Thailand: Bangkok

Thailand: Bangkok

Bangkok is a bustling, busy city. With many different sites, sounds and tastes waiting to be taken in.

We spent our time exploring major temples, palaces, markets, water ways, getting clothes tailor made, and eating great Thai food. (I'm really developing a thing for curry).

The Thai people are extremely friendly and helpful.

Thailand is very inexpensive. Even Bangkok was a bargain. A few dollars for a great meal that would cost 5x as much in the US. Comfortable, clean accommodation with a private room, your own bathroom, Internet and often breakfast for $25 or less. Transportation via Taxi, Tuk Tuk or boat was cheap and easy as well.

In Bangkok, Tuk Tuk's can be one of the absolute cheapest ways to get around if you know the system and work it effectively. Many local businesses, restaurants, etc offer various kick backs to Tuk Tuk
drivers for bringing tourists to them. This can really work to your advantage. Here is how you can get your own personal Tuk Tuk driver for an entire day, multiple destination, for about $1.33 US (40 Baht).

First determine the days itinerary. Where you want to go, what you want to see, what you want to do, etc.
Example: Visit some temples, bargain hunting at the market, grab some lunch, river cruise, check out the palace, stop in at a tailor to see about getting a hand made custom suit or dress. Find a Tuk Tuk and let them know you want to go several places and finish off the day at a clothing tailor. Then tell them your itinerary
and tell them 40 Baht for everything. They will try to negotiate with you but be strong and let them know you know they can get a kick back at the tailor. If they are still negotiating then let them know you are willing to
spend a little time at another location that gives them something. Jewelry stores are often an interesting stop because you can watch them actually hand craft the jewelry. The Tuk Tuk driver will wait for you at each location and you don't pay until the end of the day. We really enjoyed exploring the city this way and the fun interaction
getting to know our Tuk Tuk drivers.

How did we figure all this out? Just brilliant I guess ;-) Actually, a local, who use to work at the palace, randomly approached us on the street, asked what we wanted to do and then hailed a Tuk Tuk for us and showed us the above strategy. He didn't ask for anything, was just genuinely interested in helping us. It was really refreshing. Often when someone randomly approaches us on the street it's because they want to sell us something.

We had a lot of fun getting clothes tailor made in Bangkok. You can get amazing deals on high quality clothes, made just for you. Lots of places will offer a tailor made suit for $100 or less but in reality, if you go for that deal it will be very low quality material and workmanship...many places advertise like that to get you in the door to up-sell you into something better. We found a place called "The Oriental Galleria" and decided to just go for it...I mean, how often are you in Thailand and get to have some suits and shirts tailor made just for you...it was a fun process to pick out material, get measured up and come back a few hours later for further fitting with the nearly completed suits we bought. We were leaving that night right after the fitting and didn't have time to get the fully finished product so just had them shipped directly back home for us so hopefully they turn out OK...have read some not so hot reviews about "The Oriental Galleria" online since then so I'm not so sure what we'll end up with...haha...whatever happens it was a fun experience either way. We decided to do it kinda last minute without really leaving ourselves time for research and to get the finished product, so we'll see how it turns out when we get home in 6 months, haha. That said, things felt pretty nice during the final fitting so I'm still hopeful that everything will turn out great!

In hindsight, my recommendation would be to do your research online ahead of time on what clothing shop other travelers are reviewing well. Then try to negotiate half payment upfront and half on satisfactory completion. Make sure you have enough time in Bangkok to get the finished product and either take it with you or ship it home yourself so you can be sure that it fits right and that you get what you wanted. (You could also subtly threaten to burn the place down if your not satisfied).

From Bangkok we jumped on an overnight sleeper train to head north for Chiang Mai. We were in a comfortable and relatively clean second class sleeper car. It was much, much better than the second class or hard sleeper cars we encountered in China. Julie had the bottom bunk and I had the top. Riding in the bunks next to us we met Cindy, a quiet girl from Shanghai, and Paul, a really funny guy from the UK, who joined the train a few stops later. Paul kept us laughing for hours with story after story.

After several hours of sleep we awoke the next morning just a short distance from Chiang Mai.