SAWASDEE KA

New York to Bangkok 

May 23, 2013 – May 25, 2013

Hello! Or as they say in Thai, sawasdee ka! It's been a while since my last trip post, but for good reason. I've been saving up to take my version of the trip of a lifetime. 

For three years I’ve been saving to make my biggest dream trip a reality: Traveling to Thailand to work hands on with elephants. You see, I named my blog "Singing with Elephants" for a very specific reason. I love to sing and I am extremely passionate about elephants. It only made sense to combine the two. One day I would travel to Thailand and sing with the elephants.

Well, that dream is about to become a reality.

It wasn’t without a lot of hard work and saving, let me tell you. I took on lots of extra jobs and made some fun career turns in the process just to make this happen. Last year I tried my hand at music directing a community theater production and found I was pretty decent at it and had a really great time doing it. I also turned semi-pro photographer. Every bit of extra money went right into my travel fund. And here we are, about to board our Emirates flight to Bangkok via Dubai. I couldn’t be more excited.

I’ve literally been planning the trip for years and had the basic itinerary all laid out way ahead of time in a notebook. All I needed to do was work out the dates and logistics, which wasn’t hard to do. The goal was to spend a few days in Bangkok, a week at Elephant Stay in Ayutthaya, and the rest of the trip on the beaches of Phuket. Sounds perfect. 

I have never flown Emirates before, and I must say, it’s a lovely airline. The flight attendants are from all over the world, speaking a variety of different languages to fulfill the needs of the passengers. The seats were fairly comfortable, they offered lots of free movies to watch on the flight, and the food was decent, for airline food, anyways. Our seat mate was a really nice girl around our age, originally from India, who works in Kentucky for a printer technology company. She was on her way home to visit her family, as her sister was going to be proposed to and her future fiancé wanted to surprise her with a visit from all her family members. So sweet! Having just gotten engaged, myself, I’m a sucker for a proposal story.

The one problem with the flight is that it was filled with passengers from the land deodorant forgot. Lots and lots of interesting smells kept walking by… 

Our first flight was just under 13 hours long. My hope had been to sleep for most of it, since we took off at 11pm, but there were so many new movies available that I hadn’t seen that I stayed up for most of the flight watching movies. We had a layover in Dubai for a few hours, where I realized that my cell phone was not set up properly for international use. I had signed up for everything with Verizon, but they never quite completed the process on their end. Luckily, there was free wifi available in the Dubai airport, and I was able to chat with an online Verizon rep, who got everything up and running.

After that Miriam and I decided to have a look around the airport to find something to eat for dinner. When I saw McDonald’s I got really excited. When we had been in Egypt a few years ago, my favorite meal was the McDonald’s McArabia, a special flat bread wrap not available in the US. I had my fingers crossed that the McDonald’s in Dubai would have the same sandwich, since it’s in the same area of the world, relatively, and I was not disappointed! Happiness in a sandwich. And, luckily, they took US dollars, since we didn’t have the UAE currency. 

Excitedly eating my McArabia

Miriam being good and eating a salad

Our next flight was a little over 6 hours long, and my goal, again, was to sleep through it, since this flight was also at 11pm (UAE time). Alas, I was having issues sleeping, mostly because my backside was so sore from all the sitting I did on the last flight, so I ended up sleeping for maybe two hours, and the rest of the time I watched movies and tried to get everything ready for our arrival into Bangkok (i.e. figuring out how to get to our hotel from the airport).

Trying to take a picture to show how tired we are, and we got this unexpected photobomb. Awesome.

Looking for our hotel's street on the map

Getting through customs was a breeze, and we discovered that we were not required to get a visa, so we got our passports stamped, grabbed our luggage, exchanged our money, and headed to the airport rail link that would take us directly into the city. 

It was just our luck that the non-stop express train that would take us directly to the last stop was arriving in less than five minutes. We got our tokens and jumped on the nearly empty, air conditioned train and rode the 24 minute ride directly into Bangkok. Conveniently, the air rail link took us to the Phaya Thai stop, which is a direct link to the Sky Train (one of Bangkok’s modes of public transportation), but more importantly, this stop was also a five minute walk to our hotel. Not knowing exactly where our hotel was, we did get a little lost in that we did not cross the street at the opportune time and ended up walking about ten minutes out of our way. Oh well. 

Miriam on the express air rail link 

Our train token

We were staying at the True Siam Boutique Hotel, tucked away down an alleyway. It’s a relatively new hotel and dirt cheap, especially for being right in the heart of Bangkok. We booked directly through their website and paid $35 a night for a room that was really big and clean and brilliantly located in the center of the train lines.

We got into Bangkok a lot faster than I anticipated and were at our hotel by 10:30am. Check in wasn’t technically until 2pm, and the front desk staff told us our room wasn’t ready quite yet but that it would be in about a half hour, so we opted to leave our luggage chained up by the front desk and took a stroll around the neighborhood. We went on down to the 7 Eleven to pick up some much needed water (it was really hot and humid), and by then our room was ready so we headed back to the hotel.

Miriam having fun with the statue outside the hotel. 

Giant cup of prawns found along our walk. 

Chang is Thai for elephant. I gladly purchased that brand of water. 

We found a cute little coffee shop along the way, too. 

Our room at True Siam. 

The colorful Thai money

After 22 hours of traveling we couldn’t wait to shower and change. And, trying to combat our jet lag, we headed straight out the door to see what Bangkok had to offer. Being New Yorkers, the obvious choice for us was to take the Sky Train everywhere we wanted to go, so we headed to the station and bought an unlimited day pass for 130 Baht, the equivalent to about $4 US. We didn’t think we would really need the day pass, but it seemed easier than having to buy a new fare every time, especially since you had to pay based on the distance you were traveling, so the day pass we got.

The Sky Train is an elevated train that runs on two different lines to different points of the city. It’s a lovely, air conditioned train that offers really fun views of Bangkok. Our plan was to hit up the Chatuchak Weekend Market, a giant market comparable to Cairo’s Khan el-Khalili, selling everything you could imagine, from souvenirs and clothing, to pets and food. Coming at it from the Sky Train was amazing because we could look out and see the rows and rows of tin roofs and get an idea of just how large this market is.

The market only fully operates on the weekends, which was why I planned our ventures into Bangkok for the weekend. I really wanted to see what this market had to offer. The only problem with that plan was that we wanted to buy all sorts of souvenirs, but having just gotten into Thailand, we didn’t know exactly what we were looking for.

Rooftops of the market from the Sky Train 

Street vendors 

Thai cowboy playing the banjo. Amazing. 

Inside the market. 

Miriam getting a frozen banana dipped in chocolate and rolled in almonds. Delicious. 

Chatuchak Market has many outdoor sections, as well as a number of very hot and steamy inside sections. We took our time wandering from the various stalls both inside and out, finding items we liked and bargaining the price. A friend of mine from high school lives in Bangkok now and he gave me some pointers for the market, like cutting their price in half and then bargaining up from there, but I wasn’t very good at that. I did get some good deals, though. The most amusing thing was that most of the clothes were a one-size-fits-all. Miriam and I each got a pair of elephant pants that we need to roll up at the waist, as they hang really low, but they only cost us a couple dollars, so we didn’t mind. I also ended up buying a really pretty dress for only $9. Luckily it fit, since I wasn’t allowed to try anything on—being that everyone in that market is hot and sweaty, trying clothes on, even over other clothes, was frowned upon. We also picked up a few gifts along the way.

Thai iced tea happiness. 

I was a happy camper when we stopped at one of the ice cream stalls and tried traditional Thai ice cream served in a hot dog bun. Miriam got the Thai milk tea ice cream and I got the coconut ice cream. Both were delicious and quite refreshing—and, better yet, they cost us 25 Baht (around 75 cents). We decided against eating anything for lunch, as all the street vendors were serving hot food, and the idea of putting hot food into our hot bodies was not appetizing, so we filled up on ice cream and cold drinks. I even treated myself to a Thai milk tea, one of my favorite things, and something I haven’t had since I joined Weight Watchers ten months ago. It was well worth the wait.

After four and a half hours, we were exhausted and had seen most of the market, so we took our purchases and shuffled to the Sky Train. By the time we made it back to the hotel, we could barely keep our eyes open. After a quick shower and nap, we decided that venturing out for dinner was going to be impossible, so we kept it simple and went to the hotel restaurant.

The restaurant was pretty much empty, and the menu wasn’t much to write home about, but it sufficed. We were practically falling asleep at the table, so it didn’t make much difference anyway. I was mortified to discover a shelf full of ET dolls on display (I’m petrified of ET), and we were amused that the television in the restaurant was playing The Voice Thailand—we hadn’t realized The Voice had a Thai version!

All in all, the meal cost us a couple dollars US; Miriam had a spaghetti dish and I, a chicken fried rice. Once finished we fell straight into bed, even though it was only 8:30. We figured we would be up bright and early to start our tours of the various wats and palaces…apparently bright and early meant 2 am…dang jet lag.

The tired travelers in Chatuchak Park.