Thailand stopover- trip report

 After much heartache, I finally found flights home with Malaysian airlines, but I needed to stopover in Bangkok, Thailand for a day. Sounded like an adventure! I had planned most of this trip before I left home, I grabbed the sections of the Lonely Planet Guide that I needed, and a print out of a map.Left the airport with my carry on luggage- got the rest of my luggage checked through to my final destination.

http://www.suvarnabhumiairport.com/passenger_en.php <-- Airport website is almost impossible to navigate Took the airport express train for 35BAHT.  It was easy enough to follow the signs. And only took 15 minutes, true to the word. I then had to transfer to the a local train at PayaThai to get to my hotel.
 

Finding the transfer and the hotel was an absolute nightmare, up and down different platforms and trying to find the right transfer and then missing it. It was hot and humid, and I was ever so thankful that I didn't bring the rest of my luggage. It was really had to find my hotel from the instructions given on the website! I only chose the hotel because it was close to the station.

http://www.thesukosol.com/

The Sukosol. 477 Si Ayuthaya Road Phayathai, Bangkok, 10400 Thailand

I paid A$80/night, retails for over A$200/night.
Check out the following websites to compare prices: Expedia.com.au Hotels.com

The room was large and comfortable for the night. The bed and bathroom wasn't as clean as I would expect for a hotel in another country, but this was Thailand, so I'm not complaining. I didn't get a chance to use any of the facilities because of my tight schedule, but if you plan to come, I'd advise not bringing much luggage, or getting a taxi.

 No time to sleep yet, I had to hit the streets.
 First stop, chinatown for shopping. Because I was by myself and had never been to Thailand before, I didn't bring all my cash with me. Things weren't really cheap enough to entice me. Haggling Asian-style didn't really work well here. But I did end up picking up a few souvenirs. The street food is a must. I tried a bunch of stuff including fish balls, egg crepes, chicken parts?


Then I headed back to the hotel, this time it was slightly easier to find. Slept like a log and missed the sun rise. Luckily, the view from the hotel wasn't half bad.


I had a lot of ground to cover today, and had most of the day planned out to the minute. First stop, river cruise. I literally hopped onto the river boat with some fellow early risers, and a ticket seller came up and asked me to pay for a ticket. It was nice to see diversity in the landscape filled with old and new.



 Hopped off the boat and let my nose work... I followed some locals into a dark alley, through another alley and low and behold- breakfast. Because this place wasn't on the main street, they really weren't used to tourists, so I pointed and signed that I wanted some noodles, and it was served. Most of the other customers bought their own tins for the noodles to bring home!

 

 I also stopped by another traditional vendor of Thai Coffee which is basically sweetened condensed milk with coffee and ice. SOOO sweet. But I needed to find my way out of the wet markets.

 Ducked through a few streets, then I was at the flower markets. This is an experience not to be missed. There were so many flowers, and so many people selling different flowers. So beautiful and at a fraction of the cost in Australia.

 

No time to stop and "smell the flowers", I had to hurry if I wanted to see everything I had planned. Back onto the boat, and there by the river were famous temples and landmarks.

While waiting for the boat, I saw the most fascinating thing! A lady bought a sea snake from a vendor and started praying to the river, then after a while of yelling, she threw the sea snake in.

I decided to get off at the National Temple. And like all asian temples, there were tonnes of food stores along the way.

 

 It was an easy walk, up the street to the temple. But because I was wearing shorts, and I'm a girl, I needed to find some covering. Vendors were hiring sarongs.

This was one of the most extravagant collection of temples I had ever seen. Many westerners were taking photos but many more locals were actually there to pray. You could spend a day here if you really wanted to.

 

 But I was off, I got a local to teach me which bus to take. But when I arrived, I saw my bus pull out and had to wait half an hour for the next one. But it was a good opportunity to people watch.



And I had no idea where I needed to get off, because this wasn't part of my original plan (which was to take a taxi), so I made friends with some locals who spoke decent English. They told me which stop to press the button and get off at. The bus trip was really long but I got to see different parts of Bangkok. I had arrived at the largest market. And it was just filled with things- clothes, gifts, homewares, even pets! But who visits an asian market without checking out the food? BUT no one seemed to sell fridge magnets with "Thailand" on it!

 

 Things were actually cheaper outside of the main market than inside. I swear, these are the smoothest rice noodles I've had in my entire life. Slurp!



I wondered from one end of the markets to the other and found the BTS. Rushed back to the hotel to check out and return to the airport. I ended up having to buy a fridge magnet for my mum at the airport which cost more than all my purchases all together. A pet dislike at this airport is despite it's clean surroundings, I was stopped at the gate AGAIN and manually checked for water and drugs. I found a few useful websites:

• Tripadvisor is a great way to narrow down the attractions you want to visit. I tend to focus more on bad reviews than positive, knowing my luck.
• Wikipedia For your standard brief review of history and information.

Other useful resources:

• Lonely planet guidebook. Without fail, it's a go to for travellers, this was to make sure I didn't miss out on anything.
• If you aren't keen on doing it yourself, there are a bunch of tours available, or you can always hire a tuk tuk for the day.

Did you know you can purchase chapters in Lonely Planet guidebooks? This proved useful on this trip. Individual chapters at U$4.95 each Trip realities

• Thailand is quite hot, bring a drink bottle, comfy shoes
• Don't be overambitious like I tried to be, because you can miss buses and experience things you wouldn't have
• I felt quite safe to travel as a single female
• I tried a lot of different food, and really should have purchased travel insurance
• It was one tiring stopover, but worth it.