It was around 8:30pm on September 16th when we first began to see the far-off silhouettes of large skyscrapers from the bus window. Ever so slowly the skyline of Bangkok began to appear as we finally got closer and closer to the city centre. The bus ended up arriving at the North Bus Terminal of Bangkok around 9:30pm – 2 hours later than originally scheduled. The 11-hour bus ride was exhausting, and we were happy to have finally arrived at our destination. Like many unprepared backpackers, Ali and I had done very little planning for Bangkok. We knew very little about the city and we had not booked a guesthouse or hostel. I had collected a map from the train station 5 days ago, but that was it. To be honest we didn’t think it would be a problem – we expected to be greeted upon arrival by locals trying to convince us to come to their hostel (see sidenote below). Instead, we were only greeted by about 6 taxi drivers asking us where we wanted to go. We didn’t know where we wanted to go, so we didn’t know what to tell them! Ali and I finally got away from the harassing drivers, and sat down to look at the map and figure out where exactly the backpacker region of Bangkok was. We were not in the best situation – there were no tourist booths, no salesman trying to get us to go to their hostel, and we had no knowledge about the city at all. Plus it was 10:00pm and we were on the outskirts of the city. In the map booklet there was an enlarged section on the main map, which included a street, called "Khao San Road". We noticed that there were some guesthouses near that street on the map, so we figured that must be a popular place to go. We decided to give it a shot, and 200 Baht and 30 minutes later our tuk tuk dropped us at the end of Khao San.
Sidenote: An Explanation of What it is Like to Get Off a
Bus in a New City as a Tourist
When you first pull into a bus station in a city, regardless of the hour of the day, you can look out the window and see locals running toward the bus from every direction. Usually around 10 taxi drivers, hostel representatives, or other salesman run towards the bus and crowd the exit door. While you are still in the bus packing up your bag and ensuring you have all your belongings, they are already yelling things at the bus, asking you if you need a taxi, or holding up pictures of rooms on a Bristol board. Usually Ali and I have so much stuff scattered all over the place, that it takes us some time to pack up. By then we are the last people to exit the bus. Really, this is the worst situation to be in as the locals are more aggressive with us because they know we are the last tourists for a while that they can try to convince. They wave things in your face, shout as loud as possible to try to drown out their competition, and try to take your bags from you so they can "help you get in the taxi". How do I properly explain the experience? It’s almost like being a celebrity and you are being harassed by paparazzi. Sometimes, when we are super unprepared and have no place to go we take one of them up on their offer. Sometimes it works out and we get free transport to a hostel and we don’t need to walk around inquiring prices at different places. Other times, when we don’t need help, it is super annoying and we are harassed over and over again until we are far enough away that they give up. So, It turns out Khao San Road was a good choice of places to go as there was a lot of guesthouses in that area and we were able to find one relatively quickly. We checked into a place called "New Joe Guesthouse" and then decided to get a very later dinner and check out the area a bit. We walked down the road for a few minutes taking it all in and letting our bodies adjust to the bright lights, the loud music, and the crowds (see sidenote below). In the distance we finally spotted a "Subway" sign, and decided to take full advantage of it, as we had not seen a Subway Restaurant in quite some time. After dinner we headed to an internet café and made some calls to let everyone back home know we were alive and well and that we had safely made it to Bangkok.
Sidenote: Painting a Picture of Khao San Road –
The Crazy, Never Seeming to Close, Backpacker Mecca of Bangkok
Khao San Road is a pretty famous street. It is internationally known for it’s cheap shopping, it’s food stalls, and it’s string of bars. The street opens up around 10:00am and shops stay open until the wee hours of the morning. Bars have big screens showing the latest soccer games, and the bass thumps at all hours of day. Thus, getting to a hostel at 11:00pm and going to dinner isn’t so crazy after all. The street at that hour is swarming with tourists, and we actually felt super safe even though it was late at night. Walking down Khao San is sensory overload. It is kinda like the Vegas strip has been compacted into one short stretch of road. It is one of those places that you can spend only a short amount of time in or you go insane. In total, we spent 2 full days in Bangkok. We did a bunch of shopping on Khao San Road – we got sunglasses, jewellery, dresses, and gifts for people. We had a bunch of meals at local food stalls – WAY too much cheap pad thai. We shipped a bunch of packages home from the local post office, and were able to book a flight to Kathmandu and a bus to Siem Reap. Ali and I had heard of a local weekend market. The market supposedly had 10,000 different stalls, and had everything a tourist could ever want. Thus, we decided to spend our second day in Bangkok, a Saturday, travelling to the weekend market. We took a local bus which cost about $0.25. It took 45 minutes to get there and we got to see some of the city a bit. We arrived at the market and slowly began to make our way through it looking for gifts for people and items for ourselves. We only had about 3 hours to spend there, and it was huge. Overwhelmed, we spent the first hour just trying to orientate ourselves, and then we spent the last 2 hours trying to find everything on our list. Around 1:00pm, tired and all shopped-out, we caught a bus back toward Khao San. It was slow going, as traffic was heavy that time of day. We were kinda in a rush, because we hoped to ship a package from the post office that closed at 2:30pm, so when we finally arrived at Khao San at 2:20pm, we got off the bus and literally ran the 5 blocks to the post office. We shipped our gifts and unnecessary items home, which was nice because it meant less weight for us in our super heavy bags.
Sunday morning, we woke up early, packed, checked-out, and caught our minibus at 7:30am. We were planning to go to Cambodia today J
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