Bangkok, Thailand

Bangkok has been a bit of a culture shock, but an amazing experience! We flew an hour to Doha (the wrong direction), had a two hour layover and then flew on a red eye seven hours (in the right direction) to Bangkok. As always, we were crossing our fingers that Tyson could have his own seat so we could bring his car seat on the plane for him to sleep in comfortably. Unfortunately, it was a completely booked flight so we were in for a long night with him squiggling on our laps. Luckily, we happened to get the row that has a wall in front of us with a lot of extra leg room.

We planned to make Tyson a bed on the floor like we used to sleep on planes when we were kids, old school style. After takeoff the flight attendant brought us a basinet that connects to the wall in front of us about 3 feet off the ground. It was so tiny, we just laughed when they walked away and didn’t even try to put Tyson in it. Instead we made a nice bed at our feet with 4 stacked blankets. Tyson was able to sleep there for a good half hour until a flight attendant said that he’s not allowed to sleep there as they were expecting turbulence and it wouldn’t be safe. Tyson doesn’t sleep well on our shoulders so we decided to try to put him in the tiny basinet. He was clearly too big for it and his feet were hanging off the side, but he was so tired that he slept in it the rest of the flight only waking up for a quick stretch here and there.

We arrived in Bangkok at 7am (+3 hours from Dubai time) and went straight to the taxi area. We got a queue ticket outside the airport and walked to the taxi with that number. When we got there the other taxi drivers were saying ‘wait, wait…your driver chi chi. She chi chi…” and started making not so subtle body movements to tell us that meant pee pee. A few minutes later the driver walked up, helped us with our bags and started negotiating the price to take us to the hotel. We’d called the hotel when we landed and were told to pay 500 baht (~$15 USD) with tolls included. She started the price at 800 baht and told us it was because of the traffic, but we took that as a tactic and told her we wouldn’t pay more than 500 baht. We assumed we had an understanding because she started driving us to the hotel.

When we mapped out how far away the hotel was on my phone and it said we’d arrive in about 30 minutes, but we quickly discovered that traffic would add quite a bit of time to that. The driver told us Monday morning at 7am is the worst time to commute to downtown Bangkok. Every time we’d come to a toll she’d ask us for money, which we declined, and we started the process over to negotiate the price. She eventually started going down from her 800 price and we finally landed on 600 with tolls included.  Marshall tipped her 100 more because it ended up taking us an hour and a half to get there!

Once we got to the hotel all we wanted to do was sleep. By the time we woke up from our nap it was 2:30pm so we went down to the hotel restaurant to eat a late lunch. Afterwards we checked out the rooftop terrace that had great views of the city and then took a seat in the outdoor lounge. There is a huge water feature next to the lounge that is basically a super shallow pool. Tyson couldn’t resist and jumped in fully clothed. He was having a blast splashing around while all the servers were staring at him and laughing. All the hotel staff were obsessed with Tyson. Every time they saw him they all had to touch him and play with him.  It’s actually pretty great, it’s like we had 5 babysitters every time we entered a room. We decided to stay inside the rest of the day to recoup and get all rested up for the next day’s adventure.

This was the beginning of Thailand's monsoon season so we expected it to rain most of the time we were there. But we decided we would still plan our days as we normally would and if it rained we would just suck it up. (Luckily it didn't rain a single time!) The next morning we wanted to check out the area nearest to our hotel. We walked next door to see a temple and then continued walking in full circle back to our hotel. After Tyson’s nap was when the real fun began. We hired a tuk-tuk driver to drive us to a palace for 150 baht (~$5 USD). After we were already on the road he said the palace closes in 10 minutes but we told him to drive us there anyways to take pictures. He said he would take us around town and show us major sites and would still only charge us 150 baht. Say waaaaaa? Sweet!

When we got to the palace there was a gate all the way around so no way to get good pictures. The driver said that there was a temple open nearby so he took us there instead. He let us out and told us to take our time and would wait for us. We took pictures of the temple and the monks hanging out next door. A couple that we took a picture for said not to go inside the temple because there was a dead body. I was like “What? A freshly dead body?” They said they didn’t think so. Maybe he was mummified? We weren’t about to find out so we got back in our tuk-tuk and left.

The driver then took us to the tourist office to find out about tours. I’m sure he took us there because he makes a cut of the sales from his passengers, but regardless it was helpful for us. The guy in the tourist office tried to sell us on this whole vacation package when we mentioned we really didn’t have any plans while in Thailand, but all we really wanted was a tour for the next morning. He gave some great suggestions on where to go next and what to do, but we wanted the driver to take us back to the hotel so that we could do our own research to see if the tour or vacation package was even a good deal.

On the way back the driver took us to what he called the “Thai Center”. We thought it was going to be some cool place and when we walked up to the door we realized we were walking into a suit tailoring shop. We were very confused as to why we would be at a tailor. We’re guessing his son works there or the driver partnered with that store and once again makes a cut of the sale. We kindly told them we were backpacking and didn’t have room in our bags for a suit…thanks anyway. As we were leaving we noticed that all the guys in the shop had the same tattoo. We were a little creeped out to say the least and hopped back in tuk-tuk and puttered away.

When we finally made it back to our hotel and told the driver that we wanted to do some research. He said he would wait outside for 30 minutes and then when we are ready take us back to the tourist office. Keep in mind, this guy is only charging us $5 total and he had already spent 2 hours driving us around all over Bangkok. We went back to our room to research and decided that we were only going to buy the tour for the next morning. Tyson and I were tired so we stayed at the hotel while Marshall went back to the tourist office with the driver. By the time he got back we had spent 3 full hours of his time so we ended up giving him 500 baht and he seemed really surprised and grateful.

This morning we woke up at 6am because our tour bus was supposed to pick us up at 7am. They ended up being 30 minutes late since we were one of the last families to be picked up. We were then told that the floating market was an hour and a half away. Great. We had no idea that we’d be spending three hours in the car today, but not much we could do at that point. Lesson learned on buying tours: ask them about every detail of the tour before buying. About 20 minutes into the drive (with a random stop for him to give a charger to a friend in an alley), the driver dropped everyone off at a spot where several other buses had dropped people off as well. We all got into different groups depending on which tours we were doing. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something move a few feet away from my feet. As I looked a little closer it was a ginormous rat scurrying off to a hole in the wall! Gross! We then got into a different bus and got back on the road.

We first arrived at the location for the elephant ride. We weren’t sure if Tyson would be scared of the elephant or not, but he loved the ride! We had brought a bag of snacks and a pack of donuts fell out along the way. We told the elephant trainer not to worry about it and keep going. Instead the elephant decided to turn around and pick up the donuts with his trunk and give it to the trainer to give back to us, lol. The elephant then trekked us through water and eventually back to the drop off point. We had one casualty on the ride though, Tyson’s sippy cup fell off somewhere between the elephant in front of us pooping on the trail and our guide hassling us for a tip to take our picture. Fun times!

Our bus driver then took us over to the floating market which was only five minutes away. What a sight to see! People sell fruits and vegetables as well as other things on their boats in a canal to people standing on the docks. As we were walking along the dock I ran my leg super hard into some concrete stairs. Just wonderful. I sat down on the concrete step to check it out and as I turn to the lady next to me she happens to be holding out a Band-Aid. It’s like she knew I was going to run into the stairs and got the Band-Aid ready in advance. Must be a daily occurrence for her.

After an hour at the market we hopped on a speed boat that drove us through the canals to see how the locals live. It was very fascinating to see their lifestyle. In fact, if you want to see a glimpse of it, it is the same market that Nicholas Cage drives through in the movie Bangkok Dangerous trying to assassinate somebody, or so Marshall tells me. The boat dropped us off 30 minutes later to our bus meeting point and then headed back to the hotel. Thankfully Tyson was ready for his nap so he slept almost the whole way home.

Tomorrow we will be waking up bright and early to take an hour flight to our next destination.

Next stop: Koh Samui, Thailand.