Kania's Lessons Learned - Taking over Bangkok

OUR LAST TRIP OF YEAR 2017

17 DAYS - 16 NIGHT - 5 CITIES - 3 COUNTRIES 

During our trip to Asia we visit five (5) cities from three (3) different countries. Our journey started in Frankfurt, Germany all the way to in Thailand, where we first landed in Bangkok, then Phuket and ending in Chiang Mai. Later, we travelled to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Finally, our trip ended back in Shanghai, China, before we came back home in Germany.  

When speaking about travelling and exploring other countries, we Kania's, make it a bit different from many other travellers as we have a different type of spirit on how to enjoy travelling. We have the interest to learn from ourselves, as we believe that in this way we enjoy more places, we learn lot more from it, we build our own experiences on everything we do, even from our mistakes, because they can totally have happened on journeys, even to those well informed and to those who don't informed. Therefore, we have a different spirit are more adventurous, and like to discover things and learn from their own. 

The trues is, everything related to our last trip and first time in Asia, Thomas left it to me. So, it is not the same if one person from two different minds organises a trip for two. I believe we did a lot in our trip, however, if Thomas have helped me with some of the search, we would had probably done lot more and maybe on different way. It does not mean we did not have the best time of our live, and that we did not learn from all our unexpected parts of our trip, because we learn plenty of new stuff from all of it!!! 

As there, are many things we learned from all the different places we visit, we would go slowly sharing them with you. On this post, we will only concentrate to share with you our lessons learned from 5 day in Bangkok city So, let's go slowly by listing them and deep a bit into it: 

1- BUYING YOU FLIGHT TICKETS: START FROM THE MAIN FLIGHTS! This is a strategy we actually learn from my sister, whom also Is a constant traveller like me, and I found the best tip ever.      

* How to get there, and how to come back? - As first flights are mostly the expensive ones, it is better always to figure out where you want to enter in Asia, and from which country it is better for you to go back home. Once you had figured out the main flights, you can organise your inside flights, if your desire is to go faster from place to another by planes. There exist many different travelling airlines. We choose Air Asia, as it was cheap. As we have no experience with any other Asian airline, we can only say our several flights with them where Good, we slept mostly on them. The only thing I can surely tell you, as I felt it this way. The ladies flight attendants, were more interest on looking to my husband, greeting at him and smiling at him. To me they actually were not interest even to give a look. - It was quite Funny fact.

2- INVESTIGATE ALWAYS PRIOR YOUR FLIGHT SELECTION ABOUT THE TRANSIT AIRPORT, IN CASE OF CONNECTING FLIGHTS. 

If we have done that we would had suffer the way we did. Our main flights had a stop in Pundong International Airport, and to be honest it was the worse experience for an """international""" airport we had. With all respect to others human's beings that think different and did not stay longer than 6 hours in this airport - this is our personal opinion -  it is the worse transit airport to select, and surely no one will change our minds. 

IF and only BIG IF, you will have a stop for less than 2 hours, then use it, but more than that it will be painful, boring and horrible experience for travellers. Anyways, we will live this point for a future post, because it can be a bit long! -  However, Thailand airports, as both in Bangkok - as we used both for travelling - looked and felt as very welcoming International airports prepared for travellers. 

3- TAXI FROM THE AIRPORT TO BANGKOK CITY? 

All airport in Thailand we passed through offered taxis services, and for what is funny all-around Thailand airports work different. As in the case of Bangkok, once you get out of the gates, the first thing you see are the taxis well organised on assigned and numerated parking spots.  But careful,  you cannot just jump on them. First, you need to go on a line, which takes you to some automatized machines that will assigned you a Taxi that will serve you by printed out a ticket with a parking spot number.

* How much will it cost you? As start there is a tax airport fee of 50 THB that is added to your payment, so once you jump on the taxi, their taximeter starts running from 50 and not from 0. For you to have an impression 38.99 THB = 1 Euro. For instance, a Ride from the airport to the city centre can cost you around 200-400, depending our destination distance. WAIT, be Careful don't take your eyes away from the Taximeter, some drivers manipulate them, as the case of ours. The taximeter, was running crazy about 2 or 3 times, but I did not notice this, it was Thomas. Our hotel was only 23 KMs away from the airport and so we payed 480THB as the taximeter marked, when actually we should have payed 260THB. However, we learned this very late. That man CHEATED to us.

4- STAY COMMUNICATED & BUY A TOURIST SIM-CARD. 

This was the best we did, and it was advice by an Instagram friend I have in Bangkok, therefore, Thanks so Much @Nicky. Right in the airport before going outside de gates to take a taxi are kiosk where they sell this Sim-Cards on a machine, where someone will be there of course to assist you and explain you about even extra 5GB package you can add for free to your plan. The plans go from 1 or 2 weeks and surely even monthly, but I don't remember this. 

5- LOW BUDGET? USE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION AND NOT TAXIS.

A ride in a public bus varies from 8-13 THBs. While taxis will always be more than 60-70 THB a ride, and that depends on the distance and the traffic which waits you out there, which is crazy. 

Thomas and I did entire Bangkok by foot. We made 20Km walk on our very first day, trying to take advantage and fight for no Jetlag. The second day, we did more than 15Km, then the third we did about 13Km, and so we slow down by the days, as we were tired, and also covered all placed around Bangkok. However, on our last day as we want to go farther, we took the buses to do it bit faster, as our day was short, we had a flight in the night, and also it is always better to have extra time to better organised before heading to the airport. 

The reason, why we decided to walk? It is because we are fully explorers, and we enjoy the most like this mingling directly as any other local would do by walking. We avoid the buses - the almost falling and crashed ones - firstly, because of the horrible traffic jam, and as we believe that you could have a better feeling from a city by going on foot as so to stop as many times in many places as you want. This is something that a bus won't provide you, as they have assigned stops, and who knows maybe between stops there are interesting to discover that might be not touristic but still interesting to see. Taxis are expensive, compare to buses and give us the same impression of taking buses which are cheaper and at the end most of them are scammers, control their taximeter and so, take you to other routes to avoid traffic but mostly is to run up the meter. 

Tuk Tuks, even they are cheaper and is also an amazing experience, they also try to steal money from tourist, unless you find an honest one. In our case, we only took once a Tuk Tuk, and it was just after about 15KM a whole day walking in our second day in Bangkok. As we needed to go to a restaurant, and it was about 7/8 KM away from us, we took it and had the experience we expect to have. our drivers were also really talkative, asking us question, respectful and friendly. He, also offered us to wait around the area to pick us up and take us to back to our hotel. However, we told him not to wait for us, as we have no clue what tie we will head home, as so to prevent any bad things we could imagine could happened to us, as he is not our best friend at all. So, better to take care of ourselves in a smart and nice way. 

Last, but not least, on short drives which both, Taxis or Tuk Tuks, believe they won't earn money enough, they will try to either charge you high of just tell you they won't drive you, or "do not drive that way". To be honest, is just a lie. 

6- BANGKOK IS AS BEAUTIFUL IN THE MORNING AS THE NIGHTS. 

That's right, Bangkok is beautiful, surprising, full of things to do and to offer for tourist and locals. Food is Amazing, you could never pass hunger in this city, because food is really everywhere, is very cheap and impossible to avoid not to try them.

MARKETS are everywhere, you can't miss them. So, go and try as many of them as you can. Try as many foods as you can. They were my my favourite part of the trip, and surely Thomas felt the same. Therefore, we also try to visit as many of them as possible.

  

  

7- MAKING TOUR TRIPS IN THAILAND. 

In general Thailand is not expensive, what makes your trip of getting higher is the amount of amazing tours available all-around Thailand, from north to south and west to east. The cheapest tour we saw was 1600 THB. Like the one we did, while in Bangkok. We were so amused, and interest to go to floating markets everybody around Instagram has being photographing, so we did end there. They picked us from our hotel at 6:30am. On the way, we picked up other tourists joining the same trip with us from their hotels and drove about two hours traffic until we arrived where you take the main boat to enter to the Floating market village.

Once you get to this village, you are left inside where you can start exploring the place, driving crazy making pictures, shopping around, eating any type of possible Thailand food that calls your attention. However, once you were left inside the village, there is an extra payment if you want to enjoy it going on boat, then this boat will work as our restaurant table around the canals. Before you leave your tour guide - which actually is your driver - he informs you where and what time you will meet before driving back. Once That's exactly how it was for us. We spent a nice time, we tried food as so we took amazing pictures, we will be sharing on our Instagram accounts, so stay tuned on our channels as also our ending post video where to see how our days in Bangkok were.

When we were picked up, our driver made with us a stop on a Tiger, Monkey, elephant Sanctuary on the way to Bangkok City, as he needed to live some people here and pick up others there. Here I enjoyed feeding an Elephant, who also scared me as I had no clue how to feed them and he almost took my hand for taking the fruit I was giving him. Have, look in my faces impression coming next. #priceless 

8- KANIAS AS THE ICE MANIAS HUNTERS. 

Another crazy thing I was driving crazy Thomas about to try, an not only one time, I needed to try all the ICE MANIAS shop existed in Bangkok, before living the place. Thomas is such a spoiler, because everything I wanted to do, it didn't matter how he felt, sick or with headache just to keep me happy with big smile, he would make it happen just for me.  If there is something Thomas enjoys more than going into Cascades, taking thousand shots to them or swimming on cascades, is too watch my smiley, crazy and childish face. I left you with a Map of the location of all Ice Manias in Bangkok, and so with the said that the First Ice Mania in Bangkok was........ and they were the best ones. I don't want to say too much about this place, as I prefer you to go and see it by yourself. however, I give you a tiny hint: Be opened minded and feel comfortable, because the place is nice and friendly.

We were so happy with this place, that our two last night's exploring Bangkok ended stopping there, and walking around 2Km back to our hotel to sleep for our next day exploration in the City.

    

9- IS BANGKOK SHOPPING AREAS REAL DEFINED AND DIVIDED? 

Actually, this is something we experience while walking around the city of Bangkok. To those explorer travellers and good observant, you might have notice that while walking on specific street you can fine how many shops on residential areas are located always on the first floor of each building, but for what is interesting these alienated shops next to the other sell the same stuff.  

Thomas and I know where is almost everything, as we walked so much every day and everywhere. For example, we know where to find:

- The Jewellery street - The carpentry streets, making all things related to wood in specific beautiful and amazing design doors.
- The industrial mechanics street to the mechanics for vehicles purposes.
- The street where all the wheel shops are.
- The one where they only sell Buda's - white and golden - and some other religious statues. Big ones!!
- The street where all perfumes shops concentrate. but I would say is second hand perfumes or imitations on different packages. I am really not sure about what perfumes where those. 
- The on related to office furniture’s.

All this and more shops areas can be found in Bangkok, just walk around and you will find all of them. 

10- MORE, MORE AND MORE OF THOSE TEMPLES!!! 

If there is a place on planet earth where temples are endless, I would say is in ASIAN continent. In every city we have been, there are thousands "of thousands" temples. Bangkok, as immense it feels by walking, is full of huge temple areas. We did everyday a new walk tour by ourselves, inch route we found about every less than 500 meters walk a new temple or religious Altar. 

They are mostly a type of huge sculptures on bright colours:  white, golden, yellow, red, orange colours, and sometimes even in green. We found in all our route Temples to see, many impressive ones. The best part of us going on our own walking all around city, was to discover all of them as many of the ones we saw are not on a Tourist map or might not be spotted as tourist attractions. However, we were quite impressive with many of them.      

    

11- DO NOT EXCHANGE MONEY. 

Thomas and I never understood why people goes so often in Thailand to the money exchange shops, because it is no needed. No matter what you do or where you go, every block you walk in Bangkok or in whole Thailand-Asia, there are 1, 2 or 3 Money Automats for taking money out located in a same place. Exchanging money sometimes you are just paying a higher commission than these machines gives you. For what is good, it allows you to take out enough money to survive for several days. 

We only used in our entire trip our credit card for two purposes. One, to pay the hotels and second, for taking money out for all purposes. In total, we might have use the machines maybe 3 times in total, so we were not scared to do so, as the card we used, charges nothing or very low commission. In conclusion, it was lot better to not exchange money and take money out.

11- DRIVING BACK TO THE AIRPORT? 

Driving back to the airport for us was really painful. As, we did not set or reserve a taxi from the hotel to head to the airport. Reserving a taxi might have been the best idea, however, it is more expensive then taking one right on the street with taximeter. 

Thomas and I, stand by the street to take a taxi, and as we were already a bit stress about arriving late to the airport, we tried to get the one from the hotel, but service was not working fast, minutes were running, none of the drivers were agreeing to drive us, therefore, we jump out the streets and start walking fast to another location and try to have look to get a taxi. While standing on that corner, we waited about 15-20 more minutes, but taxis where rejecting us to drive to the airport do to the traffic and the time when traffic is crazier... I tried even to stand away from Thomas who had our luggage and so to make taxis to approach me. Since I mentioned them the word "airport" It was like a coursing them and scaring them away.  

For instance, we ended downloading the Uber App and so, we tried to get one. I have never used before this app by my own, only once in the Dominican Republic where a friend order it for me. I am sure Ubers system works good, but that day was  definitely  not our day - our moment for taking one. Therefore, we finished not taking the Uber as we couldn't find him, because of the horrible traffic. The Uber guy wrote me, he was there, but I think he was probably in the other direction of the highway. That meant that for him to reach us, he would have taken about 15 minutes more, as he would have to wait again for the lights to chance, cross the intersection and find a further opportunity to turn in U, once again wait for more traffic lights, until picking us up.

What did I do at end? - While the Uber was asking, a taxi stop right I front of us, we said our magic word and as he just agreed to drive us, we jump in and get the run. We are really sorry to that Uber of that day. I mean, anyone under that pressure, who is counting the minutes left for their flight and is looking at the horrible traffic Jam in Bangkok, would have done the same thing we did. Who wants to lose an flight under such stress? - Surely, no one reading this Post.

12- WE LOVE BANGKOK SO MUCH, WE WANT TO MOVE. 

Believe it or not, Kania's are too in love with this place, and who knows?! with Thailand this could be one of our future plan, we will see how it goes.

We loved its vibe, how safe we felt even walking on streets, wefelt people were very respectful toward women - not like back in my country were in streets both, women and men scream and insinuates sexual things while you try to walk a short block around streets. The diversity of Bangkok in food that is everywhere, their behaviour, the way shops seems to be organised depending what they are selling, for example if who works with good, the whole street is full of shops related with wood work. It seems like they do this in purpose organised street shops by sectors. We also were amused by the thousand street vendors, kiosk and markets in almost every single block.  

In Resume, the city is full of diverse of infrastructures serving to the people and an interesting public transportation system: several trains that work differently and a crazy traffic situations. Surely, Bangkok has its own street rules, but not everybody follows them from the way even traffic behaves: somehow messy, uncontrolled, full and stocked, and where there is lot of drivers who cares nothing about the them. Like in the case of Tuk Tuks, which drivers go around the city making crazy zigzags, as almost everything that happening along the streets behaves. For instance, we find that Bangkok people were very friendly as also helpful, from where we think it is the one city from all in Thailand we visited where people could speaks more and better English. Totally, the opposite of Phuket island, which even full of tourist and almost no one speaks English, or neither good English.

Anyway, let's make a stop for now oaths post, as I would say this were the most important lessons learned while in Bangkok.

If you have been to Bangkok? Please, share with us your adventure and your lessons learned with us. We would like to hear what might have we missed to learn… We really hope you had a great and pleasant time, as it was for us!