Spring Festival Vacation - Thailand

Well, it’s time to get back to my blog after traveling to Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, and Taiwan for Spring Festival.  I’m now back in Shenzhen after a long and tiring bit of vacation.  I’m lucky and fortunate that I saw some pretty exciting parts of the world while also being safe (I received an email from another teacher yesterday and is freaking out about potential rabies after being bitten by a monkey in her leg and hand).  So I had fun and stayed safe.

It’s such a different part of the globe being an American.  Everything is so different: money, language, landscape, culture, etc.  But it was great and fairly cheap compared to the West.  Thailand and Vietnam were really cheap whereas Singapore and Taiwan a little more expensive (but still fairly cheap compared to the West).  I knew beforehand that Singapore and Taiwan would be a little more expensive with them being one of the ‘Four Asian Tigers.’  You may have heard that term before or perhaps, ‘Asian Dragons.’  It is a term used in reference to the highly developed economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan.  South Korea is the only one I have not visited but will do so in June!  These nations and areas were notable for maintaining exceptionally high growth rates and rapid industrialization between the early ‘60s and ‘90s.  By the 21st century, all four have developed into advanced and high-income economies.  Their economic success stories have served as role models for many developing countries.  But anyways, it was a pretty cheap vacation considering I went to 4 countries for approximately two full weeks.  Excluding airfare (which was not bad by the way), I probably spent approximately $1,600 which pretty much equates to budget travel but does include all hotel/hostel stays, public transportation, gifts/souvenirs, food, drinks, museum admissions, etc.  Not bad I think.  Except for Vietnam (where their money ‘dong’ is worthless outside their country), I calculated my budget for each country and exchanged money here in Shenzhen before I left for each.  So it was a real challenge keeping up with the monetary conversions (and my different money envelopes) because at any one time, I was carrying USD, China’s Renminbi, Hong Kong Dollars, Thailand Baht, Vietnam Dong, & Singapore Dollars.  I didn’t exchange Taiwan Dollars until later.  But I saved some currency from each country as souvenirs.  By the way, of all these countries’ currencies, Hong Kong’s notes are the best; visually & artistically!  I always kept a tiny little notebook that could fit into a front pocket and I wrote down exchange conversions so when I was shopping, I could whip it out real fast and know what something I was looking at was how much in USD.  It’s where I kept all my notes which came in handy since I have not had my smartphone with me since I left the States back in August.   I also traveled throughout these countries without my Chinese phone too – would have had to buy multiple SIM cards – not worth the trouble.  I did bring my netbook with me though.

To summarize, I left Hong Kong’s airport on Monday, January 16th and traveled to Bangkok, Thailand.  I then left Bangkok on the 19th and flew to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.  Left HCMC on the 22nd and flew to Singapore.  Finally, I left Singapore on the 26th and came back to Shenzhen.  I then flew once again from Hong Kong airport to Taiwan on the 3rd and came back on the 7th.

I’m going to start my blog entries in chronological order by date and will start off with posts on Bangkok.

A lot of my fellow teachers have been to Thailand before and raved about it and I knew it was a popular tourist destination.  Since it’s close to China, Thailand made sense as a starting point for my Spring Festival vacation.  But I would be limited on time so, unfortunately, I only visited Bangkok and not other areas of Thailand like the jungle or beach regions.  Thailand is also called the ‘Kingdom of Thailand’ as it’s a monarchy.  Its coasts are on the Andaman Sea as well as the Gulf of Thailand.  Thailand is S.E. Asia’s most popular tourist destination where I read something like 50% of all tourists indeed come back again (compared to, as an example, 10% for Vietnam).  Bangkok is kind of in the central part of the country and is Thailand’s capital.  It is one of Asia's most cosmopolitan cities with temples and palaces, canals, markets, malls, nightlife, etc.  Bangkok functions as Thailand's spiritual, cultural, political, commercial, educational and diplomatic center.  Bangkok is just less than 14 degrees north of the equator so it’s hot year round.  It was I’d say in the low 80s every day when I was there in January.  I usually just wore sandals and shorts everyday – and that goes for my travel to Vietnam and Singapore too.

I flew into Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport (pronounced "soo-wanna-poom").  Like most airports, it’s a little away from the city center (like 20 miles) but they have trains to take you there.  So I caught an express train into the city center.  Oh, I should mention that a colleague of mine and friend (Shelby) was also on the flight with me but she was going to the north of Thailand whereas I was heading into downtown Bangkok.  She is from the Philly area (as am I) and a friend of hers flew into Hong Kong the night before from the States to travel together to Thailand and other places.  Pretty much as soon as she landed, she received a phone call that her father suffered a heart attack and she flew right back the next day.  That’s pretty horrible.  But Shelby said she is going to persevere and continue her travels without her friend.  Good for her I said.  After going through customs and immigration, we decided to get some beers at the airport before heading our separate ways.  Thailand has a few local beers such as Chang and Singha.  We both had two 12 oz. bottles of Chang and that was it.  As we were leaving, I said to her I felt a little buzzed just off those two beers.  So did she, she said.  I learned right away that I was staying away from Chang.  I felt it was a little stronger or something than Singha and stayed with Singha (pronounced “sing”) as much as possible for the duration of my time there.

By the time I got onto the train it was about 4pm and decided to stop at Siam Square which is in the downtown area and where I knew there was a Hard Rock Café in which I definitely wanted to stop and buy a Bangkok t-shirt.  It was also on the way to my hotel too; actually I would have to change train lines here anyway.  I thought by the time I would get there it would be around 5 and I would buy the tee and get a beer.  Get it out of the way I thought.  I had to transfer from the Airport Express line to the BTS Skytrain.  The BTS is sort of like an ‘L’ train but looks more like a monorail to me.  The stops, stations, and trains are also in English so no problem there.  Got off at Siam and it took me a bit but I found the Hard Rock Café.  Pics below.

There really are no trains to the area I was staying so the best option was to take the BTS Skytrain to a pier on the Chayo Phraya River.  From there, I would take a Chao Phraya Express Boat (like an aquatic bus) that plies up and down the river.  The river runs through Bangkok and most of the popular tourist spots are along the river.  The boats run about every 5-15 minutes depending on the route and the route I took was 15 baht ($.47) one-way.  I would take these multiple times during my stay.  They’re cheap, fun, and easy to use.  Some pics below.

I was staying in a popular backpacker/tourist area called Khao San Road.  This road has a lot of restaurants, stores, bars, hostels, and vendors on it; along with neighboring side streets.  Khao San Road is a small road located about a block or two from the Chao Phraya River and the Phra Arthit Pier (pic below).

Lots of cheap eats here as well as cheap accommodations.  Lots of veggy restaurants and street carts!  I took the express boat (about a half-hour) to Arthit Pier and walked to my hotel.  I was staying at the New World City Hotel.  It was a good value for the money.  A little off the beaten path (right along a canal) but close enough to Khao San Road.  But that’s what I wanted; I wanted to avoid the noise and nightlife of Khao San when I was trying to get some sleep.  The room was big by S.E. Asia standards.  It had a western toilet, balcony, A/C (yes, you needed in January), free Wi-Fi, TV, etc.  Pics of hotel below.  The hotel is the white large building.

That night I found a cheap veggy restaurant near Khao San Road and then hung out on Khao San for the night.  The next day would be a long one visiting temples and palaces…