Bangkok, Day One

I am now standing at the promotions counter, on what will be my final day of being a working gurl. After returning from the bustling streets of Bang Cock – I couldn’t resist it any longer – I had to get back to work, get prepared for The Boyfriend's arrival back to Singapore and various other things, none of which involved trying to Get A Real (meaning permanent – after this stint, salesgirls/cashiers have earned my respect) Job.

But what a pity it would be if I were not to record down, for posterity's sake, my experiences while there! Adventure lay in wait for us the moment we stepped off the plane:

Where were the immigration counters?

That bit I wrote on Sunday. Ok ok, in reality we were not quite so pathetic as such. We did find the immigration counters without any problems, who'm I kidding right? There're signs all over airports so that even dumbos like me can follow them without much trouble. After standing in line for 10-15 minutes, it was finally Ching's turn to walk up to the counter. We were naturally excited: it was for both girls the maiden voyage to the city and my first on my own, with friends instead of family. In fact, we were so excited and giggly like girls go when they're excited we snapped pictures of seeming non-importance-complete-mundanity like this one below:



We watched with bated breath for Ching to get that first stamp on her then untainted passport, only to see the lady behind the counter sternly shake her head no, looking at us as if we'd brought some contraband into the country, raise her hand as if directing her elsewhere – a flat denial of entry.

Turns out, at Don Mueang International Airport, T1 and T2 are connected, and being the travel virgins we were – well, kind of – we strolled into the T2 immigration counters instead of the ones at T1. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem at all, 'cause all we'd have to do is to follow everyone else as they walked out. But
1) This was a small plane, being a budget airline that we were taking
2) The plane didn't take off at full capacity
3) Everyone made a bee-line for the loos (for what, your guess is as good as mine. Plane no got meh?! Past the immigration counters no got meh?! Hotels no got meh?!).

So, yeah, we had to queue up all over again. It was like one of those funny moments in FRIENDS where they screw things up the first time, and on the second try, they try and do the same thing in exactly the same way, with the same brimming enthusiasm and goofy actions. We even took another one of those pictures:



Okay I was kidding. Gotcha! But I really did go: Yay!!!! Welcome to Bangkok, guys! I can't believe we're here! Yippity-yippity-jump-jump-jump. And all that trite, again.

Sadly, my stupidity did not end there. I got me and my friends cheated the moment we stepped foot on Thai soil!!! As we were pushing our trolley out, we saw people beckoning to us from behind a counter that read "Airport Taxi". The glint in their eyes served to swerve us away from them once, but like I said, we were duped. A second counter full of people with the same glint and over-eager smiles were lying in wait for us next to the exit. I really should've listened to my gut instinct and walked on, but I was worried about having to eat humble pie should we have to come back to them again, so we handed over the 700 baht (not inclusive of the additional 60 we had to pay for the highway toll), but not without some amount of uncertainty. That came up to about 10 sing pax, which isn't very ex by Singaporean standards, but I'm guessing there's a very good reason why there was that hungry glint in those people's eyes. And the most pathetic thing? I only realised why I'd felt so unsure when our limo drove past the normal city "taxi meter" cabs. I was quite pissed, at the airport staff but most of all with myself, for failing to see the dupe that was about to happen. That man must've been laughing inside when I shot back a defensive "No" when he asked if this was our first time in the country. All the way to the bank. I was duly rapped on the knuckles by my dad when I called him that night, because I really should've known better. (But that didn't stop me from nursing my bruised ego with the retort: "You told me so long ago!") What I lousy guide to my friends I was.

But ah, I'm willing to let that go. After all, Bangkok treated us quite well, as you, dear blog reader, will find out soon. One of the first things we did once we checked into our room was to, in Daph's words, "season" the mattress.



But we were focused girls, so we didn’t waste much time on stuff that ate into our shopping time. Our first stop: Pratunam, land of the Wholesale Price.

But not before Ching reports to her boyfriend.



And also, lunch.



In Thailand the food courts operate on a coupon system: no money is actually exchanged when you buy your food, all payment is made at a counter, and you pay for your food with coupons of equivalent monetary value. All unused coupons at the end of your meal you get a refund. It's a really cheap way of settling mealtimes, but not the most appetising of choices (although when I was last there in December, all our meals were decent enough for us to continue scrimping money this way – all the better to shop with!). The two prawns in my tom yum fried rice dry were black, soft and crumbly, having been left on display with nothing but some ice to sit upon for jeez knows how long. Suffice to say, this was the first and last time we ate at a food court in our four-day stay.

Now at this juncture I must add that we really didn't have many photos taken whilst shopping, because of the aforementioned reason that we are Very Focused Girls. But here's a picture taken while we were on the Skytrain there (which was a mistake, because we ended up having to walk quite a distance, due to my miscalculations. The Skytrain, by the way, worked very much like the way our trains did before the days of EZLink-to-your-not-so-small-change) :



Wow, looks like I've inadvertently given a blow-by-blow. Tune in next time for Day Two of our fumbles and wumbles!