Thailand: Land of smiles

Thailand: Land of smiles; cheap food and crazy tuk-tuks

After my excited time in Tokyo, and about 51/2 hour flight I was now at the very sweet looking Suvarnabhumi Airport and its about midnight. After dodging the sketchy taxi services and ‘limousines’ offering their services (these are everywhere in Thailand btw, so if you’re there for the first time make sure to never get into a cab that isn’t a Metered Taxi, you’ll recognize them by the big signs on top) I opted instead for my first adventure, using the public buses in Thailand to get to Khao San Road (oh and what makes it even more fun is that i decided not the book a room for the first night, so its all free style 🙂

So I ask around and find a shuttle from the airport the the central bus station, luckily since most of the lines already stopped running. I had my handy Lonely Planet Bangkok (thanks guys) and knew i had to the take bus 551 to get close to where i needed. Unfortunetly when i got the the terminal the bus was only coming in 2 hours 😦 😦 so no public bus after all. On the bright side i met with 3 other like minded travelers who were heading in the same direction and we split a cab (the total bill was a whopping 400 Bhat ~$13 split 4 ways haha) then i wondered around and settled for the NJ Guesthouse, good rates and looked nice; put my bags away and started my first night on Khao San Road (its the main backpacker/hipster area) by this time it was about 2 am.

There was craziness everywhere, just look at the pic, its the normal everyday setting here with the street karts selling everything from fake id’s to $1 Padthai (I’ve had my fair share at this point!@)