Another tear in my eye was cased by my hiking boots gone missing. I put them under my bed the day when I came back from the trek but this morning they were gone. There was however another pair of boots (size 47) that no one in the room owned. So I assume someone who left during the last couple of days in the night may have grabbed the wrong pair of boots. A shame as they fit perfectly and I had not one blister on the entire trek. Goodbye my little boots, I hope you find another set of stinky feet you can call home. This was not the end of negative things this morning, though. Also my Powerbank stopped working. It charged alright through the night but I couldn't turn it on any more in the morning. Well something gotta give if you are in Nepal I guess. Enough with negativity though, I going to Thailand in just a few hours.
It was time to say goodbye. My last lemon ginger honey tea and a few hugs and kisses and off I was in a cab to the airport.
Arriving at the departure hall of KTM it took me about 45 minutes to actually get into the airport. After an initial security check the Thai Airways counter was directly opposite the entrance but the check in wasn't as straight forward. As my I used my dads credit card for booking flight (because of the Mobile TAN fiasco) and I couldn't present that credit card, I had to get my Dad (early in the morning in Europe) to send his credit card details (sorry, Dad if I got you out of bed). But after this was sorted all was fine. The emigration officer was friendly, the security check (which had two separate lines for male and female passengers) was quick and there was not much time to hang around the airport and wait for boarding (since I spent all that time to get into the airport).
It was nearly some sort of culture shock when leaving the terminal building and walking over to the big white and purple 777 standing in the sun. After a month of Nepal I am really not used to see technology like that any more.
What my seat had with the lack of a window it more than made up with legroom as I was sitting at the exit row. I had a good chat with an Australian who was in the queue in front of me when trying to get into the building and now was sitting next to me.
The Service on the flight was great, I hadn't even finished my beer when I got asked if I wanted a new one. The food was good and the flight was over before I knew it even without turning on the in-flight entertainment system.
Stepping out of the gangway into the Airport Terminal also impressed me. This large, open, bright, new building where it took me 20 minutes to get from the gate to the immigration and baggage belts. From there straight to the marble floored Metro Station and onto a train to Downtown Bangkok!
Sukhumvit (one of the main Bangkok business districts) was my destination and on the way I picked up a fellow traveller (John) from Canada who also looked for a hostel.
We quickly found the new, clean hostel. One cool feature of this hostel is the 32 bed dorm. Sound pretty horrible before you know that each bed is in a sort of pod or capsule (like the ones in Japan), so that you get a bit more privacy. It's a nice hostel but it did lack (at least in the first night) the socializing aspect that Alobar certainly had.
It was nearly 10 when John and I went out for some quick dinner. It didn't take us more than 10 minutes to stumble over the first red light district. The Soy Cowboy area was a little Las Vegas full of half naked girls (or at least what looked like girls) lined up on either side of the pedestrianized street.
We made it through the street without too much trouble and found a place for some good Pad Thai. I planned from the start of my trip to eat Pad Thai as the first dish in Thailand. Mission Accomplished. And after this authentic experience I have to say, the one in Diep or Isan and not far off... What is far off is the price obviously. Pad Thai for 1 € guys! :-)
I spent the rest of the evening reading my book in my little cozy capsule, relaxing for a busy day ahead.
No comments:
Post a Comment