My boyfriend and I have been dying to visit southeast Asia and finally made it to Bangkok Thailand. We were there for 10 days in the end of August. I thought I would share my first impressions and some tips that could potentially help you if you are traveling there in the near future. I will put up more posts with shopping hauls - shopping in Bangkok is amazing. When we arrived we took a taxi to our hotel - big mistake! I cannot stress enough - avoid taxis / cabs at all costs. The drivers are crooked and they try to scam you. Generally they will not even use a meter but we were "lucky" ours did. He then took the longest and most traffic-filled route to our hotel. We were staying in Sukhumvit and it costs us 525 baht (should have been around 400). There is a 75 baht toll you will pay - just give the driver the money and he should give you your change. Our driver gave us our change less 50 baht which is the airport fee (that is accurate). At the end of our ride it was around 450 on the meter. He asked for 500 (again trying to trick us into paying the 50 baht airport charge). We said we already paid that and let him off with just 450 on top of the 75 and 50 for toll and airport fee. This was our last time and only time we used a taxi in Bangkok. I refused to pay these crooked people any more money. Which leads me to my next point - BTS (train system in bangkok). Although the streets are very smelly and quite dirty, the BTS is amazing. Trains moving constantly, cheap rates and air conditioned transportation. We were staying close to the Nana station and most places we went to were between 15 and 30 baht for one-way. You can also get a day pass for 140 baht but I wouldn't recommend it unless you are traveling quite a bit that day. It does get busy at times (see photos below) but there are arrows and signs in English that help you navigate your way around the BTS stations. Lines do form and it gets a bit crowded during rush hour (~5pm).
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