Your first day ever in LOS....

[umbanda]

My first day in Thailand, and my first time ever in Asia.....

I was 66 in 2010. My plan was to stay 2 months in Chiang Mai, but I decide to stop in Bangkok to meet a nice 46 years old lady I was chatting online for months before. She was a divorced business owner, and very beautiul, and she already did reservations and paid for my hotel close to her house, and I was not expecting nothing more than meet her and her family, and tour the city with them. My plane from LA arrived 1:00 in the morning, and I didn't accepted her offer to pick me up at the airport, but l expected to have breakfast with her that morning at the hotel's restaurant.

She arrived 8 AM with her older daughter, a very nice young professional English speaker. Her mother didn't speak English well, but I was vey please to see that my new friend was the same beauty I met online. We had breakfast together, and her daughter went to work after we make plans for her to come back at noon to go together to tour the town. We finished breakfast, and we had a good time chating until about 10. She asked if I liked my accomodations at the hotel, and I invited her to visit my room. Was my first learning encounter with Thai culture... in bed.

I liked, and I stayed in BK longer than was planned, driving together to Rayon/Ko Samet, meeting her family and work, etc, but BK is not my kind of city.

Finally I completed my planned vacation in Chiang Mai, and I visited her few times after I moved to the area permanentely in 2011.

She is happily married now. I am happily married now. We still friends, exchanging life events in Facebook.

Edited September 19, 2014 by umbanda

[Tonto21]

My first day in Thailand was very memorable. I arrived with two mates on Christmas day....Night to be precise. Being keen off-road racers, Motocross and Enduro we were here too ride through Northern Thailand and laos.

So, technically my first day in Thailand was spent on a train heading north to Chiangmai..........Strange thing, we all kept getting SMS messages asking if we were OK? It was only when we got to Chiangmai that we heard of the tsunami, it was Boxing day 2005.

That was my first day in Thailand.....

[Whyamiandwhatamidoinghere]

December 5,2001 from Lax to Bkk. 21 years old just finishing up my master's thesis. Tour asked me did I need a taxi. 5 minutes later I was in a limo. No room reservation so asked the limo driver what was a good hotel. Checked into The Shangri-la Hotel. Had a Johnnie Walker shot 750baht. Had another to get over the shock of the price of the first shot. After that took a taxi to look around for an hour. Now 3am on Sukhumvit taxi drops me at Time Square because emergency on his home front. Walk across the overpass and down to a place called Themae. Stayed there until 6am. Walk a stone toss to Miami Hotel and ended up crashing at that dive because to lazy to return to Shangri-la.

[laolover88]

So Benalibina!...You gonna publish this thread as a book? Travel? Self Help? Autobiography?

Edited September 19, 2014 by laolover88

[lovelaos]

Christmas 1999... The rest is a blur involving women, beaches, drink, boats and happiness.

I never went back home

[arthurwait]

Picked up at swampy by the (not then) missus about 10 years ago, a little scared by how flimsy the Honda city boot felt when shutting it.

Went to central Bang Na for dinner. Then she drove back down the Bang Na Chonburi and I was more scared by her and other Thais driving.

Got to her petrol station to meet the MIL which the wife is supposed to turn into and I was even more scared.

[petercool]

A number of "flame" posts and or baiting posts removed along with replies to same.

[laolover88]

Lotos Eaters All of Us

[Cypress Hill]

Interesting Posts... Everything seems to revolve around Prostitutes ???

Yep that's the reality of the situation.

Each to their own of course but expect a barrage of abuse if you prefer not to indulge because you're perceived to be saying you're better than those who do.

[balo]

2004 Bangkok - I stepped out of the airport bus in chaotic , smelly sukhumvit and I was left alone all by myself .

I sniffed in the air and it was a strange mix of garlic and sewage smell , I watched tuktuks and crazy drivers up and down the soi and thought to myself this is a third world country, be careful where you step your feet . But I liked it.

[Naam]

my first day in LoS was 40 years and 9 months ago (november 1973) coming from Osaka where i spent 4 months. after less than 24 hours i was convinced that LoS was the paradise as mentioned in the bible which (unfortunately) i had to leave after one week going back to the real and ugly world.

[Naam]

It was 1975, I was still a university student and working part-time for Air Siam, so free flights. On my first international vacation, I flew to Japan, Hong Kong, Bangkok and the Philippines before returning home.

On the leg from Hong Kong to Bangkok I met a guy who lived in an apartment off Sukhumvit and he suggested I stay in their guest room instead of in a hotel. The first day was uneventful but it got more interesting as the week wore on.

Because of that chance encounter I never felt like a tourist in Thailand. Of the places I visited on that trip, Thailand stuck. A couple of weeks after returning I celebrated my 21st birthday. Four trips and two years later, after graduation, I moved here.

glad to know that i am not the only one who remembers that an airline called "Air Siam" existed. on the leg from Bangkok to Hong Kong i met a young lady who unfortunately had a layover scheduled in HKG and i went on to Tokyo.

but we agreed to meet again which happened 4 long months later in BKK. aaaah... nostalgia...

[Aussieroaming]

Hot, sweaty and long

[Gringogazzer]

Hot, sweaty and long

Did you get the name of that katoey...555

[Kudel]

It was 1993 and that lady working in a certain hotel in khoa san road really had her way with me i was young and innocent :-!

[NamKAheng]

It was 1989, the internet was not what it is today so not a lot of knowledge about Thailand. A friend who just got divorce ask me to make a trip with me since he knew I like to travel. I ask him where he wanted to go, he did not know but told me that he will ask our friend who own a travel agency. The next day he came to me saying that we should go to Thailand, I said WHAT!!!!! He told me that our friend said that it will be a good destination for us and he had a good deal, unsold organised trip plane tickets with 3 nights at the Dusit Thani on arrival and 3 nights before departure. We departed from Montreal to Toronto to Anchorage Alaska to Hong Kong (old Kai Tak airport) to Bangkok, it took us 23 hours to get to Bangkok. We arrived at the hotel in the afternoon, shower and nap, eat at the hotel and got out to see Banagkok. What a shock, first time in Asia, first time in Thailand and first time in Bangkok. Walking out of the hotel we were stop by a tuk tuk driver who ask where we wanted to go, I reply that we wanted to go to a bar to have a drink. Up in the tuk tuk and the guy was telling us that we will have some fun at this place, he drove us to Nana Plaza. We enter the small alley of Nana, WHAT A CHOCK!!!! I will stop here for that night.

Three days later we took a flight to Phuket and went to Patong for the rest of the trip except for 2 days on Phi Phi island. Came back to Canada hook up with Thailand and could not wait for the next trip.

[TheSpade]

Have I stumbled onto the Pattaya Addicts forum instead?

Seriously, 90% of your ended up with hookers on your first night in Thailand?

Would be interested to learn more about the "different side of the city" as I'm sure TAT would be, too.

What's so different about it? Where/how do the rest of us find it?

Does it involve the hookers you appear to frown upon?

Maybe it's a holistic side to Bangkok I've yet to unearth.

Genuinely interested to learn from you.

So you don't know anything other than sleaze, neon lights, and hookers in Bangkok?

You need to get out more.

That shit is reserved to a very small part of a very big city.

When I was living in BKK I could go weeks or even months without seeing a bar girl (at least one which was obviously a bar girl)

There's much more to Bangkok than Patpong and Lower Sukhumvit and plenty to do other than hang around with hookers in sleazy little bars.

[Whyamiandwhatamidoinghere]

When will you people accept that we are all individuals with minds and actions unique from the next and I, for one, am happy for that because otherwise this thread would be Hella Boring. Here's to Individualism and the experiences and fond memories derived from it.

[tifino]

fond memories also of where/when one got his first taste of Mekhong...

"what!!! - you drink that shit?..."

"ah!! it's not about the taste - but more so the memory of where one was when was drinking it - that one saviours more deeply..."

aaaha!! it has just come back to me!!! that lonely little round bar on Patong in '81 was not SunDowners, but the 'Lucky Star bar"

(good stuff for the memory, sipping some more mekhong brought it all back clearly)

Edited September 20, 2014 by tifino

[Loptr]

Have I stumbled onto the Pattaya Addicts forum instead?

Seriously, 90% of your ended up with hookers on your first night in Thailand?

Would be interested to learn more about the "different side of the city" as I'm sure TAT would be, too.

What's so different about it? Where/how do the rest of us find it?

Does it involve the hookers you appear to frown upon?

Maybe it's a holistic side to Bangkok I've yet to unearth.

Genuinely interested to learn from you.

So you don't know anything other than sleaze, neon lights, and hookers in Bangkok?

You need to get out more.

That shit is reserved to a very small part of a very big city.

When I was living in BKK I could go weeks or even months without seeing a bar girl (at least one which was obviously a bar girl)

There's much more to Bangkok than Patpong and Lower Sukhumvit and plenty to do other than hang around with hookers in sleazy little bars.

Your disapproval is duly noted... Thailand has a tawdry reputation for a variety of reasons, with sex tourism only being one... Every time I mention that I have lived in and travel to Thailand I always get the wink, wink, nudge, nudge from people familiar with the place and it's reputation... Everyone else confuses Thailand with Taiwan...

My first day in Thailand was rather anti-climatic... It was August 2003 and I arrived in Bangkok around 11:00pm after a grueling trip... The first thing I remember exiting the terminal was the smell... Every place I have visited has a distinct "aroma" and Thailand is no different... Taxied to my hotel and tried to get some rest as I had a business meeting the next morning, but getting any sleep was a no-go as I was wound up and jet lagged at the same time... Made my meeting the next morning and the outcome was that I needed to get to Singapore ASAP to handle a situation... So, back on an airplane to Singers for a few days... Finally got back to Bangkok latter in the week and settled in... Took me at least a week to get over the jet-lag and adjust to the new time zone...

[Whyamiandwhatamidoinghere]

Yes it seems like, on my first night, if I didn't bang someone's daughter working the streets are the bar then my ears must be green and pointed and my name is Spock. NEWS FLASH:I didn't sleep with Ladies Of The Night, Days nor Afternoons in my home country. Why am I going to come and do different here because some beautiful Asian girl half my age wants to pull my "Johnson?" It's nutty logic. I am who I am because I decided what morals and character I wanted as a man. I had friends who smoked more weed than Bob Marley and Snoop Dogs combined and they would always tell me I was killing their high and a party poop because I wouldn't indulge with them. I hear the same guilt rhetoric I read in this forum when I would consistently and politely decline. "Damn! You must think you better than us" No..

I just choose to be my own man and not a sheep. Smoke your ass off.. You're still my friend. So if your first night was spent with a girl... Cool. I'm happy you got some on your first night. For me I chose the scenic view. Peace and Piece!

[roamer]

3 years old, not a lot to remember.

[infinity11]

FIRST DAY?????

more like first week

fell madly in love with it and never left

never saw anything like it (eastern or asian culture)

so mellow

now the stories....

how much time do you have?

[FritsSikkink]

1981 No roman signs on the coins, had to check with paper money what the coins were worth.

[thailiketoo]

3 years old, not a lot to remember.

22 years old even less.

[asiasurfer]

February 2002: Arrived in BKK to see a girl I met on the Internet.

Today: Living in Thailand, still married to the same "girl" and two kids richer...

[samsensam]

early 1990's holidaying with my then gf. arrived at don muang and took the train to hualampong and tuk tuk to banglmapoo. stayed near ratchademnueng avenue - even then i knew to avoid KSR - in a dodgy cheap hotel. went back a few years ago and there were prostitutes lined up outside, it had become a short time sex hotel, or maybe it always was! a lasting memory is ratchademnueng avenuve filled with speeding, screaming tuk tuks, not many taxis in those days. had a meal on KSR and got food poisining. left bangkok and had a great time touring the country, backpacking was an adventure in those days.

[roamer]

early 1990's holidaying with my then gf. arrived at don muang and took the train to hualampong and tuk tuk to banglmapoo. stayed near ratchademnueng avenue - even then i knew to avoid KSR - in a dodgy cheap hotel. went back a few years ago and there were prostitutes lined up outside, it had become a short time sex hotel, or maybe it always was! a lasting memory is ratchademnueng avenuve filled with speeding, screaming tuk tuks, not many taxis in those days. had a meal on KSR and got food poisining. left bangkok and had a great time touring the country, backpacking was an adventure in those days.

As much as I appreciate the conveniences of modern life I have to agree with you in that "backpacking was an adventure in those days". Probably hard for those who have grown up with the internet and mobile phones to appreciate how much more haphazard the whole travelling process was then, making arrangements to meet people down the line often relied on messages pinned to guest house walls. News from home was poste restante, often weeks late. Phone communications difficult, expensive and unreliable. Added to this was the fact that Thailand was itself a very different place, hard to get bread let alone a Big Mac, no Skytrain, no budget airlines.On the other hand a population far less jaded and cynical from the effects of mass tourism, Places like Samui in the 80's were as pretty close to paradise as you can get.....for me, but I know people travelling now that would freak at the very idea of travelling under those conditions. It's really not that difficult to get off the beaten track in LOS even these days but whenever I have I notice less "travellers", for want of a better word, they tend to follow a very well defined trail. Doesn't apply to all though, come across some in the very back end of Laos trying to get away from that whole scenario.

[keestha]

When tourists tell me Thailand is too touristy, I always point out to them that 90% of the country is untouched by tourism. But backpackers tend to follow the well worn trails, it's too easy, everybody talking about the same places, and the guesthouse selling tickets to the next destination. Takes a bit of an effort to break free from this.

[Artichoke]

Still remembering my journals from my visit to LOS in 2001 it began: "Although my heart was set on the clear blue waters in Indonesia I ended up in Bangkok - a city which compared to a pretty woman would look something like a zombie turned inside out...".
Never been in Asia, I was utterly disappointed with Thailand, thinking I would see a cosy small white greek styled houses and huts on the beach only to find dirty concrete houses, litter, trash and zero design or safety.
During those two weeks I did fall in love with Thailand and it's people, and ended up living in Bangkok .

Edited September 24, 2014 by Artichoke