The Beauty of Bangkok
Trip Start
Nov 15, 2006
1
98
228
Trip End
Jul 15, 2008
Bangkok, Thailand
Monday, May 21, 2007
Bangkok (still)
We've been here for a week this time and haven't gotten much to show for it. Where does the time go? But we planned a full day for today. We are going to the Lao Embassy to get our visas. We know we can get a 15 day visa at the border, but, knowing us, it might take longer to get through even that small country. Irina says it's better to be safe than sorry. We've also accumulated two large boxes of stuff to send back to our neighbor, Suzette, who must be getting a bit tired of all these boxes filling up her spare room. This time we are going to use the Thailand Postal Service not DHL.
The cost of taxis to the Loa Embassy and back to our hotel was about B200 not including tips. Our two visas cost B3000 plus B200 for express one hour service. If you don't pay for express service it takes two days to get the visas. The pleasant surprise was that the clerk only charged us one express service fee of B200 while the notice on the wall said that it was supposed to be B200 each.
There is a Thailand Post Office by the Saphan Khwai Sky Train station near our hotel. One of our boxes weighed 23.36 kilos and shipping cost B3770, the second box weighed 12.73 kilos and cost B2230. This was the rate for shipping by sea and supposedly it could take months before they arrive at their destination. It would have cost much more to ship by air. The last package we sent back from Bangkok weighed 19 kilos and DHL charged us close to B7700. It did arrive within a few days, but we've found that most things we mail from post offices and pay the lower sea transit rates get home nearly as fast.
We've also gotten our train tickets from Bangkok to Udan Thani in the north. First class tickets with sleeper births cost us B1077 per person. It's an eleven hour trip and we leave town at 8 PM tomorrow.
Some good news came this week. We received an e-mail from Robertus. He's the young man in Moni on the island of Flores, Indonesia. When we were staying at his family home stay he showed us a library he was building for the children of the village. We had promised to send him books; and we did send about a dozen Indonesian children's book to him from Bali. That was around February 7th. It took about three months but he finally received the books. We had used a local shipping company in Bali (not DHL or Fed Ex) and we were concerned when a large package we had sent by the same company arrived at Suzette's within a month but Robertus had still not received his books. But all's well that ends well. We only wish we'd sent him more.
