Day 4
Today was check out day. The flight to Bangkok was at 1:30pm arriving into Bangkok at 3pm. Not sure what time I woke up, probably around 9am. I had mainly fruit for breakfast as I was sick, suffering from food poisoning, so that wasn't good. It had started the night before. I had no idea what I had that caused the food poisoning, since everything that I ate was cooked. After checking out, the bell boy tried to rip me off by saying 700 baht was a cheap price to the airport. Now let's wait a minute here, a one way ticket to the hotel from the airport cost 150 baht per person. Eventually I found a private cab that cost 600 baht. Which is still a rip off but I didn't have time to argue or bargain. Just checking in was a challenge, the line up at the airport was quite bad. Plus my food poisoning visits to the bathroom didn't help. I had to go several times on the plane, at the airport in Phuket, and after the landing in Bangkok.
Getting a taxi to the hotel we had to pay 2 tolls, one was 50 baht, the other was 48 baht, plus the normal cab fare (around 220 baht), and another 50 baht to the taxi driver. Arrival time at the hotel was close to 6pm and I spent the rest of the night lying in bed with a fever, throwing up, taking medicine, and wondering if I was going to get well the next day. Falling sick during holidays isn't an ideal way to spend a holiday. Dinner was biscuits and water. I didn't feel like eating.
Here's photos taken around the hotel just before checking out in Phuket.
In memory of the tsunami victims
Some sort of altar, it's located opposite the memorial plate above
Around the hotel
View from Baiyoke Sky hotel in Bangkok, 30th floor. It's the tallest building in Thailand.
Late afternoon
And at night...
Day 5
I felt a lot better today, well enough to get out of the hotel. The plan was to take some photos around the hotel, check out then go to Platinum shopping mall which is located about 200 metres away from the hotel.
Photos taken on the 84th floor in the hotel which features a revolving viewpoint.
Bangkok's pretty hazy because of the pollution. Not the best views ever.
The next couple of photos are taken on the 77th floor, it's like a little exhibit area.
When Godzilla comes into town
I don't look too bad here
The cycle rickshaw
After taking photos it was time to check out. The mall was located 200 metres away but getting through the traffic was plain insane. There was only a small road and all sorts of people and vehicles going up and down this road! The lane is no bigger than 4 to 5 metres in width. There were motorcycles, cars, people setting up stalls on the road, all along this small tiny lane, and there were a lot of people walking through. There were stalls all along the side of the road too. It was congested. Controlled madness if you want to call it that, bordering on the edge of chaos.
At at the end of the road, you cross an overhead bridge, and from there lo and behold, the crazy traffic of Bangkok.
The Platinum shopping mall is on the right. It's a mall selling all sorts of consumable items, mostly clothes at warehouse prices. At the top floor there's a really cheap foodcourt. I had some noodles that cost me 35 baht, in Phuket it cost me 100 baht!! Anyway... the next couple of hours were spent window shopping. I bought a Phuket postcard here that I gave away, it was a really nice card too. Hope the recipient is happy with it. The problem with buying clothes is that everything is free size and the free sizes aren't very big in Thailand, so it's hard for Europeans or Westerners in general to buy clothes in Asia. Generally speaking.
The flight back to Singapore was at 7:25pm, so around 4ish or so I caught a cab to the airport. The way from the hotel to the airport is a lot cheaper, since you only go through 1 toll road which is 48 baht. The taxi driver again attempted to give me a "special cheap price" of 300 baht to which I said I'll give you 230 baht. He refused, and turned on the taxi meter instead. Arriving into the airport the final bill was 220 baht. He even asked me for 2 baht when the meter just ticked over before stopping. :) Boy I bet he sure wished he had taken up my offer even though it was just 10 baht more! One thing is for sure, I sure do "feel special" in Thailand with all these "cheap special prices" being offered to me.
At the airport I had dinner, and just walked around the airport. I've been there several times during the last few weeks so it wasn't very exciting. Not that airports are exciting to begin with!
The rest of my time spent in Singapore will be in another post. The plane was delayed from Bangkok by about an hour, so instead of arriving at about 11pm, the arrival time was close to midnight.
Holy smog alert batman!
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