Home » Thailand » Southeast Asia 2000 - Travel Diary, Part 2: First impressions of Bangkok

Bangkok never became one of my favourite cities, but the visit there was certainly interesting. The main problem is getting used to all the different impressions that are coming at you all the time. The streets are crowded with all kinds of people, food is being prepared and sold everywhere, stray dogs are all over the place, the volume of traffic is enormous and there are all kinds of different sounds and smells. It is very hard to find peace and tranquility in Bangkok, except in some of the temples. We spent the first three days wandering around the city, getting used to the pace and learning how to deal with "new friends" that had all kinds of "fantastic offers" for us.

Southeast Asia 2000 - Travel Diary, Part 2: First impressions of Bangkok

Jan Arild Teland
2006-05-08 18:18:27

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us that they would send the guy back to the airport.

While waiting near the information counter, one of the women signalled that there was a phone call for me. It was from a woman at Asia Travel who once more confirmed that the pick-up guy would return within twenty minutes. When he finally arrived, we had to run out to the car because he had double parked. Apparently, he had waited nearly two hours for us and then given up. I certainly don't blame him, because who could have expected the idiot from the immigration to hold us up forever?

First impressions of Bangkok weren't so bad on our fourty minute journey into the city. There was lots of traffic but it flowed quite smoothly, and from inside the air-conditioned vehicle, the heat, humidity and general noise was hardly noticable. However, the hotel had looked very nice on the Internet, so we were quite surprised when we turned off the road and drove into a small back alley. The surroundings of the New World Lodge were certainly not as expected.

After checking in and being shown to our room, our disappointment increased. Although the room was quite large, it had a kind of shabby look, and inside the bathroom we immediately came across the hugest cockroach we had ever seen.

The natural thing might have been to relax for a while and maybe get some sleep, but both of us were too excited and wanted to get out and experience Bangkok. However, our first priority was getting something to eat, so after putting our passports and tickets in a safety box, we sat down at the hotel restaurant to have our first meal in Thailand.

We were happy to see that prices were even lower than expected, around 60B (=15 NOK) for a main course. Clearly we would be able to eat very well during the holiday without it costing us very much. Even when taking into account that meals would generally turn out to be smaller than we were used to, food was very good value for money in Thailand.
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