Monday 21 November 2011

Thailand. Day 1.


I have arrived. 
And it's great!

I have however made lots of mistakes and wrong decisions - that's something i understood immediately after being picked up by a guide at the airport. I don't like to and don't want to travel like that, but that's the price i have to pay for... well, for not paying for the vacation. My mom decided to take me with her and basically paid the whole thing, but she insisted on taking guides, programs, tours etc which i'm not really fond of.  I like doing it on my own: planning where and when to go, and - especially - why go here or there, i like having my own pace, maybe also my own rules and be able to start the day when i want and not when you get a wake up call from your guide. So this i realized during the first 5 minutes. Kept it to myself, but still, it started ruining the mood. However, i will survive! 
The moment our guide started talking to us in russian i had to bite into my lip - that's something i explicitly didn't want to have. I speak russian rather badly and do not like the language, so i never want to have it on my vacation. Because of this we were considering flying from Germany, but my mom wanted to save some time and asked me to come to Lithuania to fly from there, also, the travel office assured us guide speaks english and not russian. That was the second moment where i thought how foolish it was to book the whole thing instead of buying a round-trip ticket and just taking it from there. Whatever - i will survive. Besides, after he talked the whole time when we were driving to the hotel and i understood at least half of it, i thought it's not as bad since i can kind of practice my russian. 

My phone got stolen in Lithuania, so i'm not able to call anyone in case of emergency or when/if i get lost, but that's ok, there's worse than that. At least i thought until the moment we figured out that my mom's phoneS are not functioning, so we're doomed. Also, my mom's luggage was messed up inside, so someone was there and the lock is broken, so she can open it just through the side and pull everything out. But that does happen and still it gets on your mood. 
The hotel for these two days is terrible. And i don't have free wi-fi so i have to pay for it which is way too expensive to do that regularly.

Our dumb-ass guide didn't really have a plan for this evening for us... And that's where it started to go better. I was back in my own shoes! I could decide where and how to go, so we took the tube to the city centre and just WALKED and watched. It took us pretty long till we got to city centre since we started walking at a park pretty far away from the "real" lively city, but we did arrive... The whole city is full of cars, cats, markets and noises. And it's awesome! It's simply interesting to just walk around, enjoy the wind every now and then which comes from hell knows where and observing Bangkok's flow. I liked just watching people doing their own thing. It reminded me of Tokyo a little bit, however it's way dirtier and has more chaos. But there's so many people on the streets, so many lights, cars, buzzing, shouting, talking - and i could go for ever. 


If you just go down the streets, don't forget to keep your nose active - it's quite cool to sniff around, cause they have all kinds of things on the streets: fruits, vegetables, warm meals, things on a grill. Although unfortunately they have dramatical amounts of meat which makes it difficult for me. I am still teasing my mom about grilled rats and frogs and she's completely freaking out when she hears that. But she was brave enough to buy some mango on the street which was heavenly! And they do wear gloves. Not that i care, but my mom is a little bit freak when it comes to food on the street. I was rather surprised when she came to me and offered me that mango. At the beginning, it was quite tricky to find a place to eat, b ut we did find a nice cozy place at the end. Thai food or any food cooked in Thailand is fucking HOT - i can tell that. But if you have blended watermelon drink, you'll be alright. That's a must for me now the second they have it on the menu - blended watermelon drink!!! 


I got immensely happy after entering a random super market and then - a little bit upset. I found lots of japanese products which made me feel really warm and fuzzy inside, as if i were "at home" in Japan. I had to have some of it and didn't even look at the price, which (afterwards i did check the receipt) was almost the same as in Japan. The whole feeling was also a little bit similar expect for the dirtiness which i mentioned above. It's poorer than Tokyo but i unconsciously had to compare those two cities, especially knowing that i'm just 5000 km from Tokyo!!! Some things are just similar and because of that i could feel quite well in Bangkok from the first minute. Of course i know shit about the city, but i didn't feel completely foreign to it. 
I am a little bit disappointed in their english, cause they barely can speak which causes problems at the shops or when asking for information. I am a little bit worried about food i order, so i won't order anything that even looks like it might be with meat, because if i ask them whether it's with or without meat, they will just smile and bow but say nothing. 

In the evening we ended up at the highest building in Bangkok and we went up to 84th floor, which was a really nice experience - the last floor moves around so you can just stand there and watch the city from above. And then you go down to buzzing markets and pink taxis (forgot to take a picture of it...) and go shopping! Lord, are those prices over here cheap or are they cheap??? For the first time i picked something i really like, bought it and didn't have to worry about its price. 

I hope to find some more markets later on and get some native clothing or accessories. Most of the small shops and market vendors were already closed today, because we didn't have much time left after arriving at the hotel and had to do all of this in the evening, but we still had great day despise the terrible start. Today we had just couple of hours in Bangkok and tomorrow our guide is taking over, so we're ready for sightseeing but won't have any free time. I'm tired after those couple of hours, but the feeling you get when you approach your hotel with golden doors and pass all the mercedeses in a tuktuk (an open motorbike-taxi-thingy) just cannot be better. 


I'm ready for more Thailand, bring it on! Because: Live Like You 
Mean It! 





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