Ferg & Jude\'s Thailand Adventure 2002

This was Ferg and my first trip to Asia. We had been planning this trip for the previous 6 months. Each night we would research the web for information about Thailand. Reading the forums,learning about the culture and planning our itinerary.

Saturday 26th October
Australia to Thailand

We caught a taxi to the Townsville Airport at 8am on the 26th October to fly to Brisbane. As we had decided to travel light with only two very small backpacks we were able to use the express lane at the airport. It was great to walk past all those people queued with their luggage. Flight to Brisbane with Virgin was good and with no waiting for luggage we were the first to get out to taxi rank for a cab to the International Airport. We boarded our Royal Brunei flight at 12.30pm. After a couple of movies, a brief stop over in Brunei and heaps of food we finally landed in Bangkok.

Out through customs and into the heat. Stopped at the Currency Exchange and swapped $50AUD into small baht notes. We then hit the ATM for some bigger notes. We worked our way through the touts, smiling but saying no. We bought a taxi voucher from the booth outside and lined up. We had to luck the oldest taxi in Bangkok. After some crazy driving in the rain we pulled up outside the Manhattan Hotel in the Sukhumvit area. I had previously booked our first night in Bangkok over the web.

We were feeling pretty fuzzy from jetlag but went out to discover our surrounds. So many people, very strong smells and street sellers everywhere. They kept hassling us all the way down Sukhumvit Road. We bought some bottled water and headed back to the hotel for a good sleep. The rooms at the Manhattan were fine, just a little old and faded but comfortable. The TV worked and the air con was freezing just what we needed for a good nights sleep.