We made it to Bangkok... and what a difference from NZ.
All in all it took us about 38 hours of travel/waiting time to get
here Thursday night around 7:30 pm (local time), but everything went smoothly and I think we are managing the jet lag pretty well. On our way out of the airport we took a government cab from the departures terminal (apparently the regular cabs are a rip off and the drivers line up outside of the airport yelling, trying to get business), and I had the driver take us to a hotel (Rambuttri Village Inn) that we had read about but didn't have reservations for. Luckily they had a room with air conditioning and its own bathroom for 800 baht a night. This is about US $22. There's a swimming pool on the roof that we swam in on our second night and watched the sun set.
On our first night in the city we walked around and the place was crazy busy. Pete and I shared some noodles and a beer, then a banana pancake/crepe thing (about $7 total). I am a little worried about eating street food, not because of the health standards (we only eat what we can see being prepared), but the streets stink so bad I'm afraid I'll gag and lose my appetite.
On the morning of our first full day in the city, we discovered that Bangkok during the day is just as busy as the noisy nights, and I was afraid we'd be hassled by vendors and shop owners like we were in Fiji. But here the sales people on the street are no where near as agressive as the Fijians. Thank goodness. The difference is there are about 100 times more carts and makeshift stalls here - and they sell everything: wigs, stuffed animals, dresses, sun glasses, lawn mowers, radios, etc. We'll probably shop more at the end of the trip so we don't have to carry everything around the whole time.
For breakfast we had a bowl of noodles each and a cup of coffee. It
cost about $1.50 total. We really wanted to get an iced coffee
instead of hot, but we were scared to have a drink with ice in it.
We're trying very hard to follow the rules and keep ourselves from
getting sick, so water and ice are to be avoided.
We haven't encountered any weird toilets yet, but the western toilet
in our hotel has a sign asking us to put our toilet paper in the
garbage bin instead of flushing it. This has Pete thoroughly grossed
out. I'm just going to enjoy a toilet bowl while we have one. I
guess that toilets outside of the city are the "squat over a hole in
the ground" type, minus t.p.
In two days we managed to get lost just about every time we went out, but it did lead us to Chinatown. We agreed we'd never been anywhere like it: dark alleys and a maze of streets, full of food and more things to buy. We also saw a temple that houses Thailand's largest reclining Buddha. Very big. And then we visited the Grand Palace, where a jade Buddha is the highlight. Mostly we've roamed the streets because there is so much to see from just sitting and observing.
I think we'll enjoy ourselves here, it's just going to take some
getting used to. In New Zealand we didn't even bother having our
passport on us when we'd leave hostels, but we're back to wearing a
money belt under our clothes again here.
