Getting to Bangkok Without Sailing

All right, most people get to Bangkok without sailing. It’s the furthest I’ve been from the United States by any mode of travel, and I had never expected to come here at all. But if I had to imagine some alternate reality in which I had expected to come to Thailand, I would imagine that alternate-me would have only considered doing so by boat.

A lot of Pacific Northwest cruisers spend much of their sailing careers planning to make the great Pacific Puddle Jump. The glowing ultramarine waters of the South Pacific beckon, followed by years of gunkholing French Polynesia, Australia/New Zealand, and Southeast Asia. Maybe keep on heading west, going full circle eventually.

That was never on my radar. I wanted to go south and turn left, head for the Caribbean, Europe, the Med. I don’t know why South Pacific never held much allure for me, but it didn’t. And other folks often speak of the magic of the Orient, but I’ve always been more interested in Western cultures and destinations.

So Thailand is a surprise destination for me, but so far it’s been a pleasant one. Anytime you go from twenty degrees to eighty is welcome, of course. I’m sure the magic of just being warm will wear off in time but for now that’s plenty.

I got in around one in the morning after spending about nineteen hours in the air. I flew out of Phoenix, where I spent the preceding week visiting my grandmother, sister, brother-in-law, and niece, none of whom I see frequently enough. The weather there was a good segue between Seattle and Bangkok, hovering around in the sixties and seventies while I was there, helping me acclimate. And a week living out of my one and only piece of luggage, a carry-on backpack, was a good proof-of-concept that I could make it work for two months.

I booked the cheapest flight I could find which turned out to be mostly on Air China. I read the reviews after making the booking–they are almost uniformly awful. But despite the long, long flight time, I found the trip about average, so far as airlines go. The meals were meh, flight attendants competent but indifferent, flights a little delayed. But that’s all routine even on many American carriers.

I was really dreading the flight, even before reading the reviews, but it’s a relatively minor component of a two-month trip so I figured I could cope. A diversion or mistake when you’ve only got a week has real impact, but I figured if I missed a flight or something, it wouldn’t result in too much disruption. And I was only bringing the single bag, carry-on, so I wasn’t worried about lost luggage.

In the event, none of it was all that bad. My seat-mates were all considerate–the couple I sat next to on the LA-Beijing leg were also going to Bangkok so we puzzled out our way through the baffling, and bafflingly empty, Beijing airport to make a very short transfer window. For equally inexplicable reasons, even when transferring within the secure zone, you have to pass through security again there, and we were separated when the Chinese decided to scan my bag like four times and shuffle through it for no reason that was ever articulated. I had to repack a very tight packing job very quickly and sprint to make the last call for boarding.

Along the way, I ran into my first tourist scam. Myself and another woman from the LA flight cleared security around the same time and were hustling to the transfer gate when a guy on a cart pulled up.

“You Bangkok? You Bangkok? Hurry, last call!”

Awesome, I thought. This Air China outfit really looks out for you after all!

I wasn’t completely surprised: one of their staff had been holding a sign for transfers on the jetway as we got off the plane and slapped stickers on us for priority at security and made sure we got in the right line. So it seemed to me we had just been handed off to the next leg of some mysterious, hyper-efficient Chinese tourist-processing system designed to get us out of their country again as quickly as possible. So we hopped on board and the guy sped off toward the gate. Then he turned around and said:

“You pay! You pay for taxi, okay?”

Huh? I’d never heard of that one before.

“How much?” I said.

“Ten dollar each!”

I wasn’t sure what my companion was thinking about that, but it seemed a little steep to me considering that we were only about four gates away, and still had fifteen minutes. Still, I wasn’t all that keen on running it. So I pretended to be confused, asking about the amount, and where we were going, and whether or not he worked for the airline… all while getting closer and closer to the gate. Finally, he got smart and stopped the cart and said:

“You pay ten dollar or not?”

“No thanks,” I said, and we hopped off and jogged about half the distance we would otherwise have had to go.

(Lest I come off sounding too travel-savvy, I made the classic mistake at the Bangkok airport of not insisting the taxi driver use the meter, and probably overpaid by about 50-70 baht getting to the hotel.)

On the taxiway, they played Christmas tunes over the PA system but otherwise the last leg into Bangkok was entirely uneventful. The plane landed at midnight but, in contrast to Beijing, the airport was jam-packed. Clearing Customs was a breeze and I stepped out into the duty-free zone to soak up the warm, humid air.

Since it was still mid-day on my personal Circadian clock cycle, I decided to hit one of the 24-hour cellular provider booths on the way out of the airport to get a local SIM card for my phone. After a few fits and starts, I found the provider that I had picked from online research ahead of time (True) and bought one of their tourist SIMs and data packages. It was about $20 USD for 30 days and 8GB of data, a better deal by far than my T-mobile plan at home. The practiced staff behind the counter took my phone, swapped the SIMs, hammered in a series of codes, and handed it back, fully functional, in under a minute.

Then he put his hands together in front of him and bowed, to which I could only nod and smile in return.

The hotel I booked the first night with offered a free 24-hour shuttle but I couldn’t figure it out so I decided to just take a taxi. The queue at the taxi zone was computerized and seemed very orderly, but I must have done something wrong because the driver whose number I got walked me back to the information desk and they put me together with a different guy.

He spoke a little English, and it was at this point that I made the mistake of not asking him to use the meter, which probably resulted in my paying about triple what the ride really should have cost. But I was too tired to care much, which I am sure they are counting on.

Anyway, we chatted amiably and largely incomprehensibly through the short drive to the hotel.

I was surprised when I stepped inside. I had mostly focused on getting something cheap–it was only for one night–but it was actually pretty nice. The staff on duty didn’t grumble when I scrawled illegibly across the very abbreviated registration form, and they sent someone along to walk me up to my room, which was very spacious, modern, and overlooked the pool and courtyard below.

The air-conditioning clicked on, the attendant left, and I had to pee. And thus came my first challenge as a farang in Thailand.

One of the reasons I have never particularly wanted to come to Southeast Asia, probably a larger one than I should admit, is the snakes.

They’ve got a lot of ’em. And they’re deadly as hell.

I grew up in a desert, which has its share of rattlesnakes, so I’m not completely unfamiliar with snake safety, but I decided to do a little research on the subject just in case. And came across this video.

This is not an isolated incident. YouTube is loaded with these videos, including the aftermath of one recent incident in which a python attacked a man’s… well, it’s just not a pleasant incident even if you are okay with snakes, is all I will say about that.

So it was with considerable trepidation that I lifted the lid that first time.

To my relief (in at least two senses of the word), it was empty.

But you better believe I kept the lid closed with my bag on top of it all night.

Don’t tell me about the odds or that they are more afraid of people than we are of them. You don’t really know how afraid of them I am, do you?

For those of you who know my family, you will recognize much of my Aunt Bonny in this attitude, and you would not be wrong. But don’t tell her about the snake in the toilet. She’s already worried enough about coups and air crashes and tsunamis while I’m here.

But, so far, snake sightings: 0

Which is the same number I’ve racked up in Seattle over the years. Your mileage may vary.