"basking in the bangkok sun" a Bangkok Travel Page by zephyrgurl108

my bangkok trip will go down in my travel history claiming many firsts:
- first trip to southeast asian country (except philippines but that's where i'm from)
- first int'l trip without my husband (we've been to japan, macau, philippines together)
- first int'l trip from shenzhen airport (usually fly from hong kong or macau)
- first int'l trip where i used my new canon 400D dslr. sweet!

for all these things, bangkok will always be one of the most memorable things for me.

i researched my trip to bangkok like i was doing a phd on rocket science. i bought a lonely planet, i scoured website, i posted questions on forums, i downloaded and printed brochures. i asked tips from everyone i know who has been to bangkok. i even created a 4 day itinerary, complete with names of places, address, tel. numbers, travel time, how to get there, train fares, entrance fees, etc.
i did it all for my peace of mind. i was going to a totally unfamiliar with the place, and with a travel buddy who, like me, has a really bad sense of direction. me being me though, the itinerary had a chance of not being used at all.

we used the itinerary on our first day. but towards the evening, i lost it. that's when all the adventures began. it was all good though. we really had a good time. we stayed in a wonderful indiana jones inspired hostel called suk11 in sukhumvit. we went to the most popular temples in the city, rode elephants and watched croc shows and even went to former capital ayutthaya. we also met a fellow tourist who took us on night tours of bangkok's red light district. i can't say that it was fun. but that was an eye opener.
one of our adventures. we went to the chao phraya river tour and on our way back going to the skytrain. my friend darcy and i climbed up a set of stairs only to find out that it led to the overhead highway. we turned around and saw a bunch of oldies tourists behind us. one of them asked us"where are you going?" i said "to the skytrain"
the old man said "this is not the skytrain?"
me: "no. it's the highway"
old man: "we were following you!"
made us really feel bad that the oldies group followed us and exerted so much energy climbing up to the wrong place. oh well. "we should put a sign on our back that says do not follow us," said my friend darcy.
one thing good came out of it though - i got a lovely picture of the sunset over the chao phraya river as seen here.