We're on a plane to Bangkok... Not called the Thailand Express, unfortunately...
As if I wasn't going to take that opportunity...
Anyway, back to making sense now.
We left Kathmandu at 4pm on route to Bangkok with a 14 hour layover in Dhaka Bangladesh. You may be asking yourself "why so many long layovers, Jamie?". Because we're cheap, that's why! All things considered, I think we actually slept a little bit at the airport. I do have to mention one more time how freakin' cool it is to see the mountains parallel with you as your plane is leveling off.
View out plane window about 5 minutes after the seat belt light went off. Bye bye Himmilayas!! (Sniff...)
Saw these guys walking down the street in Kathmandu on our way to the airport. Seriously!?! One man, one couch?!?
We arrived bang on schedule in Bangkok. Having done extensive research, we knew we had to go to the "visa on arrival" desk and do a pile of paper work. It was a bit confusing at first as to which form to fill out etc., so Dy went to the counter to ask for help. The lady behind the counter asked her for her passport. Dy handed it over, the lady gave it one look, then said "oh you're from Canada, you don't need a visa, you can go straight to immigration"... Huh... Well YAY CANADA!
The following is from travel.gc.ca
Visas and entry stamps
Holders of regular Canadian passports arriving by air for the purposes of tourism may enter Thailand for up to 30 days without requesting a visa in advance, while those entering Thailand overland from neighbouring countries for tourism purposes may stay for up to 15 days.
Grabbing our taxi was pretty simple, go to the line up outside level 1 and ignore anyone else offering you a taxi elsewhere. We handed the lady behind the taxi stand the address of the condo we rented. She gives a paper to one of the many taxi drivers and we're off. Strangely, there was a sign at the taxi stand that literally read "taxi stand workers are not polite...". Huh! She was OK I thought.
The taxi and driver were both hilarious. The taxi was probably the most "pimped" out car I've ever seen. At least the most I've seen for a taxi. The driver, laughing and gesturing, opens the trunk and right away you see half of the space is taken up by neon lights huge speaker boxes! You get into the car and the interior of all doors are these odd shaped neon aftermarket panels that are full of speakers...
Now for the drive. Of course the car is complete with a loud can exhaust system and he clearly loves it, because he speeds off keeping it at high rpms. You know the sound! That is until he slides a CD in. Here we go, I'm thinking, get ready for some huge bass dance club music. Nope! 50's and early 60's tunes! "Simple Simon Says" etc... Of course with bass blasting into our backs that that music wasn't really meant for. All the while the driver was chuckling, gesturing and tapping away to his tunes. It was fantastic! Lol...you can't help but laugh and smile at the whole experience.
I hope we get this driver again!
So we're now in the condo we rented (Airbnb.com ...highly recommend BTW) trying to decide where we're going to venture out to... Yes, we are being smart and safe...
OK... Ok here's the music reference from the title... A Passage to Bangkok.