Our plane finally landed at around 4:00pm Bangkok time, which was 4:00am at home. I had, after hours of doing crossword puzzles, watching movies, playing Pong and listening to George Carlin, actually managed to doze off toward the end of the flight only to be woken up pretty shortly for our last meal of the flight. It was the first time in my life that I had actually eaten three dinners in a row. I was just arriving in Asia and I was almost tired of noodles and rice already.
The new Airport in Bangkok is enormous and we must have walked for 15 minutes before finally getting to the passport control lines. Something like an 30-60 minutes later (I'm pretty fuzzy at this point) we finally got through and to our luggage. Someone who may or may not have worked for the airline tried to steer us toward the "Official Airport Taxi" desk. Despite its name and color of the counter, yellow checkerboard, this is not the taxi stand but a car service that would, presumably, be more expensive. We waved them off, and all other people standing outside offering taxi rides, to go to the real taxi stand outside and caught a cab for 450 Thai baht (about $15) to our hotel.
Anybody who knows me knows that I'm a total transit geek, and taking a cab is usually not my first choice for any trip. This ride was even more frustrating for a couple of reasons. It was after 5:00pm when we started our taxi ride to the city, so rush hour in a city with a reputation for congestion. I also knew that they were building a rail line, an extension of their SkyTrain, out to the airport. It was originally scheduled to be open last year, but Bangkok's construction companies seem to run about as efficient as the ones in charge of Boston's Big Dig. It was killing me to see the elevated track that I couldn't ride on as we made our way in the taxi on our hour-and-a-half journey to central Bangkok. The new rail line touts a time of 15-minutes to downtown once it is running.
How exactly they could complete an entire new, huge airport but still be working on a simple rail line to get to it is beyond me.
We had read about the Thai people's love of their king before we went there, but until you see it firsthand you don't really get it. When we were getting off the plane I noticed that all of the Jetways leading to the planes had huge letters on the side of them spelling out LONG LIVE THE KING. Crazy, I thought, but not really a big deal since it was a government-built airport, so of course they would have king-praising propaganda. No different than the money in so many countries that have monarchs.
But then we got into the cab. As we were driving along we noticed the driver had a picture of the king taped to the ceiling of the taxi, among other decorations that indicated the king, like the symbol from his crest or flag. And then you see his damn picture everywhere. His huge mug will be on the side of tall office towers, the side of bridge overpasses, billboards and even small homemade signs on people's homes. Seems that the guidebooks telling you to be sure not to make any jokes or say anything bad about their beloved king is good advice.
On the trip to the hotel I noticed the most surprising sight. I half expected we would see a Starbucks or a McDonald's in Bangkok, there seems to be very few places you can go to avoid that. What I didn't expect was 7-11s on almost every block. Really, we even saw 7-11s across the street from each other, a la Starbucks in Seattle, New York or just about every other American city. We would eventually see a Starbucks as well, once we got to the more tourist area, but nothing matched the presence of the 7-11. They are everywhere.
We finally arrived at our hotel, the Atlanta, at the end of a long lane just off the tourist-laden strip of Sukhumvit Road. I wrote before we left for our trip about how the hotel's website was very serious with their zero tolerance warnings about sex tourism at their property. Well, if you didn't get the point before, you certainly do when you pull up to the hotel. We didn't see the Atlanta until we were right on top of it. And how we knew we were there was not because of the small "The Atlanta" sign above the door, which you couldn't really see at night and it is not at eye level so would have been easily missed. No, the clue we were at the right place was the big, in your face sign next to the front door.
SEX TOURISTS NOT WELCOME
"This is it," I said to the cab driver, who was having a hard time finding it.
A bellhop grabbed our bags at the front door and we went to the desk to check-in. We were brought a refreshing fresh juice drink while Lisa was filling out the registration card.
They were served on these coasters:
You know, the word "lout" just doesn't get used enough. The coaster inspired me to try to throw it in to conversations more often.
After we settled in our room we went for a walk around the neighborhood to get oriented to the city. I had felt like warmed-over shit when the plane landed, but with the excitement of being in a place I'd never been before I had tons of energy. Lisa did as well, so we walked a lot that night, dodging the crazy traffic and constantly being on the lookout for obvious sex tourists. I, of course, also kept looking up every time one of the sleek SkyTrains went by overhead. I think we were offered a tuk-tuk ride about 30 times during our walk.
The rest of the night is a little fuzzy. I don't really remember if we got food that night. I do remember that, I'm somewhat embarrassed to say, we stopped at a 7-11 so Lisa could get a Diet Coke since we knew the 7-11 would have it if they actually sold Diet Coke in this country. I also grabbed a couple bottles of Thai beer to drink before bed.
We then crashed out, exhausted as hell.
Oh, and of course I had my picture taken with the sex tourists sign before we left Bangkok:
Next - First full day in Bangkok
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