First stop.. Bangkok

Day 1

Destination: Bangkok. Flight: Thai Air Asia. Departing: 8.40pm.

This is it. I'm actually going to fly for the first time in 23 years. And on my own! I woke up with this thought racing through my brain, plus the fact that I'd barely packed enough for my week's stay in thailand. i wanted to buy stuff there, so basically i only packed a toothbrush, small hotel shampoo and clothes. yes, i was going for a week.. well better underpack than overpack right? (err.. wrong.. i wasted money buying soap..tissue..shower foam.. when i could have spent all of it on more clothes! darn.)

so where was i. yeah i had to work that day cos i couldn't take so many days leave. and it was a thursday, my traditional day to be in a bad mood and boy was it one helluva day. i won't go into it now but i was kept behind until 6 plus and i still had to go back to shower eat and get my luggage dammit. so 2 hours before my departure time i was seething in a cab on the road, willing the driver to speed up lest i miss my flight. At 5 to 7, i rushed in, lightning quick, to shower and eat and gather my stuff and i rushed out again half an hour later. My dad sent me to the airport and it took 20 mins by expressway! and he was speeding a third of the way.. The carpark was really far and i was rushing so i grabbed my stuff, said bye and left.

Now to check in. Err, did i mention it's my first flight, like ever? That's right. i didn't know what to do. After some frantic looking i found my gate and just did everything that the people in front of me were doing. I checked in a scant 5 mins before the gate closed. Then i went ahead to the departure hall (first time i stepped into the transit area on the other side of the glass!) and checked in. By the way, the airport official took unduly long to scan my passport. she looked at my picture, then at me, then back at the picture. (ya, like that face whitening commercial where the official couldn't place the fair lady in front of him with the pithy face in the picture). Finally she closed my pasport and handed it back to me.

Official: When you get back to Singapore. Please change your picture.
Me: (meekly) Oh. Ok. Why, now i prettier ah?

Of course i didn't say the last part. If you're curious, my passport photo is me in a purple tudung and black scowling face.. ticked cos my mum made me wear it when i went to change my passport. Sigh, now i have to change it again before my next trip (soon, i hope).

wow i've written a page and i'm not even onboard the plane yet. Ok so i made a few free calls, bought a bleeding 2bucks small bottle of water, locks and a moneybelt(hey i did say im unprepared) and strolled to find my gate. Ten mins later i was still strolling, albeit in a more hurried manner, trying to locate the darn gate. got there just on time, or not, looking at the growing queue. i was joined by j's colleague, who was travelling to laos via bangkok and would be staying at the same guesthouse for the night. i'd rather enjoyed finding my own way til then but it was good to have some company. she was nice and friendly to start, and although something else happened the next day that changed my impression of her, i had to thank her and her friends for getting me to bangkok and khao san, safely.

ok so we got on the plane. it was a blast.. the part i loved best was liftoff! but i hated the going round and round in circles around the planepark, as i thought of it; the giant carpark for planes to land and take off. yeah ok, if there's a proper word for it, tell me.

i duno how to describe being on a plane for the first time.. magical, in a mundane way. it was dark but i delighted to see the buildings and roads shrinking away as we climbed; the lights fell further and futher and then we were at cloud level. i peered through the too small window to marvel at the wisps of white clouds next to me, wishing i could just pinch a piece to put in my mouth and see what it tasted like. what do clouds taste like? not cotton candy i bet, unless we're above a sugarcane plantation somewhere.. ok nvm. one of my favourite aerial manouvers was when the plane would tilt down to the left or right, and the land can be seen slanting up or down at an impossible angle.. cool. lols. but i think the exciting parts of taking a plane are only the take off and landing, and seing the lights vanish behind u as u reach sea, or seing them twinkling and then appear right below u when u get back to land. otherwise, unless there was turbulence, it was rather like being in a large bus. in the air. yeah, i could get used to this.. haha.

so touchdown. 1040pm bangkok time. didn't get much of a sense of don muang airport; checked out in a jiffy and went to join the queue. was crowded and noisy and dusty and too bright or too dim in turns. taxi queue was three deep, and i liked the stickers in some of them that said "I love farang! Welcome to Thailand" or something like that.. lols. farang is foreigner, as some of u very well know.

smooth half hour ride to khao san and we were there. shops were closing but the bustling street felt alive and loud. actually, ever since i touched down, i couldn't shake the feeling that i was just somewhere like malaysia.. the roads.. tolls.. buildings en route.. even the billboards, minus the fact that they were in twisty thai script. i kept waiting for it to sink that i was in bangkok but i didn't really get a sense of 'foreign'ness, u noe? for that, i had to wait for chiangmai.

after a quick bite we settled in to sleep in our guesthouse, a basic but clean and reasonably cheap one at 350baht, quieter for being set back one lane away from the crowds thronging main khao san road. there wasn't much mroe to it than that, and we had to shower ice cold water and the bathroom floor was lethally slippery. but anyway we weren't in our rooms much cept to sleep so it was sufficient.

end of day 1, more like night 1.

coming up next: day 2, floating market of damnoen saduak, hualampong train station to buy tickets to sukhothai, and shopping in town, centre world area.

pix..

Bustling Khao San by night

The same street in the early morning glow.. much better, don't u think