Songkran is Thai New Year. A festival, celebrated for 3 days starting from 13th April, where getting wet and having fun is all part of the celebration.

At about eight in the morning we left our hotel and walked down the street in search for some breakfast. We noticed locals with bottles of water and big drums of ice water placed outside the shops, assuming that on a hot day like this, hydration must be high on the agenda, we walked on. But as we turned to the Beach road we were bombarded with a garden hose. Stunned, Speechless and completely Soaked, we felt a little Stupid not remembering that today was Songkran. The posters and information was available all over since we had arrived in Thailand.

From then on there was no looking back, you can’t avoid it (unless you stay in your hotel room for 3 days). The lively celebrations on the streets were infectious and we even spotted foreigners joining in with water battles. And they say – if you can’t beat them join them! So we did.

It’s like our very own Holi, just no colors and the other skin harming stuff. Only some chalk (white mud paste) and water is sprayed. From garden hoses to the well-aimed bucket or water-cannon delivered in a festive spirit. The best way to beat the heat, wouldn’t you say!

Bands of youngsters roamed the streets or whizzed past in open trucks with water guns and buckets of water with which they doused one another and others on the street. You’ll find toy stores in big malls selling water-guns and accessories. 7-Eleven sells handy little plastic purses that are the right size for a camera, some money and keys.

Although Songkran seems like amusement for the kids. It has a more significant role – the underlying significance of Songkran is the process of cleansing and purification – the purging of all ills, misfortune and evil and starting the New Year afresh with all that is good and pure. Water is symbolic of the cleaning process and signifies purity.

Traditional Songkran celebrations focus on the renewal of the earth and the home. Wats, homes and Buddhist statues are cleaned. Often, the statues are removed from their wats and paraded around their communities, allowing everyone the chance to make merit by washing them with water, which Buddhists believe will help them achieve a higher ranking in the celestial order when they are reborn.

Songkran Day has been celebrated as New Year’s Day in the Thai solar calendar since ancient times. It is also popular in the neighboring countries of Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos. The date coincides with the day the sun leaves Pisces and enters Aries, usually falling on April 13 of each year.

Doesn’t Songkran kind of sounds like of the Hindu festival of Sakranti? Well, because it is related to it. Sankranti is the sanskrit word in Indian Astrology which refers to the transmigration of the Sun from one Rāshi (sign of the zodiac) to another.

Sankranti is celebrated all over South Asia with some regional variations. It is known by different names and celebrated with different customs in different parts of the country. In India it is known by different regional names Makar Sankranti, Uttarayan, Maghi, Pongal, Magh Bihu and so on. In Thailand it is Songkran, Laos – Pi Ma Lao, Myanmar – Thingyan, Cambodia – Moha Sangkran.

Here are some things that coincide with the Thai Ney Year, and are significant in India.

• The festival of Baisakhi falls on April 13 every year and April 14 once in every 36 years. Change in date is because of the fact that date of Baisakhi is reckoned according to the solar calendar.The other celebrations are ‘Rongali Bihu‘  in Assam, ‘Naba Barsha’ in Bengal, ‘Puthandu’ in Tamil Nadu, ‘Pooram Vishu’ in Kerala and ‘Vaishakha’ in the state of Bihar.
• On 13th April 1699, The Tenth Guru of Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh founded Khalsa Panth or the Order of Pure Ones and gave a unique identity to Sikhs. On the same day the guru administered amrit (nectar) to his first batch of five disciples making them Singhs, a martial community.
• On 13th April 1875, Swami Dayanand Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj – a reformed sect of Hindus who are devoted to the Vedas for spiritual guidance and have discarded idol worship.

Back to our trip. Last year Thailand was under political unrest and yet the Red shirt anti-government protesters celebrated the Songkran New Year festival with full enthusiasm and let others enjoy as well. The Siam area where they were protesting was ironically a peaceful sight.

Like any other form of good entertainment, there is an unfortunate side to the holiday. There is a lot of drinking and roads/pavements get slippery and wet by the end of the day. It’s best to be careful mostly about – road accidents, rowdy hooligans and getting sun burnt. Basic common sense helps!

It would be silly in my opinion to avoid Songkran, I mean, welcoming the New Year with a gigantic water fight seems like the best idea ever. But here are some tips from Travelfish on avoiding the water festival.

Although Songkran Festival is celebrated throughout Thailand, I have read that Chiang Mai City is the best venue for the event. Here tourists can take part in the Grand Songkran Festival ceremony and pour scented water on the image of Buddha. The important ritual of bathing Buddha with the water is witnessed by thousands of foreign tourists.

We had a great time in Pattaya and Bangkok and wish I was there today!

Wish you all a happy new year!! sa-wat-di pi mai!!

Photos courtesy – Ratchaprasong, Kara van Malssen, Karol Gajda , Eternal Vagabond and Ritika Sabharwal

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Bangkok is a big and bustling metropolis and, for a first time traveller, it can actually get a bit overwhelming to take in all that the city has to offer.

The monuments, the Wats, the markets and the sheer grandiose of the (appropriately named) grand palace can leave even the most hardened travellers spellbound.

Of course, the humid weather, the traffic and the pollution does take some sheen away out of the whole experience, but that shouldn’t really stop anyone from experiencing this beautiful city in all its glory.

Bangkok has something for everyone to offer. If you’re interested in historical monuments, head straight to the Grand Palace. If you’re the religious type, start with the Wat Po and follow your instincts from there on. There is a shrine at practically every corner in Bangkok. If you’re in Bangkok for shopping, head straight to either the Jatujak/Chatuchak/JJ weekend market, Pratunam market or the various malls surrounding the Siam square. If you’re in Bangkok for pleasures of the more sinister kind, Bangkok will still not disappoint you, although you won’t get much help from me :-) Hint: Ask around for the Silom area of Bangkok ;)

Don’t let the traffic and the pollution stop you from enjoying this beautiful city. Bangkok is a very easy city to move around in, if you know how. I’ve written a post earlier on using the BTS in Bangkok and that should be of some help, I hope. In this post I’d like to lay out a short and sweet 5 day itenerary for anyone new to Bangkok. I hope that by the end of the 5 days you’d be able to see and love Bangkok the way I did.

Day 1: Arrive at Suvarnbhumi International Airport. Reach your hotel. Spend the rest of the day at leisure, exploring the areas close to your hotel.

Day 2: I hope you’re staying close to the BTS (Skytrain), as that is by far the most convenient way to travel in Bangkok. Take the BTS to the Siam square station. Enter one of the malls and spend some time lazing around. Eat some nice thai food and the MBK mall’s food court. Chat with some local shopkeepers about things to do in Bangkok and for directions to the Grand Palace as you’ll be visiting that the next day.

Day 3: Take a taxi/river ferry/Tuk tuk to the grand palace. Don’t listen (or even look at) any tout/agent standing outside the grand palace. The agents will most probably tell you that the palace is closed for the day and offer to take you around some other attractions for a small fee. The grand palace and the Wat Po next door is never closed. NEVER. Walk in, take your ticket and spend the next couple of hours admiring the palace. Come out and walk to the Wat Po (If you’re lost, ask for directions from a tourist, since you will never be able to make tell if an official looking guard standing at the entrance is actually a guard or an tout dressed  like one.

The “Grand Palace is closed” scam is probably the biggest in Bangkok and all tourists invariably get hit by it. Just don’t listen to the touts and keep walking towards your destination, even if they sound and look angry.

A tip: Start your day early since afternoons are hot in Bangkok.

If you followed the earlier tip, you would be done seeing the attractions around this part by afternoon. Take your lunch at the small open air market next to the Grand Palace river pier. After lunch, you can visit the Wat Arun across the river or spend some time in an air conditioned mall :-)

Day 4: Take a tuk-tuk or a taxi to the Pratunam market and spend a couple of hours shopping for your near and dear ones. Bargain hard. If you’re a computer geek, get your fix at the Pantip Plaza, opposite the Pratunam market. For lunch, try the street food available all around the area. Pantib Plaza has a KFC too, by the way, in case you’re really missing home :-) Spend the evening at the Suan Lum night market. Shop some more, drink some beer at the open air beer garden, listening to some thai rock music (!). Eat authentic thai food for dinner or spend your dough at one of the many Italian, Indian or English food restaurants.

Day 5: Make sure that your last day in Bangkok is a weekend, so that you can experience the chaos of the wonderful JJ weekend market. It’s not everyday that one hears of chaos and wonderful in the same sentence, let alone being used to describe the same place. But that is the JJ weekend market for you. One can easily spend the whole day here or even more than a day, if one wishes to. The weekend market is an institution and a landmark in Bangkok and no trip to Bangkok can be complete without experiencing it.

If you’re done with your shopping spend your last evening in Bangkok spending the last of your money at one of the fancy fine dining restaurants at Siam Paragon :-)

Day 6: Take a cab back to the Airport. Have a nice flight.

Hopefully, you’d enjoy your stay in Bangkok as much as I did. A lot of the itineraries that I see floating around the net also include a trip to the Pattaya beach town as a part of a 5 day trip. I’d advise against that. Go to Pattaya if you have more time, but spend time in Bangkok and really get to know the city.

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SHOPPING

Now let me come to the first reason of my love for BKK. The shoes. They do have the best variety, the styles, the colours & the PRICES. I could have bought more but I was forced to stop at about a dozen. Other than the shoes there is lots’n'lots of stuff one can buy. Here is my selection of shopping areas -

SIAM Centre/ Paragon/ Discovery/ Central World – these malls are conveniently located next to each other as soon as you get off at from the BTS at SIAM Square (obviously :)). Well, they have ever thing a normal mall has but at a much larger scale. All the designer labels, all the cool gadget stores, the big-big food courts, specialty store (The loft was excellent), multiplex and Ocean World.

If you are going there, make sure you wear good comfy shoes cause trust me they are big. Central World is officially the largest mall in Southeast Asia. The best thing about them was the A/C. The malls were not too crowded (or they were so big that they didn’t seem so crowded). The Siam Paragon has the best Auto Showroom of imported sports and luxury cars on the 3-4th floor of a building, that I’ve ever seen. But my pick of the best thing in Siam Paragon will be the ‘The Gourmet Market’. It is an 8,000 square meter grocery store on the lower level of the shopping center, I just felt like Alice in Wonderland.

Rising an impressive 88 storey high, the Baiyoke Sky Hotel is Thailand’s tallest building. A distinctive feature of Bangkok’s skyline, it also marks the spot for one of the city’s all-time, favorite pursuits: Shopping!

Connected to the Baiyoke Market is the Chandini-Chowk (for those familiar with Delhi) of Thailand – Pratunum. It’s just as noisy, as mind-boggling & space crunched. All in all it’s Beautiful. It’s a huge wholesale market with every possible garment/ accessory one would need. Pratunum Lanes bisect each other at random, and all look the same with clothes hanging from every available space. If you become disoriented, don’t worry; continue walking and eventually you will walk out of the market.

JJ Market or Chatuchak is an adventure, and like all adventures, takes a bit of hard work. It is supposedly as big has 8 football fields put together. It’s a maze of lanes and by lanes & no matter how many maps one refers to one will get lost sometime or the other. The good part of that is you tend to stumble across unusual items like, Colourful glass figures, paintings, rugs, Bob Marley fans baskets, puppets and masks, stamps, coins, Pets, Dog clothing, old advertising signs, 1950s telephones and much more. There are many courier companies who have counters to ship your purchases home safely. They have thought of everthing.

The last but definitely not the least – MBK. This is the other shopping heaven, mercifully with air-conditioning! 8 floors worth of shopping trail (including a cinema), each floor decked to the full with items needed and unneeded for you. Don’t blink or you’ll miss something – That’s what I believed. Interspaced in between every small and big boutiques and stalls on every floor. There is also a big Tokyo Departmental Store, you will get restaurants & eateries squeezed in for sustenance, and if you feel economical as you are fast running out of money after a hard day of spending money, there are 2 food courts: one on the 5^th floor (which I truly enjoyed) and one on the 6th. There is one floor dedicated to electronics & one for gold so you can imagine the level of contrast in this place.

One thing I’ll always remember about BKK… the Tuk-Tuk drivers and the “good for youuuuu & good for meeeeee” …20 baht rides. :)!! You have got to experience this one.

All in all BKK is one place I’d love to go for shopping… anytime. The trip was totally worth the years and years of Cribbing. And the tantrums throwing for the next trip have already started.

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There are generally two schools of thought to the whole shopping in Bangkok thing. One type of people like to shop in swanky malls in air conditioned comfort and the other group wants to see the ground reality and love to shop in stinky bylanes and crowded markets. I belong to the first school of thought and I’ll tell you why, in a while.

Bangkok offers umpteen shopping avenues for both kinds of people. There are huge airconditioned malls as well as open air markets offering bargain buys at dirt cheap prices.

This post is an attempt to guide the first timer to Bangkok in his/her quest for the eternal shopping experience.

We’ll start with the obvious, the Siam central area. Siam central is the BTS interchange station for the Sukhumwit and Silom lines. The BTS is connected by a skywalk to the Siam Center mall and this is where most visitors start their trip in Bangkok, like we did, mostly because of the fact that its connected to the Skytrain station.

There are a couple of nice eating joints at Siam Center but this isn’t where you should be spending your hard earned moolah at, in my opinion. If you really want to splurge get out of Siam Center and get into the Siam Paragon which in my opinion is the best mall in Bangkok to hang out.

Siam Paragon has something to do for everyone. For the casual tourists there is the aquarium show, for the expat settling down in Bangkok there is the excellent gourmet super market, for the thai teens and the kitty pary ciruit ladies there is the multiplex on the top floor and for the rest of us, they have an excellent food court.

There is the canal on the ground floor, which is basically a string of cafes built on top of an artificial canal. The canal is flanked on both sides by gourmet upmarket restaurants which, sadly, were out of my budget to try. The food looked yummy though.

What I did try was eating at the food court at the gourmet super market. The place has an excellent variety of food and desserts and you won’t be disappointed and if at all you are there’s always the next stall :-)

Once you’ve had your fill you can move to the next Siam mall, the Siam Discovery, although I’d suggest that you go back to your hotel and take some rest. All this walking around must have tired you a bit. Or … if you’re like me, you can check out Siam discovery also on the same day and torture your feet so much that you have to walk around Bangkok for the next few days with swollen feet :-) 

Siam discovery center houses a multiplex on the 6th floor which is supposed to have the most comfortable seats in Bangkok, or so I’ve heard. The Siam Discovery follows the “One floor, One concept” theme, which groups similar stores on one floor. Among the stores is Thailand’s only Diesel designer clothing store as well as Asia’s only branch of the Habitat home furnishings retailer    It also houses the popular Japanese gift shop, the Loft. An excellent place to search for cute gift and knick knacks although a lot of the stuff that we found here was available at other places for much cheaper. You can end the day with an early dinner at the food court and brace yourself for the next day’s shopping experience at Bangkok.

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Suan Lum night bazaar is a market in Bangkok’s Pathum Wan district, at the intersection of Rama IV and Wireless/Sathorn Roads, opposite Lumpini Park at the Bangkok Metro’s Lumpini Station.

To reach here you can take the BTS to the Sukhumvit interchange and then take the MRT to the lumpini park station. The market is just outside the Lumpini park station of the MRT.

This is the swankier and more expensive cousin of the JJ weekend market and is open throughout the week from about 6 in the evening to 12 at night, although some shops are open well past midnight. The shops are in general slightly more expensive than their JJ market cousins but the ambience of the place is also much better. If you’re a guy travelling in Bangkok looking for bargains, you’d find this a much better place to shop. Of course, you should be able to bargain hard.

One of the shopkeepers quoted Bt 800 for a handbag, for example, which my wife bought. She asked him to give it for Bt 300 and he agreed, in a flash ! Only later, when we went to the JJ market, we realised that the same handbag was available for Bt 200 there. That’s Bangkok for you :-) 

Apart from shopping, the night market offers dining also with almost all world cuisines represented. There is also a huge beer garden which usually has some kind of live musical performance going on. 

My favourite place in the whole market was the beer garden, of course. Cheap beer and nice thai food make for a formidable combination. If thai food is not your cup of tea (or a bowl of tum yum) there are restaurants serving Italian, Indian, mexican and english food also. 

There were rumours of the Market being shut down and giving way to some malls and apartment complexes. That hasn’t happened till now and considering how popular the market is, I don’t think that’ll ever happen.

Bottomline, if you’re in Bangkok, do make it a point to come here and enjoy the night instead of getting wasted at one of the shady night clubs on Silom road.

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The BTS (complimented by the underground MRT system) has dramatically changed this. The Bangkok LRT systems cover a lot of the tourist attractions and it is now entirely possible to stay in Bangkok and not use the taxis and tuk-tuks for transportation at all, if you’re fine with walking around a bit.

Coming to the city from the Airport still requires one to use a taxi or a bus, that also will change in the next couple of years once the BTS airport link becomes functional, work on which is going on at a rather frantic pace.

Now, coming to the topic this post is all about. Hordes of repeat tourists come to Bangkok every year and this post is not meant as a guidebook for them. This post is meant to direct first timers to Bangkok and help them make some sense out of this chaotic, yet, charming Asian metropolis.

The BTS system is divided into two lines, the main Mo chit to On Nut, Sukumvit line, and the smaller National Stadium to Saphan Thaksin, Silom Road line, with an interchange station at Siam.

The stations are divided into various zones and the rate of the tickets depends basically on the number of stations between your destination and the current station as well as the zones a traveller is travelling between. The rates for single journey tickets range from 15bt to 40bt, which is cheap, IMO, considering that metered air conditioned taxis in Bangkok start at about 35bt and for a distance which would require you to pay 40bt, a similar journey in a taxi would easily cost you upwards of 100bt as well as a lot of lost time in traffic. The chart below should give you an idea of the rates, which of course are subject to change :-)

Of course, if you are more than 4 people sharing a taxi and have no regards for your time, it probably makes sense to use the taxi instead.

The tickets can only be purchased through the vending machines which take 5bt or 10bt coins. Just press the button indicating the zone/station you want to travel to and put in the coins. If you don’t have the required change with you, you can go to the ticketing counter and they can give you the change you want in 5bt and 10bt denomination coins.

The BTS also issues a One day unlimited use pass which costs 120bt and can be useful if you are going to be using the BTS more than a couple of times in a single day. The pass is valid on the day of issue and can be purchased at the same ticketing counter.

Now, that we have you covered with using the Skytrain, lets see some of the attractions you can visit using the Skytrain to travel.

The grand palace and the Wat Pho, or the sleeping buddha temple, is on the itenerary of almost every tourist coming to Bangkok. To reach the palace, you can take the Skytrain to reach the Saphan Taksin Station which is the last station on the National Stadium/Silom line. From the Saphan Taksin station, one can take the river ferry to the Tha tien pier. From here the Wat Po and the Grandpalace is a short walk away. Wat Arun, another of Bangkok’s major tourist attractions can be seen across the river and a short boat ride will take you there.

Ignore any touts, however professional looking, who tell you that the grand palace or the Wat Pho are closed because of some ceremony. It is all a lie and the biggest scam going on in Bangkok. Both the grand palace or the Wat Pho are never closed and open on all days to the public. Even if there is a Royal ceremony happening in the palace, only a part of the palace is closed to visitors, the rest of the Palace is still available for viewing. More on this in another post.

These three attractions can be viewed in about half a day if you start early and when you’re done retrace your steps back to the Saphan Taksin station and take the skytrain to the Silom road, which is the Sala Daeng station on the same line. Silom road is one of Bangkok’s major touristy areas and shopping destinations. Have lunch at one of the many restaurants over here.

After this you can take the BTS again to go to the Siam interchange station for some shopping madness at one of the many malls that surround the area. The BTS station is connected by a bridge to the Siam Central mall which is next to the more upmarket Siam Paragon and Siam discovery malls. Take your pick and end the night with a nice meal and one of the gourmet restaurants in Siam Paragon.

If shopping is all that you want to end up doing take the Silom road line and get of at the National Stadium BTS station which is connected by a bridge to the MBK via the Tokyu department store. Now, Tokyu is an upmarket store but that is not what we’re looking for. Get out of Tokyu and you’ll be surrounded by 7 floors of shopping craziness called MBK. MBT or Mah Boon Krong used to be the biggest mall in Thailand at one point in time but has now been removed from that position by the even bigger Central mall connected to the Chit lom Skytrain station, which can be another destination to visit if you’re interested in some posh shopping.

If the night bazaar scene is your thing then take the Skytrain to the Sukhumvit interchange station and then the MRT to the MRT to the lumpini park station and you’ll be at the Suan Lum night bazaar which is right at the entrance to the MRT station. Of course, you can also take the Skytrain till the Sala Daeng interchange and then either walk to lumpini park or take the MRT to the lumpini park station.

No visit to Bangkok is complete without a visit to the JatuJak or ChatuChak or JJ weekend market. The market is located on a gigantic 35 acres plot of land and is more overwhelming to a first time than what most visitors can handle. I’ll be writing a seperate post on the weekend market for sure. But, to reach there you can either take the MRT to the chatuchak park station or take the BTS to the Mo chit station. The market is a short 5 minute walk away from both the stations.

So, you see, Bangkok traffic is not as difficult to get around if you know your way around the LRT systems. Just make sure you stay close to the BTS or MRT and you can see the whole of Bangkok with ease. Our preferred place to stay is the Abloom Serviced Apartments close to the Sanam Pao BTS station and then travel all around Bangkok using only the BTS or the MRT.

For more information see the official BTS site. Let me know if this information was useful to you guys.

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The area is predominantly a residential area but the proximity to the BTS station makes it an ideal base for all your sightseeing visits to the other parts of Bangkok. The Jatujak or JJ weekend market is just two BTS stops away while the Siam center interchange station is 3 stops away in the other direction. The Sanam Pao station is close (walking distance, infact) to the Ari and Victory monument stations (both in the opposite directions). There are a couple of malls and posh eating joints close to the Ari BTS station but if you’re in the mood to sample some local street food, go to the Victory monument station and eat your heart away.

The 7-11 next to the Sanam Pao station is going to be your lifeline while you’re staying at the Abloom apartments, since being a serviced apartment, they do not have a 24 hour cafe and you’ll have to thank the 7-11 for all your midnight cravings :-)

The staff at the hotel is quite helpful and except for one morning when the electricity in our room went off, we didn’t have any problems during our stay. The morning the electricity went off, I called the reception and they got the problem fixed in 5 minutes. The internet still didn’t work so I told them about it while leaving for the day’s sightseeing and they assured me that if its still not working by the time I come back, they’ll shift me to a newer room. Everything was working fine, fortunately, by the time I came back.

Did, I tell you the hotel has free high speed wifi in all the rooms.

There is a small but functional swimming pool, sauna rooms and a gym which looked pretty well equipped from the outside. I didn’t use these facilities since walking around in the Bangkok heat gave me enough exercise for the day anyway.

The breakfast is included in the tarrif and the choise is between a continental or a south east asian breakfast. The continental breakfast would give you your choice of eggs with bacon and/or sausages. The asian style meal would give you fried rice with chicken or pork. The sausages were my favourite while I was there while my wife had her fill of bacon. The F & B manager, mickey, seemed very nice and personally attended to us while we were there. I wish they had more choice in the breakfast, though.

The hotel also has complimentary tuk-tuk service to drop you off to the BTS station. Just ask for it at the reception.

The rooms at the hotel are well furnished and come with all basic amenities one would expect from an apartment like hot and cold running water, a refrigerator, a microwave, a nice big TV and a DVD player :-) The bedsheets are changed every day and we found the rooms to be spotlessly clean everyday when we came back.

The only disadvantage about the place is its relative distance from the hotspots of Bangkok. But then that might be a good thing if you like to relax on a holiday in relatively noise free environment. We had booked the place through agoda.com and had gotten in touch with the hotel before our arrival to confirm the bookings. The hotel confirmed the booking and also helpfully included with the email a document with the a map to the hotel and the address written in Thai. This was quite helpful in finding the hotel the first time we came to the place. Since the hotel is not a very popular hotel in, say, the Sukhumvit area, not many cab drivers know about the place, but with the map our cab driver was able to find the hotel easily. We only had this problem the first time we came since after that we only used the BTS for all our commuting while we were there.

Finally, I’d recommend the hotel if you value your privacy and would like to have a nice, calm and hassle free stay. The party district of Bangkok is just a couple of BTS stops away, so thats always an added advantage. I’d definitely stay at the Abloom Serviced Apartments again.

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Suvarnbhumi international Airport opened late in 2006 and has been catering to the huge air traffic that Bangkok gets each year. Suvarnbhumi is by all standards one of the biggest airports in the world and coming from an Indian airport it was actually intimidating as I stepped out of the Aircraft into the huge terminal. Ok, Maybe that’s exaggerating a bit, but you get the drift. The aiport is huge, modern, clean and easy to navigate, unless you get tired walking the kilometer or so of duty free shops. Thankfully, the airport has moving walkways.

Thailand has a visa on arrival facility for Nationals of certain listed countries, including India, China, Bhutan and 17 other countries. The complete list of countries is available here. The airport is well marked and all signs are in Thai as well as English and it wasn’t difficult to navigate around the airport for us. This was in contrast to the Kuala lumpur international airport where we were lost for the first 30 minutes as all signboards were only in Malay. I found the arrival experience at Suvarnbhumi much better than KLIA.

We took the visa on arrival facility and it took us less than 30 minutes for the whole process. The forms are available free of cost and they even have sample forms filled in and pasted around so that a first time visitor would have no trouble in filling the forms. The forms themselves are pretty simple. You need two recent passport size photographs and, apparently, 10000 bt per person cash or 20000 bt per family. But, we weren’t even asked if had the money with us. I’m assuming this was because we already had hotel reservations and a return ticket. We, of course, had taken the money with us anyway, and you should too, just to be safe. There is an ATM machine and also a money exchanger next to the visa on arrival facility. I’ve heard that it can at times take upwards of 2 hours to get a visa but it was a smooth affair for me.

The aiport has an excellent duty free area. A kilometer or two of shopping madness. It actually looks like a small mall. The food, though, is a bit expensive. We paid 340bt for a sandwitch, coffee and a croissant, none of which were worth raving about, but we had the food anyway since we were quite hungry.

The airport is about 35 kms from the city and to get to the City, you basically have three options.

1) Take a pre paid taxi, called limousine in Bangkok :-)

2) Take a regular metered taxi.

3) Take a bus.

Out of these the 3′rd option is the cheapest but also the slowest and since I have no experience taking a bus out of Suvarnbhumi, I won’t talk about it.

Out of the other two options, both are essentially taxis but taking a limousine would be much more expensive. The taxi counters inside the airport just before the exit are pre-paid counters and thus, more expensive. We asked the airport helpdesk for directions to take a metered taxi and they were glad to help us. We also picked up a freely available Bangkok map from the helpdesk which proved quite useful.

The metered taxi stand is on your left as you come out of the aiport on the approach road. It would be helpful to have the address of your hotel written in Thai. Try and get that from your hotel before coming since most taxi drivers don’t know English. Just show the hotel address to the person at the counter and he or she’ll direct you to a waiting taxi and you’re done. It can take anywhere from 45 mins to an hour and a half to reach the city center from the Airport, depending on the traffic.

Ask the driver to take the toll way as its much more convenient and faster. You will have to pay the toll charges, which are around 40bt at the first gate and 20bt at the second gate. Since, we were staying a bit away from the city center (Close to Sanam Pao BTS Station, Abloom Serviced apartments), it cost us about 300bt to reach our hotel but the driver was helpful and we had give him the hotel address in Thai so it was easy for him to find the hotel.

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