Thailand – Arriving in another Universe
It took me a while to start writing about my Thailand trip. I can’t tell you why – maybe because I didn’t know where to start, didn’t have the inspiration or maybe there came an angry monkey who stole my laptop while I was asleep. Well we’ll never find out – but now the monkey brought my laptop back and I finally know where to begin my story.
It all starts with a 12-hours flight from Cologne to Bangkok – my first long distance flight – 
which definitely got the title #1 worst flight I’ve ever had. At the Check-In we got already the great message that our flight had a 90 minutes delay, which meant that we didn’t have 2 hours before the flight but nearly 4! We tried to make the best out of it and noticed faster than we wished that the airport is extremely small; so after seeing all of the stores we went to our gate and waited. And waited…
Finally on the plane we noticed that we got different seats than the ones that we reserved. It was an Airbus A330, which has two seats on each side and four in the middle row. Our seats where instead of two on the right side of the middle row in the middle of the middle row (I know I am a true describing talent). This meant that both of us would have a neighbor and we’d have to ask them to move every time we wanted to leave our seats. We sat down and waited for what destiny had prepared for us – maybe a mother with a baby, a smelly man or a snoring grandpa? Shirin got her neighbor first: a guy in our age from cologne whos friends are waiting for him in Thailand. So only my neighbor was still a mystery – but not for long… Well I spent 12 hours next to a guy who looked like the long lost twin of Shakira’s husband (Gerard Piqué). I couldn’t even tell you his real name because we called him the whole time Dartanian (say it like an angry French!!) and I have no clue why we did that. He came from Berlin and was flying to Bangkok to meet there his „Dreamwoman“ from Laos.
After meeting both of them we were able to relax a bit more and the crew was nice enough to unlock the entertainment program for everybody because of the delay.
Over the Middle East (sorry can’t tell you where exactly it was) we started to have complications and they held on until approximately India. Shirin isn’t the biggest friend of flying so she wasn’t amused at all when it started to get rough and the stewardess answered on her questions that it’ll be like that for the next four hours. In the beginning I was feeling fine and tried to comfort her.
After a while where we still had four hours until Bangkok we kind of switched rolls because I was feeling sick, close to throwing up and she turned into my nurse. But I wasn’t the only one, half of the passengers threw up already – not specifically in the bags but also in the aisles – and I just tried my best to fall asleep while Shirin was standing in the aisle asking everybody including the crew if she could help.
A true Stewardess was born!
We arrived in the early morning in Bangkok and after an hour strolling through all different kinds of queues to get our passports checked again we were sitting with a German couple in the van that would bring us to our hotels.
Since we arrived at around 5AM at the Aloft Hotel on Sukhumvit Road our room wasn’t ready yet but we knew that before so we came prepared. In our carry-on-baggage were bikini, flip-flops and sunglasses and we headed to the pool to relax after such a rough ride. We enjoyed the view from the 10th floor while floating at 27 refreshing degrees in the pool until around 9AM when we checked in and fell immediately asleep on our cozy beds.
We didn’t stay too long in our hotel so that we could still enjoy our first day in Bangkok. We wandered a bit around in our Neighborhood and found the Mall Terminal 21, which is the best mall I’ve ever been to. It’s build like an Airport and on every level you have a different destination, with it’s own architecture, stores and restaurants. Since we were close to starving our first stop was a restaurant and after a small infinity we found one where we both were okay with. It’s incredible how cheap food (or in general everything) is in Thailand; we ordered way too much food because everything did sound delicious and we wanted to try as much as possible. The food did not only sound good – it was indeed a good order that we made and even though it was way too much we finished it completely. After satisfying our stomachs we started to window shop until we couldn’t walk anymore.
Terminal 21 is a definite recommendation from me for your next stay in Bangkok!!
From the mall we took a tuktuk to the Chatuchak-Market, which is one of the biggest markets in the world and started to loose ourselves in the depressing heat, too many people and all different kinds of smells. Since it was way too hot and we were just done from the flight and all the impressions we made already we didn’t stay that long on the market and because I forgot to turn my GoPro on on the first tuktuk ride we had to take one again. If I’d have known that our first driver was an angel compared to the one we took back to the hotel, we would have taken a taxi but well: afterwards you’re always smarter right?
So I started my GoPro, we jumped in the tuktuk after bargaining with the driver over the price and the ride began. It was extreme for us since we didn’t know the traffic in Bangkok or more like the behavior of the drivers and we had one heart attack after another for the next 30 minutes. After this hell of a ride we definitely needed a break and went immediately to the pool to soak in all the vitamin D while cooling down in the water.
In the evening we didn’t want to do that much anymore so we decided to put on dresses and go to a rooftop bar around the corner. It’s called Above 11 and is apparently really popular and it was extremely crowded up there. After a drink that is the same price category as in Europe we decided to head back home and fell asleep as soon as we touched our beds.
P.S.: With the sticker on the back of the tuktuk drivers seat we are still not sure if it mean that you’re not allowed to have sex in general in the back of the tuktuk or just not doggy style! But that’s another topic!
Part 2: https://www.itsjustjessie.de/2018/04/27/under-the-spell-of-thailands-capital/
