{"id":1540,"date":"2012-01-29T17:24:53","date_gmt":"2012-01-29T11:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/blog\/?p=1540"},"modified":"2023-03-23T13:58:45","modified_gmt":"2023-03-23T08:28:45","slug":"bangkok-travel-secrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/2012\/01\/bangkok-travel-secrets\/","title":{"rendered":"Bangkok: Travel Secrets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I love Thailand! I&#8217;ve been to Bangkok on work or leisure, more than a dozen times already, and can never get enough of it. Many of my friends keep asking me for &#8220;tips&#8221; on the destination. So I thought I&#8217;d pen it down in a post, once and for all. A word of caution: A vibrant city like Bangkok keeps evolving. This advice is valid as on Jan 2012, and may be more relevant to Indian travellers that are budget-conscious, than those that travel with no limits. So, here goes&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Visa rates keep changing &#8211; Check the latest consulate webpages to factor it into your plans<\/li>\n<li>Thailand allows visa-on-arrival for many countries, but if you&#8217;re travelling with family, I&#8217;d suggest you get the paperwork done before leaving your country &#8211; The consulate is very efficient in processing visa requests<\/li>\n<li>From the airport, a cab ride into the city center will cost you about 350-400 THB plus toll fees; If you&#8217;re travelling alone, you can also consider taking the Airport Express (skytrain) to a central location<\/li>\n<li>Bangkok has terrible traffic congestion for much of the day; The fastest (and often, cheapest) way to get around is to take the <em>BTS <\/em>skytrain or underground <em>MRT<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Local SIM providers offer many options for prepaid cards with wild variations in call\/internet rates; Find out the best plan for your needs by asking more questions on sms\/call\/data charges<\/li>\n<li>If you&#8217;re travelling on work, and include some entertainment stops, research to find out if your ticket can be purchased at a discount by showing your work papers; Many places will also offer &#8220;international tourist&#8221; discounts!<\/li>\n<li>Unlike most places in India, you may not save much money by showing up at the venue and buying the ticket &#8211; Online ticket sales will probably be at the same price but include free transport to and from your hotel<\/li>\n<li>Most hotels will have &#8220;contact cards&#8221; at the reception with the hotel&#8217;s contact details and address printed in both Thai and English &#8211; Carry copies with you\u00a0since many locals do not speak\/understand English<\/li>\n<li>At most popular malls in the city, there will be a designated place to queue up for cabs\/taxis; The queues will be long during peak hours but are the quickest way to get a cab, unless you want to pay atrocious amounts for a &#8220;tuk-tuk&#8221; ride back to your hotel<\/li>\n<li>Be wary of tuk-tuks that charge you very low\u00a0fares or offer to take you for free, in exchange for a &#8220;quick stop&#8221; on the way. Google to know more on this.<\/li>\n<li>If you&#8217;re travelling with kids, do consider including <em>SafariWorld\/MarineWorld<\/em>, <em>Siam Ocean World <\/em>and <em>DreamWorld<\/em> in your itinerary; Bangkok&#8217;s <em>Dusit Zoo <\/em>is also a fun way to spend the day<\/li>\n<li>If there&#8217;s one mall you must visit during your stay, make it <em>MBK <\/em>(National Stadium); 4th floor is full of gadgets &amp; electronics, 6th floor has an inexpensive food court and the 5th floor has a newly-opened upmarket food court<\/li>\n<li><em>Siam Paragon <\/em>also has\u00a0a very good\u00a0food court on its lobby level, in addition to <em>Siam Ocean World<\/em><\/li>\n<li>If you&#8217;re a vegetarian, please check before you order; Many Asian countries include eggs, fish and chicken in their definition of &#8220;veg&#8221;!<\/li>\n<li>Thailand offers some amazing architecture, and I&#8217;d recommend <em>Wat Traimit<\/em>, <em>Wat Po <\/em>and <em>Wat Ben. <\/em>If you&#8217;re visiting temples, research the dress code &#8211; many of them do not allow shorts, sleeveless shirts and other casual wear.<\/li>\n<li>The <em>Chaophraya River Cruise <\/em>is a nice and expensive way to see all the major sights along the river while enjoying an international buffet, but you can catch a ferry at very low cost by hopping on to river taxis if you&#8217;re in the mood for some adventure<\/li>\n<li>The <em>Siam Niramit <\/em>cultural show is a musical extravaganza of very high production values (similar to the <em>Alangkarn <\/em>shown in Pattaya), but plan to reach there a few hours ahead of the show time to experience the rest<\/li>\n<li>Thai folks are warm, friendly and speak in a peculiar dialect of English &#8211; you may take a while to understand their version but when you do, it&#8217;s fun!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Remember, Bangkok can be a perfectly valid &#8220;family destination&#8221;, and is nothing like the reputation it used to enjoy some years ago (unless, of course, you go <em>looking <\/em>for it). Hope you get to experience all that it has to offer&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I love Thailand! I&#8217;ve been to Bangkok on work or leisure, more than a dozen times already, and can never get enough of it. Many<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,20],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-1540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-personal","tag-travel"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4134,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540\/revisions\/4134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}