Bangkok, part 4

It is true that things are cheap (in price) in Thailand. But that is only true from an American perspective. When you are making American dollars like I am, the exchange rate favors us very nicely. I doubt native Thai people making the average Bangkok income (~39,000 baht, or ~1,060 dollars) think stuff is cheap in their country.

To make math easy, think of 1 U.S. dollar as 35 Thai baht. The exchange rate obviously fluctuates, but the 1 to 35 ratio is a solid anchor. As an example, a 500ml bottle of Coca-Cola (20oz bottles only exist in land of the free) at a Bangkok 7-Eleven is 19 baht. Less than a dollar for bottled soda? I don’t think you can even get a 12-oz can for that money here in the States.

Obviously, it was easy spending in Bangkok, so long as you ignore the price of the plane tickets. Hotels are shockingly cheap, though I suspect that has to do with the fact there are so many of them all over the city. Competition is great. Nevertheless, for (what is considered on Booking.com) a five-star accommodation, I paid around $90 per night. Contrast that to America: you can’t even book a Motel 6 in the middle of get-stabbed-at-night town for that money.

For Americans traveling to Thailand, the only pain point in terms of price is the airfare.

I stayed at the Hotel Sukosol. I chose it because one, it was five-stars (why not, when it’s so comparatively cheap), and two, it’s two blocks from an airport rail link stop. On departure day it was super easy to take the train to the airport. No need to call a taxi, only to get stuck in horrible Bangkok traffic. Best feature of Hotel Sukosol isn’t even inside: there’s a 24-hours 7-Eleven right next door. I frequented that convenience store at least twice a day for refreshment replenishment.

There were plenty of airline pilots and stewards staying at the hotel as well, so you know it’s of a certain quality. I can recommend highly.

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What time is it?

Habits (stay clean)

At my age - a prime 36 years old - the difficulty in traveling is the breaking of my daily routine at home. Like James Clear, I am big on habits and consistency. Traveling does make a stop to that stuff. Take for example: when I am away from home for long periods, I can’t take the usual supplements. Another example: I can’t workout when I’m traveling. Is the temporary pause detrimental? Probably not. But it just feels weird, you know?

What’s also weird is being in hotels. Most of them - expensive or otherwise - do not match up to my standards of cleanliness. Especially so for hotels in America. The western culture of not taking off your shoes indoors means accommodations here in the States have a higher baseline of dirtiness. You can vacuum that carpet all you want, housekeeping. Doesn’t change the fact that many shoes have walked over that surface.

Things are slightly better in Asia, with our culture of taking shoes off before entering an abode. Even then, the level of cleanliness scales linearly with the amount-per-night cost of the hotel (in my experience, anyways). The only experience that lived up to my admittedly high standards is the ryokan around the Mount Fuji area in Japan. That cost $250 a night in 2019 money. Read: that is expensive for me.

If I am to stay in an accommodation for at least a few days, what I do is clean the floors myself (when possible). That might sound insane to you, but the peace of mind is worth it. Plus, I get to enjoy actually clean floors. Can’t beat that!

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Prestige phone.

Booking a room and renting a car in Japan

My friend and I are planning for a trip to Japan (finally!) in the third week of July, so periodically I’m going to talk about some of the process on here (trust the process).

A few weeks back I ranted about how it was cheaper to fly to Japan from LAX than our local airport SFO. The savings from flying out further south is quite significant, which is just as well because the next item on the list after plane tickets is accommodations, and it’s expectedly expensive in Tokyo.

It’s also astonishingly small. I’ve dealt with land scarce cities before, namely Hong Kong, but even the tiny hotels rooms there are generally larger than the ones I’ve browsed around Tokyo. Japan’s idea of a hotel room with two twin beds is an area that’s just big enough to fit two beds nearly stuck together, and not much else. Sure hope you didn’t pack a lot of luggage!

Obviously, the western branded hotels are slightly more hospitable to our American sensibilities of personal space, but those are prohibitively out of our price range. The space situation on Airbnb is better than hotels if you choose to rent an entire home, but even there you should plan to be somewhat cozy with your chosen roommate. The place we reserved is nevertheless appropriately tiny, but at least the two beds aren’t directly adjacent to each other.

Small living spaces is indeed how Tokyo manages to cram over 13 million people within its city limits.

After we sorted our living situation, the focus turned to renting a car. Now it must be said that we fully realize the public transportation system in Tokyo is robust and envy of the world, and we will be utilizing to the maximum. However, there will be a few days where we plan to leave the capital for the countryside, and the original plan was to rent a car because I’ve always wanted to drive on the wrong side of the road in a foreign country.

And as a car enthusiast, I really wanted to visit and drive on the famed Hakone turnpike, a toll road that absolutely requires a car.

Upon further research, it turns out it’s highly not recommended to drive anywhere within or near Tokyo. The grid structure is practically a maze, and the signage isn’t the greatest if you don’t know Japanese. Getting lost is almost guaranteed. Yikes.

So a change of plans then: we are going to rent a car closer to the turnpike, and instead will travel to Hakone via the reliable and fast bullet train.

Much more to come!

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I think more people should buy cars in colors that isn’t a shade of white, silver, gray, or black.

AirBnb is Great, but...

AirBnb is doing wonders for traveling groups larger than three people. Hotels generally cater to groups of two or singles unless you pay through the nose for suites at higher floors. For those of us who aren't willing to share a double bed, AirBnb is simply awesome. I select entire houses, pick the appropriate number of beds, mark the self check-in option, and off I go. 

And in my experiences AirBnb places have ended up cheaper than a hotel for two. Brilliant. 

What isn't so great about AirBnb though is the sheer amount of time I need to invest to find a good spot. Unlike hotels where the star rating can at least guarantee a certain level of decency, when you are staying in a stranger's private home, due diligence is a must. First I look at location - is it close to public transport, then the facilities - if photos show a place more run down than the typical hotel I skip it. After that I look at almost all the reviews: does the place match the description, and is the "landlord" trustworthy. 

All that can easily take many hours just to select one spot. I admit that this may be a situation unique to me seeing as one could easily pick the first spot that looks decent and then put faith in the goodness of the landlord that everything will work out as written. I am not that person. I must look at all the variables and weight all the options. Tedious it may be, I've yet to have a bad AirBnb lodging experience. Knock on wood.