How to spend a 24hr stopover in Bangkok

Ok, so I really need to be more careful with booking my flights.

Normally I would have been comfortable arriving in Phuket on a one-way ticket and then decide where to go next on impulse, but I booked my outbound flight from Phuket to Taipei while I was still in Berlin with two things in mind:

1. I wasn’t sure how strict customs would be about arriving without an outbound ticket in Phuket.
2. I wanted to be in Phuket for at least 8 weeks total to really have time to focus on my health. Because I was relying on the “visa on arrival” scheme I would only get 30 days stay so I knew I had to do a visa-run anyway.

I postponed organising this very important flight out of Phuket to the last minute — the day before I flew out of Germany, hell I even organised my accommodation in Phuket that day too. If I leave things to the last minute before I commit I feel like I make the eventual decision with more data than if I had made it earlier. At least this is what I tell myself. Maybe I just like the thrill.

And I thought I had done a good job too, I paid attention to the amount of stopovers and found a nice cheap flight (about 100 Euro) with only one stopover in Bangkok. Not bad ja? Nein.

So first problem is that I didn’t pay attention to the departure time from Phuket: 23:55. Yep. Midnight.

My checkout time was 11:00 that morning so I had to lug around my bags the whole day. I spent the day abusing the courtesy and free wifi of a lovely nearby brunch cafe. Now 8 hours is a long time to spend in a cafe in Phuket (it wouldn’t be a problem at all if it were Seoul). I ended up having breakfast, lunch, 3 Americanos and 2 smoothies — altogether far more calories and spending than my austere lifestyle would usually afford.

I did however get some good reading time in (I finished reading “The Martian” — great book!) and I got some of my freelance work done too. Luckily, by about 7pm it starts raining like the world is going to end and the taxi driver escorting me the 45 minute trip through the storm drives as though he is mad max being chased down fury road.

But all good. I arrive at the airport safely — I even thank the driver — and made my way to the nearest wall socket to plug-in for the next 3 or 4 hours before I could check-in. Fortunately the airport has a really nice free wifi sign-in system whereby you just need to provide you name, passport number, and email-address before they email you the internet login credentials. I must have been tired, because I actually got through the entire signup process before the I realised that whomever setup this system was either a fucking idiot or had a twisted sense of humour.

After some looking around I found that there was a Burger King which offered its own free wifi with any purchase, so somehow I end up sitting in front of a Whopper meal with a coke and hating myself for the extra shitty calories I was adding to the day.

But I had connected to the internet! I wasn’t even mad that it took 2 minutes and several hundred page refreshes before the Googles loaded — I was surprised I didn’t hear a dial-tone before it connected. I did however manage to get Twitter loaded long enough to ask for any suggestions as to what would be a good way to spend a full day stop-over in Bangkok.

Ah, yes. I forgot to tell you about the second problem with my ticket purchase. I had only the 1 stopover in Bangkok, but the second leg of the flight from Bangkok to Taipei was the following day at 23:30. I had no intention of spending 24hours in the airport, so I needed to reach out to the twitter-sphere and ask for recommendations on how to best turn my 24 hour wait into 24 hour great! Fortunately I got a reply from @levelsio recommending a place to check out for some world class street food — I had a plan!

At 10pm I head over to check-in when I realise and find out that my ticket does not include check-in baggage, so I need to fork out another 900 baht. Then make it through customs pretty quickly and before you know it I am on a jet plane en route to Bangkok.

I arrive at Bangkok airport at 1am, and I am just exhausted — even with the extra calories and sugar overdose from the day before. I picked up my luggage and tried to find a good place in the airport to catch a couple hours sleep, but there were about a hundred other people in the same situation and all the chairs were taken. After about an hour of trying to use my bag as a pillow on the cold floor I thought fuck it, and pulled out my phone to lookup a cheap hotel to spend the day in.

I normally wouldn’t be super fussed about missing the sleep, figuring I could just sleep when I arrived in Taipei, but the owner of the room I found on Airbnb told me there were other guests that wouldn’t check-out until 1pm. That means I am scheduled to arrive in Taipei at 3am and will have to keep myself occupied for 8 hours before I can check-in and finally sleep and shower. So, to avoid all that sleep deprivation I am really making sure I get some rest while I am in Bangkok.

I looked up hotels nearby that offered “day rooms” and found a really nice looking candidate: it was super close to the airport “only 5 minutes walk”, and was only 800 baht. They even offered “day rooms” with 6am check-in and 11pm check-out and also had an airport pickup/drop-off service. I know! Perfect ja? Nein.

After I paid for the the booking I received an email with the phone number of the hotel so I could call and ask for my airport pickup. It took a few laps of walking up and down the airport before I found a payphone and called them — their site boasted 24 hour reception.

The gentleman who answered the phone luckily did speak some English, but seemed utterly pissed about having to talk to someone on the phone at 2am. I ask him for the airport pickup and let him know my booking number. Then, would you believe it, he tells me that they have no “day rooms” available and the soonest I could check in would be 1pm!

I don’t know if you have had the experience of arguing with someone with broken english over shitty payphone connection at 2am in the morning, but it was not pleasant at all. I finally managed to get him to agree to letting me check in at 11am, and he tells me he will be at the airport with my name on a sign to pick me up just before that time.

Well, I mean 11am is better than 1pm (by 2 hours if my math checks out), and it would still let me get some sleep in during the day — hell if I can somehow get a few hours sleep in the airport before 11am then I would have time for a couple hours sleep at the hotel, plus a nice shower, plus somewhere to keep my bags while I go checkout the street food I had been recommended. That’s not such a bad result.

I find my way to the nearest power outlet to keep my phone charged with an alarm set for 10:50 in the naive optimism that I will get some sleep. The woman with the screaming child isn’t helping, and at 10:50 I am in still in some kind of zombie awake state while my alarm spitefully goes off.

I get up and start walking around looking for my airport pickup. More laps of this airport. 2 hours later, it occurs to me that my airport pickup is not coming. Rather than try to call them again (it was so pleasant last time) I decide to just catch a taxi there. I go to the taxi counter and show them the address on my on my phone in the email confirmation and they quote me 1,000 baht taxi fare. 1,000 baht!? That is more than I paid for the room! Screw that. I say no thanks and tell them I will just walk there. The lady frowns and tells me no way can I walk there, it would take an hour even by taxi. This is obviously confusing me, surely this lady is not talking about the hotel 5 minutes away which I had booked? I begin to realise what has happened and I turn and walk back to the payphone like the terminator and call the hotel demanding answers.

The manager informed me that the hotel I had booked had no more rooms available when I paid, but that their other hotel had rooms so they just accepted the booking and charged me. I stand with the phone in my hand speechless for a while not really hearing the mumbling from the other side before I just hang up. Ok, it is 1pm and it looks as though I am not going to be enjoying that shower and sleep today.

I know, first world problems right?

Fuck it. It is 1pm, I haven’t slept in 28 hours, I am in Bangkok for another 11 hours and god help me, I am going to try that damn street food.

I smell like shit and I am still carrying around both of my bags, so I find the nearest information booth and ask where I can find a luggage locker and a shower. The luggage locker ends up about 75baht per bag for the day, and as for the shower I am told “no shower, use toilet!”.

Fuck it, when in Bangkok, amirite? I waltz over to the mens room, strip off down to my baby suit and have a wash in the middle of the room using the sink and hand wash. I use one of the clean shirts in my bag as a towel and put some fresh clothes on, and am honestly not giving a single fuck about the stunned faces of everyone that walks in and wonders why there is a naked Australian with hand-wash foam all over his body. When the cleaning lady comes in and stares at me I simply tell her “no shower, use toilet!”. She just nods goes about her business.

Smelling a little bit cleaner and feeling a bit better, I head to the bag lockers and give them one of my bags. I am not feeling comfortable giving up the bag with my laptop in it, I am paranoid about losing it and I might find a nice cafe in town to get some work done.

800 baht and a 50 minute taxi drive later I am at Sukhumvit 38 and ready for the promised ambrosia. The taxi driver asks me if I am sure I want to get out here and gives me a strange look before driving off, which makes me feel slightly uncomfortable. Also, it is damn it is hot. Also, where the fuck is the street food?

Swear to god. I am walking up and down this street and all the nearby streets dripping in sweat and there is no fucking street food in sight apart from a couple Japanese ramen places. Fortunately though I did find a really nice brunch cafe. Resigned to the fact that I would not be enjoying street food I decided this cafe would be my home for the day.

Damn, this place was really posh. I had one of their brunch meals — eggs, salmon, ham, berries, avocado, spinach and a coffee. The wifi worked well also and I made sure to sit next to a power supply, the only problem was that it wasn’t the “buy a meal then spend 5 hours on your laptop” kind of brunch cafe, and there were plenty of people waiting for a table. As soon as I finished my meal they quickly gave me the cheque and took my dishes. Fortunately I have a black-belt in cafe-work-fu so I handed them back the bill and said, I would like another coffee please. I pulled out my laptop and got to work, taking my time with drinking that coffee.

3 coffees and 4 hours later I have gotten some work done and the cafe is closing. It is about 7pm so I ask them to call me a taxi back to the airport, that means I should get there at about 8pm which is very early, but I can probably get some work done while I wait the few hours before check-in time.

While in the taxi I get a strange feeling. I don’t recognise the way he is going as the way I came in — and I have an unnaturally good sense of direction which I have learned to trust. After confirming several times that we are in-fact going to the airport we arrive at somewhere which is in-fact definitely not the airport. It is a train station. After some awkward body language I understand that I can catch a train from this station that will take me to the airport and it will have been faster and cheaper than if he had driven me — what a great guy! I pay him the 100 baht fare and thank him.

I get out and walk into the station and ask someone in a uniform where I have to go, he points to the elevator and says “level 5, level 5” while holding up 4 fingers. I smile and get into the elevator and see there are only 3 levels. 30 minutes of searching later and I am finally on the damn train and heading towards the airport. In total, including taxi and train fair, the trip ends up costing me 140 baht and was indeed much faster than the 1 hour and 800 baht taxi trip out, so I am feeling altogether pretty happy about things.

I arrive at the airport and my phone automatically connects to the internet so I jump on the wifi to confirm my flight time and number. I can’t see my flight yet on the display boards in the terminal, but I am still very early so I will just check it again around 10pm. Meanwhile I have not forgotten that I need to retrieve my luggage from the locker. But this airport must be huge, because I don’t recognise anything! I walk up and down and around all the floors of the airport for about half an hour before finally finding an information desk to ask where is the damn luggage locker is when I am told the great news. Apparently there are 2 airports in Bangkok, and I am at the wrong fucking one.

Shit! I must have arrived at the domestic airport this morning seeing as I came from Phuket and now this must be the international airport I am at. It is 8:30pm, and the information desk lady informs me that it will take a 1 hour taxi ride each way to go to the other airport and back. My flight leaves at 11:30. That is cutting it way too close!

I decide to take a seat and give myself a full minute to breathe and calm down. Then I stand up and run down 3 floors to the taxi bay and ask the driver to get me to the other airport as fast as possible (please).

In the taxi I look again carefully at my ticket and breathe a sigh of relief, it is not as bad as I thought. I realise that actually my flight to Taipei does in fact leave from the other airport, so I won’t need to make a round trip back to this airport again, thus saving me an hour. Actually, it means I will be right on time.

On the way there I think about a couple things:

1. That was probably the airport that my morning pickup was looking for me at.
2. How the actual fuck did my phone connect to the wifi?
3. I was damn lucky that I checked my luggage into the locker in the morning, or I might have waited until 10pm like an idiot waiting for my flight number to show up on the screen.

Anyway, 1,000 baht taxi fare and an hour later I am at the other airport and have my luggage safely from the lockers. I have checked-in to my flight, cleared customs and am writing this recap from the comfort of seat 61A with legroom galore. It has been 40 hours since I’ve slept and another 10hours or so before I can check in to my hotel I better wrap this up and get some shut-eye before we land. Wish me luck!

Next muffin.