We arrived in Bangkok this morning after a short sleep, in a transit motel in Taipei last night. It was a long flight to Taiwan, a little over 12 hours, but I managed to sleep a little on the plane (and also watched 3 movies!). It is a 12 hour time difference here so our sleep schedule is very off! But we have managed to stay awake so far today, so hopefully we will sleep well tonight.
It is very warm here (95 deg) and humid just as we suspected. Bangkok is very interesting so far. Pretty chaotic and terrible traffic, with tuk tuks (little motorized carts) and motos zooming in and out of lanes! Took about 20 mins to go 1.5 miles to the train station, however it only cost us $1 each! Our hostel is nice and seems very clean. We are staying in a 10 bed female dorm room and have a bathroom designated for women only. We can also lock all our stuff up and there is laundry and internet access.
We already feel slightly overwhelmed by the chaos in Bangkok and by being hustled around between tuk tuk drivers and taxis. We also feel as though we are being scammed every time we try to negotiate a price, and already a taxi took us to an "independent" train ticket office when we clearly stated we wanted to go to the actual train station to buy tickets. Speaking English here is not easy!! We definitely stand out here and it reminds me of travelling in Ghana in that we cannot go outside for a second without drawing attention. The buildings here are mostly broken down and decrepit looking, with an occasional gilded temple looking building in between. The terrain is definitely a tropical beauty though! We are now about to venture out again into the heat. Tomorrow we will see the Grand Palace and some temples, then off to the north!
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