Nilesh's Posterous

Last Day in Singapore, First day in Bangkok..

So, today is already our last day in Singapore. Our flight departs in the afternoon for Bangkok, but we have to check out at noon. Rather than waiting for noon, we checked out around 10:00 and asked the hotel to keep our bags and we took a taxi for last bit of touring. Went to the Bugis market and strolled around checking out the various stalls and foods. After that, went to the famous Mustapha Center - a multi storey multi purpose mall that sells basically everything. Navigated through the maze of the shopping center in the little time that we had. I managed to try on a few things in the mega tiny changing rooms and bought something. We had a south indian vegetarian set meal close to Mustapha and then took a taxi back to the hotel to pick our luggage, then take the MRT to the airport.

We flew Tiger Airways (http://www.tigerairways.com) out of Singapore. I had bought the tickets a couple of months and I got them for SGD $ 0.01.. Yes you read right.. 1 cent singapore, but then with taxes and surchages, it came to $40 SGD, but still a great deal. Changi Airport is very nice and all terminals are accessible by the skytrain in the airport Except for the Budget Terminal. I guess being budget, these airlines can't afford the prices to afford skytrain charges or other fancy stuff. So, we had to go to the basement of terminal 2 by skytrain, then wait for a bus to go to the budget terminal. We checked in there after waiting in a long line and then walked our way to the plane, up the stairs of the old school plane stairs (just like the old days) rather than the automated longnecks.

Flight was good and we reached Bangkok on time in the dark. Did immigration formalities easily and got out and changed some dollars to thai baht and then started looking for Taxis inside the airport itself rather than go out and face the many touts and private taxis waiting. They have the Aiport of Thailand (AOT) official limosine service that one can book from inside. I asked one side and they quoted me 1300 Baht and then asked another counter of same company and it was 950Baht to Sukumvit Soi 15. Took the latter and we got a nice BMW suv to take us to our hotel.

Reached hotel, checked in and went for a walk on Sukhumvit avenue. We reached a night and little did we know, Sukumvit is the heart of Bangkok's red light district. As we walked around on Sukumvit, many girls dressed in skanky dresses standing on the side of the road waving at single guys and many fat old white guys walking hand in hands with young thai girls - sad scene. I knew the scene was such, but did not know the hotel was so close to it. I picked the hotel to be very close to the BTS (skytrain) Asoke Station. Well, anyways, its always good to experience a bit of all kinds of sceneries. So, we walked about from Soi 15 to Soi2 then back to our hotel. Mom, sis and Sid went to sleep and I ventured out again and walked the opposite way from soi 15 to soi 27 or so and had some pad thai on one of street food sellers. Met a french backpacker and had some good late night dinner conversation over the pad thai.

Pic 1 : View from our hotel room in singapore
Pic 2 : Mum Drinking coconut from street vendor
Pic 3 : Laksa that I had for breakfast
Pic 4 : Rickhaw Drivers waiting for customers at Bugis
Pic 5 : Dragon Fruit
Pic 6 : Bangkok Street Food (where I had dinner)