Bangkok, Thailand Days 4 to 5

This post is originally for Days 4 to 5 which are January 30th to 31st.  I've now back in the cold north of planet Earth.

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.

Phuket, Thailand Days 1 to 3

I'm in Phuket right now, arrived on Thursday 26th of January.  The last time I was here was pre-tsunami days, so it's been a while.  I flew from Norway to Singapore for Chinese New Year and now I'm in Thailand.

This post is an entry in progress, so I'll be updating it later with photos and what not.  Meanwhile, I'm just writing whatever's coming to my mind, and whatever I can remember. :)

Day 1

An early morning flight from Singapore to Bangkok was 2 hours followed by another 2 hour stopover.  The flight to Phuket was delayed by an hour or so, and so I didn't get here till closer to 3pm.  The ride to the hotel was about another hour by mini bus, and that cost 150 baht, about 6 Singapore Dollars.  There were a lot of people on the plane, at least a lot more than I remembered the last time I came here.  Checked in at about 4pm close to 5pm.  Had a shower after checking in Dinner at Patong Seafood (about 900 baht for 4 dishes and 2 servings of rice, about 26 Singapore Dollars) and Haagen Daaz ice cream (250 baht for 2 scoops of ice cream, about 10 Singapore Dollars, but you have to include the service charge of 10% and 7% charge for GST, it's exactly like Singapore).  After dinner I bought water at the supermarket close to the hotel.  Water from the tap here is not drinkable.  Last night I saw brown water coming out of my tap.  Not good.

View from the hotel with swimming pool and palm trees

Dinner

Haagen Daaz along Thanon Taweewpmg, Patong

Day 2

I set my alarm for 8:30 and woke up at that time.  Except I had forgotten to adjust the timezone to local time so really I woke up at 7:30.  Haha!  But that was good.  After buffet breakfast, I walked to the open market located close to hotel, literally across the road, and shopped and haggled over prices of clothes.  You have to bargain here when you shop.  If you're European that's not something you're used to.  But if you don't do it, you will get ripped off.  You have to cut the prices quoted to you by 50% at least.  And then work your way up from there.  If the seller doesn't want to budge, just walk away and if you provide something reasonable usually they'll ask you to come back, if not well then you probably quoted too little.  There's no way they would sell to you if you're not making a buck anyway.  So either way they will make some money even though they say they give you a "special price" or "their boss will kill them".  What I can't stand in these markets are the endless endless store sellers telling you to come into their stores to buy stuff, i.e. the constant patronising (Although I can appreciate when someone says my hair is sexy, but calling me a friend come on...).  Lunch was at the nearby shopping centre, I had some noodles that cost me 100 baht (4 Singapore dollars).  I was there to scout prices in order to find out what a "fair price" was at the open market.  Prices in the shopping centre are more or less the same in Singapore, make sense since all of it is retail.  Walking to the shopping centre from the hotel you get to see the life that make up Phuket.  Namely, tattoo parlours, restaurants, massage parlours, day trips around Phuket, beggars, taxi drivers, the smells, scenes of undisposed garbage, buildings, trees, greenery, numerous signs in English, Chinese, Thai and Russian (Oh yeah there's many Russians and Chinese here.  And Norwegians too, but I suppose the language isn't as widely spoken as the others.) and the signs about watching Thai boxing.  The hotel has a pool for its guests, so I utilized that in the afternoon after going back to the open market after lunch.  Just before dinner I took a walk at the beach.  Looking at the beach just made me wonder what it was like when the tsunami waves first appeared.  They have designed tsunami evacuation routes now and you can see those signs along the beach now.  Dinner followed after the walk, which was at the hotel as well, it was Asian buffet night.  Oh the hotel bar has happy hour here where the drinks are half price from 5pm to 8pm.  Walked back to the shopping centre after that because I wanted a foot massage but it was full so instead I booked a package for an elephant trek the next day that included a snake and a monkey show.  Watched 500 days of summer after that which was a DVD rental at the hotel.  The last time I came here they only provided video tapes. :)  But the DVDs in the hotel are all pirated copies, i.e. duplicates, not recordings off the cinema but still.  I guess original stuff here is hard to come by.  But you can buy a apartment for 20000 euros!

Patong Beach

Dinner

Day 3

Early start at 730 again.  Buffet breakfast was followed by mini van pick up to the place where the elephants were.  That took about half an hour.  There was a Chinese couple with their child and a Malaysian man.  I eavesdropped on their conversation, well it was more like I could not help it since they were talking pretty much next to me.  The Malaysian man had arrived the night before and travelled alone and the Chinese couple were at Krabi before they arrived in Phuket.  They were pretty much just talking about cost of living in China vs Thailand and saying how it was about the same.  The Malaysian guy says it's a bit cheaper living here  compared to Malaysia.  Things like that. :)

I'll post photos of the trek here soon. You shouted "pai" if you wanted the elephant to move forward. And there was a word for stop but I could not remember for now. :)

And photos of the snake and monkey show. They had different snakes including the king cobra. There was a little circular area which acted as a stage and you could go down and well, touch or provoke the snakes if you wanted to. Or dared to. :) The snake handler is in the same area in case something bad happens.

The monkey show had a monkey named petey that rode on a bike and performed things like picking numbers from a pile of tiles numbered 0 to 9, sit ups and push ups and he could also put his hands together to say thank you. Hmm wonder how much he was tortured in order to learn the things he knows.

Lunch was at the same shopping centre as yesterday, in the same food court. After that I had a fish spa and a foot back and shoulder massage. Then walked to another part of the shopping centre and went to a shooting gallery using rifles. That was fun. It was like shooting a bulls eye with concentric circles. I scored a bullseye out of 15 shots, which is a 10. Had another swim at the hotel after that, then it was non alcoholic drinks at the bar and seafood buffet dinner at one of the hotel restaurants.

Will update this post later with photos.

On the way to the elephant trek

Russian writing, many Russians visit Phuket

There's our ride right there

Living quarters of the staff working there?

The snake show

That's a cobra

That's a king cobra, if you get bitten, you have 15 minutes before you're RIP

Me carrying a non venomous snake

Me and my distant relative

The monkey praying to Google to set him free

Doing push ups

Asking for donations, it's hard work being a monkey in Phuket

Updated with photos (9th Feb 2012)

Riga, Latvia Day 2

This post is originally for Dec 10th 2011.  I've been busy with travelling here there and everywhere so I haven't had time but now I've finally got some time to so here I go!

I woke up quite early as I had to go pick up a friend at the bus terminal. This was around 7am or so. But the bus was late so I ended up hanging around the hotel until 8. I had a huge apple which I bought the night before from a fruit and vegetable shop along Aleksandra Čaka iela. I've never had an apple this big.

Around 11am or so, we walked around Riga's old town (Vecriga in Latvian). Very old, picturesque buildings and architecture.  I even found Santa's clothes.  He lives in Latvia too!!

Preparing for Christmas deliveries around the globe

St Peter's Tower

House of the Blackheads, reconstructed in 1995 after being bombed by the Germans in 1941.

The weather wasn't very good that morning and it began to rain shortly after.  So we sought refuge in Riga Cathedral, this was close to noon.  There was an organ concert so we stayed and watched that and then walked around the church courtyard which housed some old artifacts along its perimeter.

Church altar

Really old clockface

Courtyard

The weather was a bit better after that.  We walked around some more and had some hot wine in a little cafe that had a red tent.

We just walked around after that and went back to the hotel to rest a bit before heading out for dinner.  Caught a tram to the Lido Recreation Centre which was a tram ride that took half an hour or so.  There were a lot of people and we had to wait a while before getting our food.  It's like the Marche restaurant.  You pick what you want and then pay at the counter.

Potatoe pancake, chicken, salmon, some salad, yoghurt and the drink kvass. :)

The outside of the restaurant.  Or part of it.

They have little houses like these around the place that were stalls selling trinkets or housed some form of entertainment.  There was also a stage somewhere and it had some people in costumes dancing as entertainment for kids.

There was an ice skating rink too but we didn't ice skate then, even though I would've liked to but anyway, we caught the tram back to the hotel around 7ish, watched a movie "Soul Kitchen" and that summed up the night.