Thailand

At Suvarnabhumi (BKK) airport, we noticed there were two immigration halls for international arrivals, neither of which had any line up at 5:30am. We didn't see any immigration officers sleeping on the floor - so I'm not sure if that rumor is true. They quickly snapped a digital photo, but didn't ask any questions (or require any documents) about bringing in produce or animal products. The baggage took a long time to arrive at the carousel, and ours was the last to arrive, causing a bit of anxiety. Once outside the secured area, we found many banks offering the same exchange rate. But after having been ripped off in Japan, we decided only to exchange a little bit and wait till later to find a better exchange rate. I found kiosks for two cell phone companies side-by-side: DTAC and One-2-call (AIS). I bought a pre-paid SIM card from DTAC (see sub-chapter) and used my phone to book a reservation at a guesthouse in Kanchanaburi. Though it's much cheaper to use a metered taxi, we had a group of 5 plus luggage and a car just wouldn't be big enough. So I started talking to the taxi touts (who are everywhere) and eventually found one who agreed to give us a minibus to the Grand Palace for 1000THB. On the way we stopped at a bank to exchange currency, but the rate was only slightly better than at the airport.

Grand Palace and Wat Pho

At the Grand Palace, we were allowed to leave our luggage at the information desk for free, though it was only sort-of secure; we just stacked it beside the desk and hoped they would watch it for us. The palace was neat to look at, but otherwise not all that exciting. We left our luggage there and walked over to Wat Pho, which was adjacent but requires that you walk halfway around the outside of the Grand Palace grounds. The reclining Buddha was pretty cool, though in need of repair. The rest of Wat Pho was just more fancy buildings. We went back around to the entrance of the Grand Palace only to find guards blocking the street and tourists being quickly ushered out. I overheard someone say the king was coming, which made sense because the guards were yelling "no photo!" at anyone who was holding up a camera. Since our luggage was still inside, we were a bit worried that we wouldn't be allowed back in until the king left. However, once he drove in with his police escort, they began letting people back in through a further entrance. After getting our bags, we tried to flag down a minibus, but it seems they don't operate like the taxis do, and we had to settle for a car. As our luggage didn't fit in the trunk (they have small trunks that are half-filled with a gas tank of some sort), the driver had to stack it up and use a bungee-cord to tie it down. And, we had to fit 5 people into 4 seats, but my sister is skinny so I shared the front seat with her. We took the taxi to the Southern Bus Station (Sai Tai Mai), where we rushed to catch a 2nd class bus to Kanchanaburi. The bus had some a/c, making it cooler than outdoors but was still uncomfortably warm. As it kept stopping at each little town we passed, the ride took just over 2 hours. I phoned ahead to our guesthouse to ask if they would pick us up from the bus station, and they had a songthaew waiting for us.