Thorn Tree travel forum

For first time travellers to Bangkok - my recent experiences

I trawled through this forum before my holiday to Thailand to find out info on where and wher not to stay etc.... I found a lot of useful info here and so I just wanted to pass on the favour and I hope this might be useful to someone - even though Im sure its been covered before.

Firstly. I loved Bangkok. I was there only a few days on either end of a three week holiday. It is a place which you either love or hate and as a outdoorsy type i had my doubts. However the diversity, the people and all the new sights and sounds for a westerner who has never been to Asia before was incredibly interesting. So uif your thinking of a visit but having reservations I would thoroughly recommend it.

The advice I would pass on from my recent trip is the following:

1) Despite thinking I was wise to all scams involving tuktuks and suit purveyors i was sucked in. We were making our way to visit the Grand Palace when we were stopped by an official looking guy who told us it was 'budha day' and so they had stopped selling tickets early. He pointed out on a map several other sights to visit and called over a tuk tuk to take us. Informing us it would cost 10 baht (peanuts). We knew it would be via a suit shop but oh well whats the harm.

Well the grand palace/wat po (sic?) and surrounding temples do not close for special days/budha days/because the monks are eating. Do not let anyone tell you this. Although the whole tuk tuk ride around the city was not unpleasant we missed the trip and had to come back and change our plan to go on our way back through. We were stopped no less than 8 times by what seemed to be well meaning people telling us that it was closed and pointing us off in the other direction. Luckily we were not put off this time and carried on regardless to find of course the grand palace open.

2) We spent out time there too scared to take taxis in case we were ripped off. Our experience once we did is that you could travel around very cheaply (compared to europe in any case). I only once had to remind them to turn on the meter. Compared to the tuk tuk costs and energy in negotiating it was cheap and easy.

3) Dont get put off becuase you feel like everyone is out to scam you. For everyone person who leads you astray with fibs and false information there are people who act out of goodness with no other motive but to have a chat or purely help a tourist so dont get disheartened.

i hope the tip two points might be useful to someone at least.

And a blatant plug for the guesthouse we fell upion in Kanchanaburi - Apples guest house. It was truly a find. 350 baht for a clean room with the most excellent food.

happy travelling.

Lou