Backpacking South East Asia – Starting in Bangkok, Thailand!!!

Leaving from Goa, I had no idea how crazy the three day journey would be that I was about to embark on to get to Thailand to start backpacking south east Asia. Since it was just after the holidays, all the flights and trains back to Mumbai for my flight were booked up. It ended up costing me the same amount of money to get back to Mumbai by bus (which took 16 hours) than what it  took originally to fly from Mumbai to Goa in an hour flight time just three weeks earlier.

The Pad Thai Lady – Nothing like grabbing a delicious lunch for less than a $1

I left Goa late afternoon and later made it onto the bus after an hour taxi ride. Just an hour into the bus ride, I was told I’d have to switch buses to the sleeper bus I had originally booked for the overnight journey to Mumbai.

The inside isle of my ‘Sleeper’ Bus

Things were getting interesting. After a couple hours, I finally made it onto the second bus which was technically a ‘sleeper’. What does that mean? It means  instead of seats, it has small sleeper nooks, two on each side of the bus and one lower and one upper. Since it was a night bus, I figured this was the best way to make it back to Mumbai. After all, it was originally supposed to be a 12 hour trip, not 16 hours.

Well, little did I know that when you book the sleeper that you actually share it with another person. This realization came to me when a 320 lb local showed up (basically two Rorys) to share this space with me. OK, I’m a trooper, lets get through this night. However, shortly after sharing this thirty inch bed, I realized it was going to be an even longer night than I had expected when my bunk mate started snoring so loud that the entire bus was rumbling.

My first official Thai dinner. Between the three of us, we ordered all these dishes then just shared them all.

You see, each bed space is basically a cube minus the open air side that faces the middle walkway. So when Billy Bob snorer got going, the sound was amplified throughout the bus. And since I didn’t want to share my breathing space with his feet, I had to endure the snoring right next to my ear for the next twelve hours. And of course, since I was facing the isle, the entire bus thought it was coming from me! As the night pressed on and as I was making sure there was no cuddling business going on, I really had no option other than to throw in my headphones and blast music on my iPod the rest of the night since my ear plugs were utterly useless.

The guys in orange are actually cab drivers. There are people that line up on the sidewalk and just hop on the back of one of these motorcycles ‘sidesaddle’ to get to their destination.

When I finally arrived into Mumbai to catch my flight the following day, I had never been so excited to have to wait in an airport even though I had to sit for the next sixteen hours there before I could actually board the plane.

Just outside the Grand Palace in Bangkok

However, this travel adventure wasn’t over yet. Before boarding the plane and less than an hour from takeoff, I was told I had to ‘show proof’ of a departure flight out of Thailand before flying into Thailand. Umm, what? OK? Great. After arguing a bit with Cathay Pacific Airlines and trying to explain I would be traveling by bus to bordering countries upon departure from Thailand, I was left with no choice. Either buy a plane ticket before boarding my flight or I wouldn’t be allowed to board. So, thirty minutes later, after having to search flights on the internet in their back office, I was walking through the security checkpoints with a ticket to fly to Singapore for $133 that I never intended to use nor was it a refundable ticket.

This was actually a sign on the second floor of the place I was staying in the first few days I was in Bangkok.

There’s a cool $133 down the drain! Thanks Cathay Pacific and your crazy policies! Upon arrival into the Thailand airport, not only did I not need a visa but they never even asked to see any proof of departure within the next thirty days. All part of the traveling experience I guess!

So after all this crazy traveling over the past three days since leaving Goa, I ended up sleeping almost an entire day upon arrival into the city since I had gotten less than 8 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours…. I ended up staying in the area of Khao San Road which is known to be a backpacker’s haven. Although it has some side streets surrounding it with much to offer, the road itself is essentially lined with bars, restaurants and lodging as well as hundreds of street vendors selling everything from beer and noodles to $2 messages and fake ID’s.

Khao San Road… One crazy street full of tourists, backpackers and vendors.

You probably don’t  want to spend too much time there but it’s definitely worth seeing at least once. While there, I ended up running into two friends I had met while I was in Tibet (random, I know) and we had went to the Chatuchak weekend market the next day on the other side of Bangkok. It is known to be the largest market in Thailand and is as large in size as 35 acres but unfortunately I had left my camera that day and didn’t get a chance to snap any photos….

Anyone hungry for some crickets, roaches or grasshoppers? These ‘insect stands’ aren’t just for tourists. I saw a local Thai girl about twenty years old just stroll up to the stand around ten in the morning, buy a bag full of grasshoppers and start munching away as she continued to browse  merchandise in the market. Now that’s a hearty breakfast!

Most of my time while in the city was spent just walking around and taking in the Thai culture. True, there was a lot to see and do in Bangkok but I was planning to meet a friend here in five days and wasn’t too sure how much sight-seeing I should really do before she arrived. I did take a boat down the river one afternoon but if I was to make a recommendation to anyone that plans a visit here, take one of the longboats instead. They have a V-8 engine mounted on the back of a small boat and it has a drive shaft with a propeller connected at the end that they drop into the water and and then they swing the engine side to side to steer.

The longtail boats…

…with its V-8 Engine strapped to the back. 

After meeting up with my friend a few days later, she had us set up to stay with a ‘Couchsurfing’ host. If you don’t know or have never heard of Couchsurfing, let me explain. Couchsurfing is essentially a network, similar to Facebook, where people from all over the world join the site, set up a profile and decide either to be a ‘host’ or to ‘couch surf’ or both. Since hosting someone from another country can be such an interesting experience right in your hometown, millions of people from all over the world have joined to offer their spare bed or couch to travelers. It’s really a great network to use while traveling and I myself have done it and its actually how I met my friend months prior that I’ll be meeting back up with in Thailand to hopefully go all around backpacking in south east Asia with!

Ahh The Slurpee. My first in over 15 years. And with a 7-Eleven on every corner in Thailand (literally), how could you not indulge in one of these on a hot and humid day?!? And yes, I got brain freeze in about 3 minutes flat.

And I’m sure you’re wondering what makes it safe? Well, the site is made up of friends of friends that have written references and comments (whether positive or negative) about the person which is similar to LinkedIn if you’re familiar with that. If you’re curious, just check it out to see who is a member in your hometown. So far in my travels, I’ve met people in Croatia, Sweden, and Russia and have also met others from Germany and Slovenia. OK, so getting back on topic, the reason I decided to write about Couchsurfing is where we ended up in Bangkok after planning a stay with this host. Pictured below was the apartment building we would be staying for the next three nights. And yes, it was as nice inside as it was outside. Our host had a place on the 23rd floor overlooking Bangkok and I was privileged enough to catch the sunrise behind the skyline of the city every morning as well as use their pool and gym every day. I don’t know if it gets much better than this when backpacking in south east Asia!

Where we were staying… a bit ridiculous by backpacker standards!

The pool at night

View from the 23rd overlooking downtown Bangkok

On another day we spent in Bangkok, we thought we’d just try to escape the chaos of the city and head to the park which looked quite large on the map. As crazy as we were, we decided to walk instead of put up with the Tuk Tuk drivers that were constantly trying to rip off tourists. It wasn’t too far a walk but we definitely opted for the SkyTrain on the way back which runs a few routes throughout the city. The park itself was nice enough and we spent a few hours just lying there on the water’s edge. It was only about an hour later that this iguana ran up on us out of nowhere.

Definitely the largest wild iguana I’d ever seen. Especially running around in a city park! Its hard to tell from the picture but it was at least three feet in length…

Bangkok’s Central Park

We would be leaving from Bangkok the next day to head to the beach for a while but before we left, we decided we would try and see the ‘floating market’. There are actually quite a few floating markets around Bangkok but there is only one famous one as seen in the James Bond movie ‘Man with the Golden Gun’. Since the market only lasts from about 8-11AM and is about an hour and a half drive from the city, we tried to take a cab to the bus station in Bangkok that was meant to take us straight there however, things just didn’t seem to go according to plan. You see, our cab driver spoke no English and the hotel security guard, who had gotten us this cab, spoke next to no English either though we told him where we were trying to get to and he ‘relayed’ this information to our driver. Well, about an hour later, after passing some rice fields about 30-40 kilometers outside of Bangkok, I think it was safe to say our driver had not the slightest clue where this bus station was.

At McDonald’s… apparently you get the option for Tomato, Chilli sauce or American Ketchup. I tried all three with my hash brown that morning…

After he pulled over twice to ask directions, we realized it was close to 8:30AM and even if we made it to the bus in the next fifteen minutes, the reality was that there was no way we’d make it to the market in time to even make the trip worthwhile. He’d obviously gotten us lost so we asked some random Thai lady at  a gas station to tell our driver to take us back to our hotel where we left from.

Yep, the Mo Chit subway route.

Well, an hour later, we made it back into Bangkok only this time, our wonderful cab driver had taken us completely to the opposite side of the city and had thought this was where we wanted to go and dropped us off at the Grand Palace by the river. Having not wanted anymore of this craziness, we got out and decided we’d just be better off walking than to have ridden with him even one more mile. Thankfully, we were headed to the beach the following morning and quickly forgot all about this crazy experience! Needless to say, I think we made it to the top of the list for the ‘Most Expensive Cab Ride of the Year’!!! Rough start to backpacking south east Asia!!

As you can see, the most expensive (expected) ride you would normally ever encounter was in the neighborhood of 50 kilometers costing around 265 Baht.

And how much did we rack up? 565 Baht! Definitely one of the most expensive cab rides in all of Bangkok that year!!