Bangkok, Thailand - major culture shock!!
Its now 25+ hours since I arrived in Bangkok and I'm still walking around amazed. I'm experiencing (problably) the biggest culture shock I've ever had - reverse culture shock. It started when we - Ivo and Helen from Holland, and I - touched down yesterday (Wednesday, 13 December) at Bangkok's brand new, ultra-modern, super efficient airport. The airport could have been in any western city in the world. It was spotless and amazing; way better than Bangkok's old airport. We wisked through customs and baggage claim. Then we took a brand new taxi from the queue - thats right they actually have queues, lines, and order here. We raced off down the brand new 10+ lane highway towards downtown and its skyline of modern high rise buildings. So many new, fancy cars on the road. I'd say 95% of the vechicles look like they are less than 5 years old. And the silence.... no honking!!! I can't believe it. People actually staying in their lanes and not vengefully trying to cut others off. They actually let you merge in. Finally we arrived at our destination, Kho San Road.... Dejavu!!
I don't remember it being so freaking clean and - dare I say - sterile here. The street vendor's stalls are spotless. I can't believe I was ever afraid to eat food from those stalls at one time. And I really don't see trash anywhere. But there are also a ton of tourists here. So many white faces and blond heads it just really doesn't fit in with the Thais. Lots and lots of pretty girls too, which I completely forgot about as well; both tourists and Thais. Only one word sums up my experiences in Bangkok so far - AMAZING. Amazing that this is Asia that is.
Ivo, who has also been to Bangkok before, felt the same way and we couldn't stop talking about it or staring at everything. The 3 of us spent the night eating, drinking, and taking it all in. We even paid a visit to the place we had both stayed on our previous trips, the D&D Inn. Its a really nice place with roof top pool and bar right on Kho San Road. The price has also gone up from 450 Baht to 550 Baht ($11 to $14) so I won't be staying there this time around. We spent the evening at some bars on Kho San Road (KSR, the main tourist drag) talking and watching the show.
As we were sitting there on the street side bar I made a comment that KSR really felt like a place where I would run into somebody I knew. I had a really strong feeling about it and kept looking at passing faces. Ivo and Helen had the same feeling. About an hour later, Ben from New Zealand whom I trekked with in Tibet, came walking up. Creepy eh!
It should come as no surprise in this modern city that everything is really expensive, at least twice the price of Nepal. From food, to rooms, to taxis, to internet, it is going to take some getting use to these 'high' prices. I guess that is the price you pay for luxery....
I didn't even mention the heat yet. When we stepped off the airplane we could immediately feel a wave of heat hit us. It had the same feeling of warmth as sitting next to a fire on a cold night. The heat felt good. Tee shirts, shorts, and sandals 24-7 from here on out. But my guesthouse room is down right hot. I was sitting there sweating while I was unpacking (no A/C, only fan). I took a cold shower which felt great! Its really strange to feel hot like that after 6+ months of cool weather. The last time I even approached being hot was in Beijing!
This morning (Thursday, 14 December) I slept in a bit after the late night. The first thing I needed to do was go to the US Embassy and have pages added to my passport. I only have 3 pages left and I'll need a page each for the Lao, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Burmese, and Indonesian visas. So I actually really needed to do this to continue with my trip. When I was filling out the application I was reading about having to send the passport in and it taking a couple of weeks and express processing (3 days) was $60. So you can imagine my pleasant surprise when upon handing in the application and asking how long it would take, the woman said 30 or 45 minutes. It took 10 minutes and was free. Amazing. So I have 25 more pages for visas and stamps now.
Then I walked along the up market shopping and hotel street of Th Sukhumvit. I was shopping for contacts which amazingly I found after about 4 hours of going into the numerous optical shops. The problem wasn't finding my brand, roughly one third of the shops carried them and all shops had contacts that would have worked, the problem was finding my brand for a reasonable price. After getting quotes from various shops ranging from 400 to 1200 Baht per box (3 lenses), I got 2 boxes for 375 Baht each before taking a taxi back to KSR. All that non sense took most of the afternoon. That is about 50% more for contacts than what I pay back home, but I really had no choice!
I don't remember it being so freaking clean and - dare I say - sterile here. The street vendor's stalls are spotless. I can't believe I was ever afraid to eat food from those stalls at one time. And I really don't see trash anywhere. But there are also a ton of tourists here. So many white faces and blond heads it just really doesn't fit in with the Thais. Lots and lots of pretty girls too, which I completely forgot about as well; both tourists and Thais. Only one word sums up my experiences in Bangkok so far - AMAZING. Amazing that this is Asia that is.
Ivo, who has also been to Bangkok before, felt the same way and we couldn't stop talking about it or staring at everything. The 3 of us spent the night eating, drinking, and taking it all in. We even paid a visit to the place we had both stayed on our previous trips, the D&D Inn. Its a really nice place with roof top pool and bar right on Kho San Road. The price has also gone up from 450 Baht to 550 Baht ($11 to $14) so I won't be staying there this time around. We spent the evening at some bars on Kho San Road (KSR, the main tourist drag) talking and watching the show.
As we were sitting there on the street side bar I made a comment that KSR really felt like a place where I would run into somebody I knew. I had a really strong feeling about it and kept looking at passing faces. Ivo and Helen had the same feeling. About an hour later, Ben from New Zealand whom I trekked with in Tibet, came walking up. Creepy eh!
It should come as no surprise in this modern city that everything is really expensive, at least twice the price of Nepal. From food, to rooms, to taxis, to internet, it is going to take some getting use to these 'high' prices. I guess that is the price you pay for luxery....
I didn't even mention the heat yet. When we stepped off the airplane we could immediately feel a wave of heat hit us. It had the same feeling of warmth as sitting next to a fire on a cold night. The heat felt good. Tee shirts, shorts, and sandals 24-7 from here on out. But my guesthouse room is down right hot. I was sitting there sweating while I was unpacking (no A/C, only fan). I took a cold shower which felt great! Its really strange to feel hot like that after 6+ months of cool weather. The last time I even approached being hot was in Beijing!
This morning (Thursday, 14 December) I slept in a bit after the late night. The first thing I needed to do was go to the US Embassy and have pages added to my passport. I only have 3 pages left and I'll need a page each for the Lao, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Burmese, and Indonesian visas. So I actually really needed to do this to continue with my trip. When I was filling out the application I was reading about having to send the passport in and it taking a couple of weeks and express processing (3 days) was $60. So you can imagine my pleasant surprise when upon handing in the application and asking how long it would take, the woman said 30 or 45 minutes. It took 10 minutes and was free. Amazing. So I have 25 more pages for visas and stamps now.
Then I walked along the up market shopping and hotel street of Th Sukhumvit. I was shopping for contacts which amazingly I found after about 4 hours of going into the numerous optical shops. The problem wasn't finding my brand, roughly one third of the shops carried them and all shops had contacts that would have worked, the problem was finding my brand for a reasonable price. After getting quotes from various shops ranging from 400 to 1200 Baht per box (3 lenses), I got 2 boxes for 375 Baht each before taking a taxi back to KSR. All that non sense took most of the afternoon. That is about 50% more for contacts than what I pay back home, but I really had no choice!
posted by Dustin at 3:05 AM
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