We arrived in Bangkok at midnight on Friday, 3/4/2016, after a 1.5 hour flight from Omaha to Chicago, a 5 hour layover at O’Hare, a 16 hour flight to Hong Kong, a 2 hour layover at HGK, and a 3 hour flight into BKK. We didn’t make it to our hostel until 4AM, due to my failure to research Thailand’s immigration policies for citizens of Bulgaria. Turns out citizens of the US don’t need a Thai Visa, but permanent residents with Bulgarian passports do, so Aleksiy had to go through the Visa on Arrival process while I panicked in the baggage claim. Great start!
We crashed in our room for maybe 4 hours before the sheer excitement of being in Bangkok had us up and roaming the streets. The first day was a lot of wide-eyed wandering. Aleksiy dove face first into street food in Chinatown while I maintained a bit of distance due to my sesame allergy (this didn’t last long- resistance is futile).
We made our way to Wat Pho and the Grand Palace before we succumbed to the heat and hopped into a tuk-tuk hailed for us by a friendly stranger. The man took my map and drew directions all over it, and arranged for the tuk-tuk driver to take us to all of the temples for only 40 baht (a little over 1USD). I knew Thailand was cheap, but this was unreal…
We are here in Bangkok and we love it. Our hostel is in Chinatown, which is very busy, kinda dirty, and a bit of a trek to anything touristy – but that’s ok because we like it like that. This first post will be short and sweet because we are approaching our last night in Bangkok and arrangements need to be made (i.e., before we leave for anything further than a mile radius I look up directions on my phone, establish a route, screenshot it, pack a bag/purse, repack it 3x, and then start walking).
Tales of a Southeast Asian Invasion 