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.
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| Excitedly eating my McArabia |
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| 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).
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| Trying to take a picture to show how tired we are, and we got this unexpected photobomb. Awesome. |
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| 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.
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| Miriam on the express air rail link |
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| 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.
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.
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| Rooftops of the market from the Sky Train |
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| Street vendors |
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| Thai cowboy playing the banjo. Amazing. |
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| Inside the market. |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| The tired travelers in Chatuchak Park. |
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.
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.
