Thailand Winter Break 2008 - Day 1

Jamie and I left our apartment in Shekou, China at 8:45 pm on Friday night, December 12. We waited around for 30 minutes for the bus to the Shenzhen airport, but it never came, so we had to take a cab. Shenzhen airport is nice, but fairly small, so getting in and through wasn't a problem. We boarded our Air Asia flight and was off to the "Land of Smiles." Air Asia does not have reserved seating, so you just sit wherever you can. They do not serve you free refreshments, but charge you. The plane is clean and the seats are leather, but overall, you are getting what you pay for, which is a cheaper ticket and overall experience. Compared to Emirates airlines which took us to Cambodia, Air Asia is like comparing a Ford Pinto to a Cadillac.

We arrived at our hostel, Suk 11, at about 3:45 am. Although we said we'd sleep in, we made it to breakfast downstairs at 9:00. The hostel has a ton of character, is clean, and is only running us $25 per night, which is actually pricey for most hostels, but we have our own private room and bath.

We rested a bit longer Saturday morning and finally got up and about by noon. We took the Skytrain, like the "L" train in Chicago, to Siam station which I guess you could consider the Times Squarish area of Bangkok. Several upclass malls located there with overpriced items. We walked the streets and malls for several hours just taking in the city. We decided that since we weren't dressed appropriately for the temples, we'd have a knock around day and hit up some touristy areas early in the morning. The street food vendors in Bangkok are excellent, but we didn't eat any. We walked around and saw what they had, but ultimately decided on a Mexican restaurant that we just couldn't pass up. Yes, we flew all the way to Bangkok, Thailand to eat Mexican food, but it was quite yummy. We'll have our share of Thai food for the next 18 days as well as the street vendor food.

We bought tickets to see the movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still, in one of the fancy malls. Cinemas in Asia usually have you reserve a seat for the show like an actual theater or sporting event. This theater had 3 levels and 3 levels of pricing. We stayed away from the IMAX showing because it was just too expensive. The seats we chose were just like the ones at home, but for a couple of more dollars, we could have been 2 rows back and had some larger chairs, and another 2 rows back and more money, it would have been a nice reclining type chair or couch. Pretty sweet idea.

The previews were way over 20 minutes and included some odd commercials, most of which were in Thai.

The most interesting part of our day included right before the film. Just like at a ballgame in America, the played this little video and played the Thai National Anthem. Everyone stood, didn't sing, while the anthem was played. Afterwards, the movie immediately started. Pretty interesting and neat!

Afterwards, we splurged on some ice cream in the mall and have now settled back in to get some rest for our trip tomorrow of temple viewing. Dress codes are supposedly strictly enforced here, so we'll be sure to adhere to those rules.

So far, so good in our trip to Thailand. We'll post some pictures later. Not much to really show and I might just wait until tomorrow when we get back to explain about some of the temples.

Hope everyone is getting their Christmas shopping done. Sawatdee!