My original plan for getting from Bangkok to Chiang Mai involved a relaxing and scenic overnight train ride through the open Thai countryside and up into the northern mountains.
As exciting as that prospect was, getting sick pretty much put an end to it. There aren’t really any reliable ways to buy train tickets online here so I had planned to just take a day and head down to the station to get things booked. Since the train fills up quickly–or at least the air conditioned sleeper cabins which I was set on do–I wanted to both get the ticket early and give myself time to still book a flight if the train was already booked up.
But I was out of action with the flu during the window I had to make that happen. So I shrugged, booked a plane ticket, and resolved to make the train trip another time.
The only problem with this was that I had left a one night hole in my accommodations bookings… which would have been spent on the train. Now, I had to find somewhere else to sleep, and since I booked the flight the same day as my condo started in Chiang Mai, it was going to have to be somewhere in Bangkok.
I figured somewhere near the airport would be cheap and easy, with an emphasis on cheap, so I got a room at the Rafael Mansion.
It was in the same neighborhood as the hotel I stayed at when I first arrived, so I was pretty comfortable with the area. It’s largely industrial apart from the hotels, but no one is staying there for the scenery. It’s just a place to get your head down before or after a late flight.
Something else that is missing is any nearby rail or subway line. Hotels either run their own shuttles or you take a cab. It’s not expensive, but there was another option I had been wanting to try since I got here, and this was the perfect opportunity: the Bangkok bus system.
I walked by Bangkok buses all the time but the system is famously obscure to Westerners: four or five (or six or seven, depending on the websites you read) different classes of buses, signage only in Thai, no English-language system maps worthy of the name, complex and impenetrable fare structures. The buses are dirt cheap compared to other transit options, but then, those options aren’t exactly expensive so it’s easy to avoid the bus entirely for most visitors.
Buses are my primary means of transportation back home, though, so I had a perverse urge to try them here at least once. And Google Maps identified an air-conditioned route from the airport train line (which I would, together with BTS, take for most of the distance).
So, one stop before the airport, I hopped off the rail system and made my way down to street level to seek out the bus stop for the 553 on Lat Krabang Road.
Just getting from the train station to the road was a challenge, though. The airport expressway was in between, as was a canal. I walked through a parking lot beneath the elevated expressway until I got to the canal. There was a lower road bridge, but I didn’t see any sidewalk leading to it. Walking a Thai road without anywhere to jump to is sheer insanity, so I figured I’d have to backtrack to the train station and admit defeat by getting cab.
Then I saw a man on the road bridge, leaning out over the canal and looking down. Suicidal? Or had I missed something?
I backtracked to the end of the bridge. Sure enough–there was a sidewalk across the bridge… just no sidewalk to the bridge.
I bushwhacked as far as I could along the shoulder then took my chances on the busy road, waiting for a gap before hustling up to the start of the sidewalk and continuing across.
That obstacle overcome, the next presented itself: locating the bus stop. There are no signs. But I hoped there would at least be a bench or something, and there was, with a shade thoughtfully stretched over it and three people already waiting. I was glad to see that, because the bus won’t automatically stop (with as many people as are always on the sidewalk here, they’d never stop stopping)–you have to signal it. But waving, apparently, is inappropriate and possibly insulting, so a weird palm-down gesture is used, one that I had not mastered.
I was feeling pretty pleased with myself and figured I could overcome the final two obstacles of figuring out how to pay and when to get off, but as the minutes ticked by and no bus passed, I started to worry.
Google said every ten minutes, and there were three different buses that were supposed to serve that stop. There are different classes of bus, and I was looking for the blue and beige air-conditioned buses. Eventually, one of the ubiquitous red and white open buses came by, but no one signaled or got on, and the number on it wasn’t 553, so I didn’t think that was it.
But no 553 appeared, only red and white buses with 1013 on them. I saw a few blueish buses on the other side of the road, but they were all heading the wrong way.
Eventually, all the other people at the stop all trickled away and I started rethinking my options.
I could grab a cab–several swung in and gestured to me while I was waiting, on the probably accurate theory that no farang in his right mind could possibly be on the street in that neighborhood unless looking for a cab driver to rescue him. Or–I consulted my phone and checked the distance to the hotel. Only five miles… a quick stroll at home, but not nearly as trivial in the Bangkok heat on Bangkok sidewalks.
But I figured I could at least start in that direction. I had already been waiting an hour; if a bus came by along the way, swell. If I got overwhelmed by the heat, I’d duck into a 7/11 (three on every block!) and get a drink and something to eat. And if I tired out and there was still no bus, I could flag down one of the ubiquitous cabs.
So off I went, stumbling over broken cobblestone and sweating like a pig.
After I made the turn onto King Kaeo Road, though, I recognized all the various flaws in my logic.
One, the side of the road the hotel was on was opposite traffic. The road is large and divided and there’s no crossing it for miles at a stretch. So I wasn’t going to be able to catch a bus even if one eventually showed up. If I flagged down a cab, it would be going the wrong direction and have to go almost back to where I started to turn around.
Two, it was a largely industrial area, and there were no 7/11s to be found.
So it was a long, hot hike down to Soi 33, the alley leading off to the hotel. I did eventually find a 7/11 (I knew there had to be one) but there were also a few mom and pop street vendors selling food and water so I didn’t pass out.
When I showed up at the front desk, the girl there was appalled.
“Why you all…?” and she waved her hands up and down over her face, making the international sign for a raging waterfall.
“I had a little walk to get here,” I told her, smiling.
Fortunately, there was water in the room, but no food anywhere nearby. After the sun went down, I resolved to hike back to a Tesco Lotus mini-store at the head of the soi and get some dinner.
But on my way to the Tesco, suddenly I ran into a lot of traffic. For after-hours on a sleepy little soi dominated by container storage yards, it was unexpected.
Then I saw why–an empty dirt parking lot I had tramped through earlier in the day had magically been transformed into a night market.
So I had a good meal of some sort of delicious meat on a stick and some sweet crackers that I have learned to identify but still don’t know what they are made out of.
The hotel was supposed to have a shuttle service but it turned out that they didn’t; they would just call you a cab. I went ahead and scheduled one with the front desk for check-out time the next day, and I distinctly remember saying “noon” to avoid any potential confusion about AM/PM (although theoretically they use a 24-hour clock here, just as boaters do, in practice everyone I talk to seems to use 12-hour references… maybe because they think I expect it?).
So when the soft tapping at my door woke me up at midnight, I didn’t immediately make the connection. In fact, it was so soft I wasn’t even sure it was my door at first. The hotel was such that late night visitors to the neighbors would not be unexpected. But the tapping didn’t stop and I started to think maybe someone just had the wrong room. Or maybe it was a prelude to something nefarious… the doors had no deadbolts and the locks could easily be defeated. So I got up to peer out the peephole.
Whoever booked her for the night is in for a serious disappointment, was my first thought. Then I realized it was the night desk clerk, and what must have happened.
She was very apologetic, although I imagine she probably thought it was my fault. I wandered down in the morning to make sure they had re-scheduled one for noon again (although I was in no rush; my flight was later in the afternoon) and they had. Although “booked” has a somewhat transitive meaning here… when noon actually rolled around, the girl at the desk had to run out to the main road and actually flag a cab down because their usual service didn’t have anyone available. Which is just another example of how accommodating the Thai people are… I could (and would, had I known) have walked out to myself and flagged one down if I’d known. It makes me a little upset to read reviews that complain about staff here, which I think are mostly a result of miscommunication rather than indifference or neglect… I have yet to run into anyone who is less than friendly and helpful anywhere I have stayed. Just like in the U.S., they spend most of their time at the desk looking bored and staring at their phones, but as soon as they notice you, they are sunshine and smiles.
The extreme customer service focus continued at the airport. In addition to a very easy passage through security, I got to spend most of my wait for the plane in a free economy-class lounge thoughtfully provided by Bangkok Airways. The price for the flight was only about $30, but there was free Internet, free food, free drink, cable TV, newspapers and other reading material. The lounge was busy but it was an incredible touch for economy class. Passing back through next weekend on my way to Krabi, I have a four-hour layover and fully intend to take advantage of it again.
