I'm here :)

First 24 hours in Bangkok:

I landed around 9:30pm on Friday night and followed the directions that my hotel sent to me to find my ride to the hotel (included with my stay). They assured me that their staff would be at a specific exit door at the airport to meet me on my arrival. My only job was to find that staff member with the hotel’s sign. After arriving to said door, there were about 30 smiling Thais holding clipboards with various hotel and guest names on them. Of course, my hotel’s name was nowhere to be found. I was half expecting this as my flight was a bit late coming in. I walked past each sign again, reading more closely this time to make sure I hadn’t missed it. Soon, a woman must have noticed that I wasn’t finding what I was looking for (or just that I was the tallest female in the terminal) and called me over. Yes! Let me just say here, for the most part, all of the Thais I have met so far seem to speak outstanding English. It’s hard not to think of myself as being lazy for not knowing a lick of Thai… Anywho, she asked what hotel I was looking for, to which I happily provided her the name. She pointed to a railing, and told me to wait about ten minutes while she paged them for me. About 5 minutes later, a man in a suit and tie came over with a clipboard and greeted me. He asked my name - when I said “Alisha Aufai”, he just asked my name again. I could see where this was going. I was able to sneak a peek at his clipboard and was thrilled when I saw my name printed on a list. I pointed, repeated my name and smiled. He gave me an understanding nod and told me we would need to wait another five minutes. Soon, he gestured me to follow him and we stepped outside to wait at the curb. This was the moment the heat first hit me like a warm, wet blanket. It’s always surprising how that kind of heat makes breathing feel so much heavier. I couldn’t help but think of Samoa. While I was busy making that comparison in my head, my suited friend led me across the crosswalk to a young uniformed Thai man waiting beside a van/shuttle. He loaded my bag and we were off. After about 5 minutes or so, he pointed to a building off the expressway. I could read the sign and confirmed that was my hotel. In my research, I had read and learned that taxi drivers will sometimes make an extra stop before your destination, in hopes that you’ll spend money at whatever establishment they take you to. If you make a purchase, the owner of that establishment will pay the driver a commision for bringing your business there. After that, the driver will take you to where you want to go. When the driver started gesturing toward some places on the side of the street, I thought this may be my first scam. As kindly as possible, I said, “Just to the hotel, please.”  My suspicions heightened when we took a u-turn down a street, seemingly much darker than where we were previously. Since we had already passed the hotel, which was on the other side of the expressway, I could feel myself getting a bit nervous. Thankfully, it wasn’t more than 10 seconds later I realized that we were actually pulling up to the hotel. In hindsight, I think his gestures were actually him trying to tell me we had to make the u-turn and go under the bridge to get to the hotel. This all made me feel a bit guilty...

Here’s what $23 will get you just outside of Bangkok:

After a somewhat restless night (14 hour time difference…), I took a shower and decided to form a game plan. I wanted to book a hostel before getting into the city so that I had an address for my cab driver. Online, I found a great little hostel called Khaosan Immjai for $11 a night. I packed up and went to check out. After getting totally screwed on my cab fare - another common scam - I was happy to have found the hostel with a bed waiting for me. I was still feeling a bit unrested so I decided to take a snooze. Four hours later, I woke up feeling a headache coming on, realizing I hadn’t eaten anything all day. I wandered downstairs and I had my first meal at a little sit down restaurant that was recommended by the receptionist at the hostel. I decided to keep it basic for my first meal and went with Phad Thai with a soda water. This put me out a whopping 125 baht. The last time I had a sit down meal cheaper than that, was at my parents house :)

By this time, it was about 8pm and I was feeling tired again when I got back to the hostel. Going off of the Foo Fighters music blaring, it seemed this was the prep time for everyone to get ready to go out and party. I should mention, my bed is in a shared female room with 14 bunks. Maybe it’s the jet lag, but I haven’t been very social yet. Based on what I can make of the accents, there aren’t any other Americans in the dorm. Just listening to conversations, I think we’ve got a Kiwi, Argentinian, UK, and several Western Europeans.

I woke up this morning and had some toast and tea while writing this post. I’ve got one more night here and then I’ll head North to Chiang Mai via bus.