Barley arrived we could experience the famous Thai hospitality. While waiting in the usual traffic jam the taxi driver bought us a package of freshly fried bananas, really nice. During our second taxi ride we noticed that our friendly driver from day one totally ripped us of. Seems he highly manipulated his taximeter and coming directly from the airport, we were an easy prey. So much about saving money and taking the metro into the city.
During the first days we were busy obtaining our Vietnam and China visa. For the visa we needed pictures and in no time we were proud owners of Asian-like smoothed portraits. Getting the Vietnam visa is easy, just fill out the form, attach your picture, pay and come back to pick it up. Getting a China visa on the other hand is an adventure. Somehow adequate for the destination; you need to be persistent and studious. First you have to fill out the forms and put together all the required extra information, like your bank statement, letter of employment, hotel bookings for the whole stay and so on. Going to the embassy without all required documents is just a waste of time. Once we had all our documents we went early in the morning to snatch a place in front of the line. As soon as the visa office opens you can observe the clash of individuals with the system. Not one individual submission goes without extra explanations and discussions with the visa officers. Most people have to write down extra information or come back with some missing information. It is worth to get up early so that you have the chance to come back the same morning with the missing pieces.
In our case the friendly officer could not understand how we can travel without a detailed itinerary to Hanoi. The question was that how can we know that we want to go to China if we do not yet know how exactly we will go to Hanoi. After writing a travel itinerary from Bangkok to Hanoi the officer was willing to submit our request. Great news, after all it was not as difficult as feared! Unfortunately she mentioned after the ok that for Swiss citizens the procedure takes 4 working days. Since they closed the embassy for Labor Day, not only for one but for three working days, this would have meant that we had to stay another 10 days in Bangkok. We passed on the offer to see more of Thailand and will try it again in Hanoi.
All the embassies are located in downtown, so we visited the different shopping centers. Why visiting shopping centers you may ask. Well compared to other promoted shopping centers, like the ones in Singapore, these ones are worth a visit as they are different. Most of them (Siam Discovery, MBK, Terminal 21) ensure that the majority of the shops are not fashion chains you have all over the world. You get a great overview of Asian trends and can buy presents for reasonable price. Watch out New York, the next X-mas shopping might take place here!
After the visa hunting we started to visit the cultural sights. Since we picked the hottest month of the year to be in Bangkok, we were more hopping from shadow to shadow than fully enjoiying the tourist features. As stunning as the temples and the incredible details were, as funny it was to watch the strangely dressed tourists trying to comply with the temple rules. You can either dress normally and melt to death, you can wear hippy clothes or you can rent funny, long clothes at the temple. The choice is yours...
Mean, meaner, Thai massage; one temple hosted a health exhibition and part of it were tip and donation based massages. Unbelievable how strong those petite and/or old masseurs can be. Unlike during other treatments they never asked if it is too much, they just assume your body can survive the pain. Not relaxing but for sure a must do in Thailand.
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