Let's go back, back in time to when this journey started: Jessica and I arrived at the airport with nearly 300lbs of luggage between our checked and carry-on bags. We wait in line and go to process our E-tickets, that goes well and we print out our tickets. Now the problems start. First Jessica's international tickets do not print, alright not a big deal. She has a different last name than I do, and maybe they just need to verify the information. The lady at the desk comes over and starts to print out baggage labels. All of a sudden she stops and asks if we have a return ticket, we say no as we are unsure of the duration of out stay. She then goes on to say how she can not let us board the flight as we do not have any return ticket... Well that is going to be a problem. We try and reason with her, but she will not budge and we get sent over to the lady at the first class desk. To keep the story brief, and hour and a half later we have two fully refundable tickets to Guam and 40min to make it though security. Off we were on our adventure with an interesting start as well. After we arrived in Bangkok we have talked with many people who have come over without return tickets. It seems that we just had the wrong lady, or American Airlines is overly stringent.
Fast forward a couple of days: We have arrived safely in Bangkok with all of our luggage and we have spent our first day in the city. It is around 7pm and we decided it is time to head back. The hotel we were staying at was out near the airport and when we left in the morning we received a sheet of paper with directions to give to a taxi driver for a return trip. We hail a taxi, give him the piece of paper and he points at some Thai lettering, we nod our heads and off we go. An hour later we are at the airport. For a moment both Jessica and I are speechless, would we really go to the airport with only a camelback as luggage? Then we both start staying no, and pointing to the name of the hotel. The driver gets out and asks someone and we are back on our way. Jessica and I both now have the impression that our driver either A. Can't read or B. Isn't Thai and can't read that well. The driver then spends the next hour and a half driving in circles and stopping every 15min and asking a different group of people for directions. At one point he finds someone with a cell phone who kindly calls the hotel to find the location. She tells the taxi driver and off we go again, but alas we still can't find the hotel. Eventually Jessica spots the sign and we guide the taxi driver to the right location. At this point we were both to tired to argue with him and just paid the fair. The extra $6 it cost us for driving around wasn't worth the effort, and I think he genuinely didn't know where to go.
I'll do my best to put up more info which is more current tomorrow. For now I'll leave you with two pictures.
Rooftop shrines:
Sitting under and awning during a storm:
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