Day 3 - Dubai - Bangkok

Dear all,

 

We took the night flight from Dubai to Bangkok. There was mainly two reasons to choose this flight:

1. We would have a longer stopover in Dubai, allowing us to explore the city (it was Marta's first time in Dubai);
2. We would be flying the A380.

The flight was due to depart at 22h35 and arrive the next morning to Bangkok.

Our gate to bangkok

It is impressive the amount of people that the A380 can carry. After passing the boarding pass control, you go down to some waiting room, where you are seated according to zones to make it easier the boarding procedures.

Our seats were on the lower deck, few rows after the cockpit. Also maybe because the location was ahead of the engines, the flight was really smooth and "quiet" (if you compare it with the B777 or the A330, the A380 is a much more quiet aircraft). Our ride today was A6-EES and we were cruising at 39.000 feet.

The IFE (in flight entraitainment system) it is considered on of the best in the aviation industry and in the case of A380 it has the tail camera, allowing the passenger to see what it is happening outside, wich is great!

Flying eastbound has the advantage of having faster sunrises, unfortunatly it was quite cloudy.

Sunrise on the way to Bangkok

The approach to Bangkok took us close enough to the city for a first glimps of it:

Bangkok seen from the A380

Soon we landed in Bangkok and Peter Lamb reached its 30th country (still WAYYYYY too many places I wanna be!).

We stopped by a currency exchange office to change some euros into Thai Bath, the local currency. The exchange rate is about 40 bath for each Euro.

We headed to immigration and we have noticed that for some nationalities (including Latvia), you must get a visa on arrival, which is a different zone at the airport and you need to have some passport type picture. Total cost of picture + Visa was 1300 bath, which is about 34 Euro.

I stayed close to the counter to see if Marta would have any problem to pass through it, after all you only get 15 days visa, amd our flight back is way after that. She showed that we have a flight booked out of Cambodja, so it was easy for her to pass through security.

I headed to my line on the next hall, and JESUS, what a crazy amount of people standing on the line to go through immigration! I spent about 1h45 minutes to have my entry stamp on the passport!

When I met Marta again, she already had the bike boxes and our luggage on the trolley, so we went out of the airport as soon as possible.

We have found a spot on the arrivals hall to assemble our bikes.

Peter Lamb assembling his bike

Assembling bikes always brings curious people around :)

People were nice and friendly, asking where were we comming from and about our travelling plans.

One of the friendly family that approached us for a bit of chatting was Shraddha's family, with whom we took the next picture:

Marta, Shraddha & Peter Lamb

After changing into our cycling clothes, it was time to find a way to the city!

Marta & Peter Lamb about to start cycling

We tryed to ask in the airport which was the best way to reach the city by bicycle, but all we got was a bunch of smiles and the answer "I do not know!".

Fair enough, we will find a way!

Leaving the airport is not easy, with so many motorways heading to the city and we were cycling a bit randomly, trying to find the easiest way. Temperature was about 30 degrees, which is quite a lot for Marta and we need to get used to this climate. We stopped here and there to look at a small map we have and even asked some people, but it was not much of an help.

After a while we found a very nice green cycling path, but it was nice we did not find a way to reach it, as we have been told later that this cycling path is only around the airport.

After about 45 minutes of cycling, we found a Scottish cycler, who helped us a bit with the navigation and made us sure that would be the best road to reach the city!

Peter & Marta already in Bangkok

The road thst took us to the city center passed close to a park (Lumphini Park), where we seized to rest a bit and find some more water. Afterall, we have not slept at all during the flight.

First impressions about the city (loads of traffic, with a lot of scooters/motorbikes, almost no bicycles, tuktuks everywhere, pink taxis, green and yellow taxis, very old buses, loads of pollution on the roads, A LOT of power cables hanging on the streets, and streetfood everywhere). Price for water is 10 bath (0,25€) for a 600 ml cold water bottle!

Peter Lamb @ Lumphini park trying Marta's bike (cheers dad!!!)

In Bangkok they have a bike sharing system (I did not read about it, but I guess it is similar to the Paris Velib system), but in fact after 3 days in Bangkok I did not see anyone using it!

Bike sharing system in Bangkok

After the rest in the park, we decided to go right away to get our train tickets to Surin, where we would be heading 2 days after. We tried to get the tickets via e-mail, as the online system have been suspended, but we never got an answer from them! Anyway, we read all about the trains on the website www.seat61.com which we highly recommend, for planning any train trips anywhere. It does have a lot of information!

Finding the train station and the counters to buy the tickets was not difficult and soon we had our tickets for the second class sleeper wagon. The train will depart at 20h30 and arrive to Surin at 4h30, so it will be some long 8 hours on a train! Ticket cost was 1270 bath, and the bikes will cost us around 200 bath, but the ticket has to be purchased on the day of travel.

Marta & Peter at the train station

The closest neighborhood from the train station is China town and we headed there for some street food. We ended up to be on a very very tiny street, with some plastics to cover the rain, mud and mould here and there, well guys, hard to explain with words! Food, though, was very good and we also had some tap water with ice, as the locals do (we thought that it was juice, but by the end it seemed to be water. I do not know, we were confused)! We had 3 dishes (maybe 2 would be enough, but we were hungry so we shared a third dish) and for it we payed 150 bath, which is less than 4 Euro! See how cheap the food can get in here?

Marta & Peter at the food place :)

It was then time to find our host's house, so we cycled there. Her name is Chana, she is 23 year old girl, born and raised in North Tahailand but living in Bangkok for some years now. She is about to finnish architecture studies, making already her own projects. She is super friendly and welcoming, being also a great help to plan our trip in Bangkok, as I did not read anything about it before the trip.

 

As in regards of cycling, here you are the summary of the day:

• Daily distance: 42,80km
• Daily time: 2h53m10s
• Average speed: 14,82km/h
• Maximum speed: 33,77 km/h
• Total traveled so far: 42,80 km
• Total time cycling: 2h53m10s

And that is all for now folks!

 

Best,

Peter & Marta

 

 

Postado com o Blogsy