Arrival in Thailand: a summary (a long one)

Of course me being me I had to have already a story to tell.

It started when I decided to chew some gum in order to protect my ears a bit during take off and half the pack flew away in a beautiful rain. The guy next to me had a good laugh. A few hours later he decided to have a coke and it exploded on the two of us.

As mentioned in a previous post in Abu Dhabi I had to zip up my coat, and the passport control guy looked at my picture for so long I started getting selfconscious. The security checks after Brussels and London are a riot, 3h to look at your picture but you can go in with bottles of water, no need to take the computer out and the one guy that didnt have a backpack had to take off his shoes. All this is done while the guards are laughing at each other and going out to get coffee... coming back... going again. A riot.

I arrived in Bangkok at 7.20 am in the morning. After leaving Brussels at 10 am the day before. Then we went to passport control. It was my turn at 9 am. Basically I queued for 1.40 minutes. So much fun. My suitcase was in a corner somewhere, no longer on the belt but it was in one piece. Then I exchanged some money. I spent 30m looking for the information point. Oh yes, my suitcase has 20k and my backpack 7 thanks to my old and trustful laptop. At the information point I tried to figure out where to go next, I could tell straight away I was the first of the day without a hotel booked. I decided I was too tired to go to the old town, where the tourist attractions are. So I am in between the tourist area and the bus station. Then in 3 days time I am ready to take a bus to Sanglaburi.

Around 10am I got in the bus. It took some 40m to get to the center and then another 1.30 just to move in the traffic. The Bangkok traffic lives to its reputation. My first impressions are biased becaused I was tired, sleepy and hungry. There is no way I would drive in this town and I understand why they sell face masks.

There is something strange about the bus that I will have to investigate. Basically next to the driver there is a lady not doing anything. I cant quite tell what her function is. She doesnt leave her seat, she talks and laughs with the driver, sleeps a bit, if you ask for directions she points to the driver and that's it. Maybe she knows kung fu and is secretly protecting the bus...

Ok, so after 2h and something in a bus, I was starving, I had a headache and no hotel. I saw that the rough guide recomended a guest house in the area and tried my luck. That's when I found out that in Thailand you can have several copies of the same street. For example, there is soi kesamsan street 1, 2 and 3... It's great when you firt arrive. While dragging my suitcase I asked where the street was, they checked I wanted the first street, not the second then proceeded to explain (gestures, no English) that it was on the other side of the street. Which was fine except there was no zebra crossings but one of those pedestrian bridges. So there I was, fresh in Bangkok, with 34 degrees, carrying a 20k suitcase up some stairs. It got to the point school girls were giggling away at my huffing and puffing. On the last 3 steps a guy took pity on me and helped. I could barely mutter 'thank you'.

The bridge gives access to a shopping center, a fancy one. It took me 20m to figure out the exit. Yep, very fancy. Then I asked again for directions, refused a taxi and found myself in front of the street. Except it was on the other side of two very busy traffic lanes. For those that have been to India, crossing the street here is the same level of adventure. For those that havent been just imagine me making a run for it with a suitcase, going up some steps and running again.

Checking-in was easy. My room is on the 4th floor, no lift. I was SO dead when I got to my room I decided to ignore the jet-lag rule, took a shower and went to sleep. And here I am, in my head it's lunch time, here it's 8 in the evening. I havent seen anything yet. Well, I see some mosquitos around me but that doesnt count. And that's it. I am now living in Asia...