Landed on time, immigration was a
breeze even if the face of the immigration officer was priceless as
he started going through all the stamps in my passport and we had our
luggage shortly after that. After a coffee at Starbucks – nothing
like a decent coffee after a night on the plane – we headed for a
cab. We had read all the tips and tricks, so we headed to
departures to avoid the long line of taxis at arrivals and requested
a metered cab. So far so good. As soon as we were off in the cab the
driver refused to turn on the meter and said something about a fair
of 60€. When we refused to pay that much money he pulled over on
the shoulder of the highway and got out of the cab...to pee. :) When
a second cab driver arrived – this seems to be a regular stop –
they tried to make a deal amongst themselves that we pay our first
driver the equivalent of 7€ and then about 30€ to our new driver
who would take us to our hotel. We refused to pay the first driver
anything as well as paying our new driver anything in advance and
after another 5 mins of discussion we left for the hotel. Thailand lesson
no 1: refuse to pay any cab without a meter running and avoid taxis
that are Barbie pink. Lots of drama. :) PS: I think we fed that guys
family for a month with our cab fare of 30€. :)
Moved into our hotel room – nice AND
cheap with free wifi – and then we were off, this time with a metered
cab. :) to Chatuchak Weekend Market and wandered the numerous stalls selling anything and everything you can imagine including fish, worms, clothing and food.
We had our fist Thai food for lunch, a delicious green Thai curry for me - and then wandered into the nearest park for a cat nap in the shade and discovered dressed squirrels on leashes and a Vegas-style water show with music afterwards.
Then wandered the market some more and decided to try the Bangkok subway to get back. We didn't have the address of our hotel on us and only had a rough idea of where it was, but we figured what subway to take and where to switch trains. The place where we had to changed trains looked fun so we got off and found ourselves in the main shopping area of Siam Sqare where we got coffee.Back at the hotel we rested for a little bit and then went to dinner. When we left the hotel is started raining and this quickly turned into a torrential downpour. It's rainy season after all. Even though we went back to get a raincoat and borrowed an umbrella from the hotel we still got soaked to the bone only to find out that the restaurant we wanted to go to was fully booked that night and we could only make a reservation for the following night. So we decided to try a tuk tuk ride for the first time to get back to the hotel and then ended up having pizza delivered to our hotel room for our first Thai dinner. :)
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