The Thai Adventure Begins

Jim Thomspon House in Bangkok

Friday, November 18, 2016

Our flight landed around 10:30 am Thailand time. After exchange money for Thai Baht, getting Steph a visa, and heading through a painless immigration process, we were on our way to the big city.

Very early on in taxi ride to the hotel, the reputation for terrible traffic was proved correct. Lots of traffic jams, accidents, and broken down cars littered our path. Especially once we got within the city limits, some streets were gridlocked.

View from our hotel of Bangkok skyline

After checking into the Grand Hyatt Erwan Bangkok, which was located in an upscale commercial district, we headed to a nearby shopping mall for some lunch. We were obviously overexcited for our first authentic Thai meal, so we over-ordered, but the food was tasty.

We decided to work off the meal by walking nearly a mile to our first destination even though the weather was already over 90 degrees and extremely humid. The Jim Thompson House is a museum built out of an American entrepreneur’s Thai-inspired home, which holds his local art collection. We took a guided tour of the home and property, which was interesting.

One of the many outdoor markets in Bangkok

After we left the museum, we decided to reward ourselves for the recent sweaty walk, and the many hours of travel with an hour foot/neck/back massage. Wanting to protect our newly pampered feet, we hopped on the train for two stops instead of walking back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel, we cooled off with an evening swim, took a lengthy walk around the nearby night markets, grabbed some street food for dinner, and got to bed around 10pm. Considering the lack of sleep and drastic time zone changes while flying, I was very impressed how much we were able to do today and how we stuck to a normal time schedule in local time. Sleeping in our first bed since Tuesday night, we had a great night’s rest.

Near the hotel in Bangkok at night