Bangkok adventures

VagabondMira
Sep 27, 2015
3 min read

Happy Sunday to everyone,

Now it is time to talk about my Bangkok adventures.

The flight there went great, Koh Samui airport is very small and has barely any air con so I would recommend very early or late flights. Otherwise, plenty of water and light clothing.

Bangkok was fantastic. It is a very big and vibrant city, plenty of time wasted in public transport, unfortunately. We stayed at my friend’s house north of central, the apartment had a rooftop pool and a gym. We napped most of the first day and then spent the evening at the pool, Bangkok looks even better when you look at the lights in the dark from the 25th floor.

Next day we spent walking around central and meeting up with other friends. We planned to climb this very high abandoned building in central but unfortunately, it wasn’t possible at the time. In the evening we got caught in a rainstorm, but we fought through in a pursuit to find a karaoke bar. With no success in that, we found a fantastic Korean buffet with hot stoves on the tables so that we could cook our own food. Amazing food, great company and all flushed down with Korean dinner wine.

I spent Thursday and Friday organising my visa for Vietnam. It all actually came through on Friday and I managed to get my visa through an express service! It cost me 400 baths more but I imagined that I would spend that coming to the Embassy one more time. Everything started rolling very quickly from receiving my visa, I immediately booked my flight to Hanoi and organised my departure. An advice: be careful of taxi drivers in Bangkok. I took a tuk-tuk from the train station towards the apartment. The driver spoke no English and dropped me completely off route in a middle of some market area. From there I found a taxi driver to drive me home, he left me sitting in a car in a petrol station and took all the small alleys to make the journey longer. Halfway I had to speak to someone who knew English on his phone to discover that the driver went to the toilet. In the end, I had to mime to him that I cannot pay for time spent sitting in a car at the petrol station. I took me two and a half hours all together to get home! We spent my final evening on the rooftop again followed by home-delivered pizza.

I wish I could say that my flight went smoothly but it was everything but that. At the check in my cabin bag was three kilos too heavy. The worker was having none of it even though I tried my best to explain to him that I’ll just put in the handbag and then it won’t make a difference. After a hassle, I removed my stuff from the cabin bag just to get it weighted and moved it back straight after getting it labelled light enough… This was the least of my problems, at the immigration, the officer thought I had overstayed my visa because I had stamps on my passport from the visit to Thailand last year. So I have removed from the scene to some side room to get it all sorted. After all this, I managed to find my way to the correct gate. The flight was quite bumpy and very uncomfortable.

Due to obvious reasons, I was very happy once we landed in Hanoi. I had a car service waiting for me to take me to my hotel room. Hanoi is extremely beautiful and the hour ride towards central and my hotel was so calming. I arrived quite late so it was already getting dark, I went to get some sushi for dinner and walked around a little bit. My area is very lively and the traffic is crazy. The Youtube videos on how to cross the street are quite accurate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiwMQPZQvsg I had an opportunity to do this once, it was more like a need, and I am quite surprised how well it went! I was looking around in desperation at first but once I hopped onto the road there was no way but forward.

Alive and well I returned to my room to enjoy my sushi. My bed has neither mattress nor a blanket. Luckily, I have a small blanket with me. The air con and the bed were making plenty of sounds all night. Other than that, I slept well and am now going to go for a little adventure out in the streets of Hanoi!

Wish me luck,

Mira