Thailand - Thursday, April 19, 2007

Before visiting Thailand, I thought all people might look small and similar. But they are not…there are thin, there are fat, there are very fair, there are slightly tanned, there are (comparatively) tall pple too……..

Since I don’t want to take any risk, I went for a ‘last minute’ local purchase in the morning….by noon wife said it is sure that we are leaving since she rejected her manager’s request to stay longer (she had her reasons which is beyond my blog’s scope)…Thus we started packing in the afternoon…I felt really sad to leave Bangkok….but it became a reality soon and we checked out by 6 pm.

The taxi driver was a kind looking man and he put meter.

Most of the roads in Bangkok are one way. There are Highways where you can travel above 100-120 within the city, but you have to pay toll. Vehicles here don’t honk, unless it is really needed.

One thing I observed is here the drives usually keep a safe distance while driving and stopping. Hence it was scratch less cars on the road, mostly…this is exactly opposite in Bangalore, one can hardly see a car without any scratch.

One thing I forgot to write. One can see ‘Beware of pick pocketers and thieves’ in many places around Bangkok. And there are lots of people to con you. Many of them are self styled guides. They speak English and offer Taxi, sight seeing etc ….when I said to a Taxi offer, one guy asked “ why walking? No money?”

Any suggestion after spending more than 10 days in Thailand? At least a couple like:

Checkout with hotel whether thy arrange any free pick and drop to hot spots, they may not tell you in advance, but many hotels do offer this, including the one I stayed.

Have patience and don’t buy all you need from a single shop or place…especially in the cloth market, do bargain and check out different shops…

To the extend possible don’t call tuk tuk but hire a taxi and ask him to put meter…if he hesitates, try another taxi

If your hotel has a set up to call taxis, use it liberally. ( in our hotel, there stands a guy near the road and from the hotel they call him using walkie talkie and he calls a Taxi). Those guys usually put meter.



We reached the airport bit early so, watched ‘Eragon’ in my laptop. This time also we asked for one window seat and they obliged. And thus I got exactly the same seat the one just above the wing…..thus there wasn’t any quarrel between me and my son to sit there…

We reached Bangalore airport by 11.45 pm. There was slight rain and even inside the airport, it was wet…it took some time to get the baggage and the queue to catch a prepaid taxi was really looooong

Back to bad roads….. honk honk honk…..

We reached home by 1.35 am…