Coffee Break Talk

Woke up by 4:30 in the morning and took bath since we had to catch a flight at 8AM to siem reap. Since we didn't know whether taxis are available at 5 am, we had asked the hotel for a taxi who charged us 500 Baht. Checked out of the hotel and went to airport by 6:30. Went in to the bangkok airways counter, got the boarding pass and moved on to the passport counter. Then through the security check and went to D5 gate. Ate the snacks I had bought previous night and then boarded the flight at 8AM. Reached Siam Reap by 9AM. Did the immigration (customs was just filling in a form and dropping it in a box on the way out) and caught taxi at taxi counter. The charge was 7$ from airport to Angkor Pearl hotel and we hired one to reach the hotel for early check-in. Unfortunately, the hotel had also sent us a tuk tuk to pick us up from Airport which we promptly missed. Asked the cab guy "huen" to wait and he charged us 30$ to show us angkor wat and angkor thom in a day. Went to th...

My flight landed in Thailand at 5:30 am on 23rd dec 2011. I could find the money changer within the airport before going to the immigration. I approached one and the attendant said "closs". I repeated "Cross???" wondering what she wanted to know. She again said "Closs". I gave her the same blank look again. She asked me "Do you speak english?" - I've never been asked this question before, so it was amusing. I asked her to write it down and she wrote "Close". Another Indian guy near me said "Oh! Close". I just smiled and moved to another money changer nearby. I got 30 Baht for a dollar. Then I went through the immigration and followed the signs to catch a taxi to my hotel. While nearing the hotel in the morning there were a lot of women standing on the pavement and the taxi driver said "boom boom" - I didn't understand then that this word is going to haunt us for the rest of the trip. The taxi counter said I ...

Trip Preparation: News that Thailand was hit by a massive flood two months before our scheduled departure was big concern. This happened right after we booked our flights and the hotels. I was reading bangkok post regularly and monitoring the staus of the relief work to assess whether we could visit the tourist places in and around bangkok. My friend Joseph was concerned (read paranoid) about the post-flood diesease outbreaks in Thailand that he took half a dozen vaccination shots before visiting. On the other hand, I was sporting a "If I could live so long in India, I can survive anywhere" attitude. Our plan initially was to reach bangkok, assemble there and go to Cambodia by road. We had planned to  cross the border at Aranyaprathet  on our way to Siem Reap in Cambodia and then come back to bangkok from Phnom Penh at the end of trip by flight. My friends and I had planned to apply visa for both Thailand and Cambodia to avoid any hass...