fact a trail of ants coming
in through the window and they had spread throughout our room. Well, as you can imagine, this sent Colleen
into hysterics, even after all of the diminutive creatures had been
killed. She broke down and proclaimed
that she was not sure if she was going to be able to continue on this trip. Me being the asshole that I am tried to remind
her how small ants are and that bugs were going to be a fact of life in a
tropical climate like Thailand. She didn't like that. Yup, not even twelve
hours in the country and we had our first marital meltdown. After checking the room numerous times and making
sure that every ant was in fact deceased, we then sprayed the entire area
around our bed with bed bug spray.
Precautionary measures in case the ant army tried to come in the middle of
the night and carry us away. Eventually
Colleen did calm down enough to fall asleep, although it took lots of coaxing
to reassure her that she would in fact be safe. Yes, I'm a dick, I know.
It was a safe assumption that this was going to be the last
hostel Colleen every stayed in and that our "accommodation budget"
was going to be a little higher than I originally anticipated!
~Brentski~
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