Bangkok – our journey has begun

Last updated on January 14th, 2024 at 02:46 pm

Hello everyone,

this is it, the long awaited first blog post. We are alive and well and so far we love our experience in Thailand. Currently, we are at Aow Yai Beach, Koh Phayam, but more on that will follow later :). So let me tell you about our first stop: Bangkok.

We arrived in Bangkok on Thursday morning, after a good 4hrs of sleep. So yeah, we were pretty tired. Did we make the best decisions? Nope, not at all. So if you are planning to travel to Bangkok, read carefully.

1. Do not exchange money at the airport. We had previously read that the exchange rates are good near the trains, so we went there and, when they weren’t any better than before, we just accepted that it was going to be like that and exchanged a fair part of our cash (for about 34baht per eur; there used to be good rates from certain exchange booths in the past, but according to what we saw and read later, they seem to have closed down during covid and haven’t reopened again, so only the one provider KASIKORNBANK (green color) seemed to be present everywhere we walked, with no other options to choose from at the international airport BKK). When we left the train in the city however, the rates at one of the exchange stands were about 37baht per eur, which is also the rate you will find in the internet. So there’s that.
2. Do not buy a SIM at the airport. Again, we thought the price wouldn’t be much better elsewhere and just went with it (it included a coupon code for ‘Grab’ which we used a few times and got discounted prices). Later, when we had trouble getting the hotspot to work, we went to a normal 7-Eleven for assistance, because they sell the same sim cards as well, and discovered that the same SIM, from the same provider, for the same length cost about 200 baht less there. It’s not the world, but still.
3. Be sure of what you want to do. There are a lot of nice people, telling you, where you should go or what you should do and also about some specific deals (we were there on a holiday, so for example the Tuktuk drivers got fuel for free and thus should charge less). However, they will try to sell you something or send you somewhere to buy something. So, unless you want what they tell you about, be firm in saying no.

This being said, we had some great days in Bangkok, even though we spent more than we can afford on the long run. Let me tell you about it.

On our first day (after taking a nap), we wanted to explore our immediate surroundings a bit and quickly found something to do. Nearby our accomodation there was a park, perfect for training in the morning, even though the perfect spot was restricted. We both noticed a sign at the entry saying that neither alcohol nor smoking was allowed inside, and from what we have seen, people follow this rule – which lead to the park being a clean and pleasant place to be. On that note, I want to mention that Bangkok is a very clean city, with people actually taking care of waste (or just leaves) lying around, especially parks might even be cleaner than in Vienna.

After enjoying our very first Pad Thai in Bangkok (and David buying his first dragon fruit – an almost daily occurance since), we checked out a light show that is part of a local event series we saw advertised in the park. It made for a nice ending of a very long day 🙂

The next day was a wild ride.¹ We left the accomodation with the goal of checking out the inner city. Before we could go far, a man stopped us and told us that it was Buddha day and the Tuktuk get free gasoline if they take you to the golden Buddha and some tourist information. So we made a deal with a very nice Tuktuk driver to take us for 20baht each, which is next to nothing, and she took us to the Buddha. Or should I say a buddha, because there are a lot of them, everywhere. It was a very nice first Buddha though, golden and with some locals visiting it, rather than tourists flooding the place. The next stop: tourist information. We went in, wanting to know about a possible trip to Ayutthaya and maybe the floating market. He quickly shock that off, saying it was easy to organize by ourselves (probably true). Then I made a crucial mistake. I openly told him that we hadn’t booked anything for the rest of our stay yet. He was flabbergasted, distrought, shocked even and quickly drafted a nice trip to Koh Samui and Krabi for us (we hadn’t had any plans to visit either prior). The thing is, I was so tired (and he so convincing), I almost took the deal. David luckily stayed levelheaded and stopped me. It would have been way out of budget for us (even though it was a nice deal for people on a more or less luxurious holiday, the hotels looked really fancy and for that, the price was more than ok – it just wasn’t what we wanted. At all.). From there, she took us to “a local factory”, which turned out to be a store that sells tailored suits and similar stuff. Again, not our thing. Afterwards, you won’t believe it, she took us to another tourist information, because she was very nice and said, we just had to walk in and talk for a bit, for her to get a gasoline coupon, we did just that. There, we ended up booking our Ayutthaya tour, so something we had been looking for, and nothing else. Finally, our Tuktuk driver dropped us off at a metro station. She didn’t charge us anything, because we got her the coupon, so apparently it was worth it for her. For us it was a valuable lesson, even though it apparently hadn’t sunken in yet the next day. We took the metro to lumphini park, where lizards – or watermonitors – are running around freely in the middle of the city. In the evening we checked out Khao San Road – the main tourist night life road of Bangkok. While you would expect things to be more expansive there, this is only minimally true and it has the adventage of being open till late, so if you are desperately looking for a place to buy some fruit for breakfast the next day – this is a good choice.

Saturday we again tried to walk to the inner city – and again failed. On our way there, we got sidetracked by a less touristy temple and once we reached the royal palace, it had already closed (ohhh yes, we slept in, like very late, I’ve never been so jetlagged in my life). So the kind portier directed us to another Tuktuk, to take us for a longboat ride. Which we did. Even though it was very overpriced (and we spent 30min just sitting in a rather dirty side channel, waiting for a door to be opened). There were 3 price categories (one for with no stops, 1 stop, 2 stops), from which we booked the cheapest one with no stops, but we were in a boat with people who booked other tickets so at the end we received the longest ‘2 stops option’ (over 2 hours instead of 1 hour) paying just the lowest price. Overall, we did enjoy it though, it showed us a different side of Bangkok and let us out at Wat Arun, another famous monument, which was closed as well though. So we walked around it and decided to stay there for a little free show, which was a part of the event series mentioned before as well.

Our last day we didn’t spend in Bangkok at all, but had a guided tour to Ayutthaya, a former capital of Thailand, a little bit north of Bangkok. It was quite interesting, hearing some background to the places and buildings, and we didn’t have to worry about planning everything ourself, even lunch was included. So overall I would recommend doing a tour like this, to get a better understanding of what you are seeing.

That’s it for Bangkok, updates on our travel will follow. Thank you for reading, feel free to drop a comment below, we love hearing from you, just as much as you love hearing from us. xxx

1. I know this is way to detailed, but I had to vent, so just skip it, if you dont feel like reading the whole thing. ↩︎