First impression of Bangkok and beginning of my exchange

Excitement and first impressions

New Years Eve

I feel like I would have been talking about this Thailand trip for more than a year, and now the moment has arrived it really to become real. I was now in front of my becoming five-month trip to Thailand, during which I will study in the Asian Institute of Technology - Energy technology courses at the University. The goal would be to see Asia as much as possible and study only what is required. I'm going to hit the road with Jani, who is experienced Asian traveler. In fact, I head to Thailand for the first time, so I am naturally a bit nervous. We booked a round trip tickets to Bangkok in October, so we got them preferably about EUR 660 from Turkish Airlines. This airline company turned out to be really a high-quality again. Turkish Airlines flies from Helsinki to Bangkoko via Istanbul.

The year changed this time on an airplane. 

The flight departed from Helsinki at 13.10 and arrived the next day in Bangkok at 9:40 local time. In fact, we couldn't quite sleep on the plane, so we arrived very tired in Bangkok. We had booked accommodation in advance for the first two nights in a hotel called iSanook. It was good that we didn't have to look for accommodation because we were so tired. The intention was to leave the next day to look for apartments that would be nearby of my exchange university. Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), therefore, is located about 30 km north of the center of Bangkok. It is easy and cheap to travel with a taxi in Bangkok. The initial payment is around 35 thb, which is thus less than one euro.  Thai bath rate at the time: 1 € = 43 thb. 

There was a great disco- Christmas tree!

In the first day

The first day felt just like two different days, because we were in a hotel room about two in the afternoon, we took a couple of hours of sleep, and after that we went to take a taxi into a tourist area of Khao San Road. The food was really good and inexpensive, fresh fruits can be bought pre-peeled and chopped, for example, 20 thb: (0.5 €) received a bag of fresh and sweet pineapple chunks. Street Kitchens seem to be very popular, and they were selling a variety of barbeque meat. When I tasted the first barbequed chicken skewer I was pretty surprised how tasty it was, one skewer cost about € 0.5. And this is apparently was not even the most profitable region, in cheaper places skewers were 0,2 euros. 

Definitely worth mentioning is one thing that I experienced, a massage. Neck-back and shoulder massage, which lasted half an hour, and EUR 3.5. It felt really really relaxing, my masseur was a little older the woman, and he used the strength and not just a little touching. And we also tasted a bit of cheap drinks rum coke - bucket among others in Kim's restaurant: "Drinks & Drunks, very strong cocktail!"

Street Grill was full of the chicken intestine (right) and liver that Jani bought .

In Khao San Road respectively; pants cost 250 thb (5 e), the flip-flops and a bag 120 thb (3 e).

We reached our hotel about two at night time. It had been a really nice and tasty evening. So my first evening in Bangkok gave really good first impression of Bangkok, although I had seen couple of cockroaches.. Orientation begins in AIT on January 7th, so here's a couple of days time to look around!

This is my first blog writing in English and I am going to write all of my texts in English at least for my exchange friends. 

Thanks!