Bangkok, Thailand

Thus began our marathon airport adventure. Starting with the Tuesday night sleep-over in Auckland, a morning flight on Wednesday to Melbourne, hang in Melbourne airport for 5 hours, then 9 more hours on a brand new Air Thailand Boeing 777, landing just before midnight in Bangkok, 6AM Thursday our time. With it's screen per seat arrangement and 40-50 movies on board, the kids were in heaven. They got 3 months of movie time in 9 hours. They also didn't sleep. Guess the first thing they wanted to do in our fancy motel - watch a movie! Proof positive that the screen is addictive, and should be avoided by children and other susceptible induhviduals.

Whew, I'm ready for another WWOOF already. No WWOOF's in Thailand (that we know about anyway), and the backpackers were full and nowhere near the airport anyway, so we booked into the ridiculusly expensive Rama Gardens airport hotel (because it supposedly had a shuttle. It didn't.) The queue for the taxis outside the airport was about an hour - at 12AM. The taxi hawkers inside were offering rides for 750 Bhat - 5 times the going rate outside, but no queue - so being rich decadent Americans we opted for the 750 Bhat 15 minute taxi ride (turns out to be $18 - considerably less than a taxi from Logan to Boston) to the "airport motel". Welcome to the Far East.

Stayed there for 2 relaxing do absolutely nothing days. They had OK food, but ours is better.


Then, determining that the motels we wanted (The Atlanta or the Christian guest house) weren't available until next week, decided to book for ChiangMai. Took the train, 2nd class, which means a sleeper berth but no cabin for the 13 hour over night trip, ~600 Bhat each, about $12). Cheaper than most motels, even here, and you're there in the morning, rested and fed (they cater - 130 Bhat for a meal). Best train I've been on yet.

Oh but first I have to tell you about booking the train. You see, while we should have been doing absolutely nothing while the hotel staff took care of making bookings for us, the reality was that we had to do the digging and the running. They couldn't comprehend anybody staying in anything other than another 4 star hotel, and the travel arrangement person became distinctly unhelpful when asked for help with any place she didn't have a kick-back deal with. Anyway, back to the train ordeal. The train company has a web site where I can see schedules, prices, etc, but can't order tickets. The phone number given doesn't work. So off to see the travel person. She can get me tickets, but to do so must send a runner down to the train station (with my cash) to get the tickets. Oh, that means I need cash. Well this is a 4 star hotel, there ought to be an ATM hereabouts, right? Wrong! A 20 minute taxi ride to a shopping maul is required to get cash for the train. So get plenty of Bhat at the airport, cuz you ain't gonna see an ATM real soon, and like they say, "They don't take Visa here." in lots of places. I should amend this to say that once in downtown Bangkok, ATM's were readily available. The "suburbs", where the big tourist hotels are is a different matter.

The next wonderous discovery is that there is a marvelous skytrain in Bangkok. It goes everywhere. Except the airport, the hotel, the train station, or anywhere near any of these. So, once again risking mayhem on the road, we venture out "en taxi" for the train station. This was late afternoon on Friday, so there was some concern that traffic might be a problem (traffic in Bangkok? Doh!). So we left with a couple hours to get to the station. Our driver miraculously got us there in, like 45 minutes, so we had some time to hang at the station. Interesting place. A whole little shopping mall right in the station.