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Member since:22.09.2002
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Bangkok International Airport is situated 25km from downtown Bangkok. It has 2 terminals which are housed within the same building. When you fly in from London, you enter via terminal 1 but in order to reclaim baggage and go through passport control you have to make your way to terminal 2.
The first thing you notice as you get off the plane is the intense rush of heat. When we arrived the skies were filled with dark clouds but the swirl of heat that greeted us was still a surprise. Within 20 minutes I was soaked through. Thankfully baggage trolleys are in plentiful supply because there is about a quarter of an hour walk to baggage reclaim.
Passport control couldn't have been more straight forward. Before arrival you must fill out an arrival/departure card. We flew with Qantas and they handed out the cards about 1 hour before landing. The questions on the card are straight forward like name, details and passport number. The other form to be filled out is an immigration control sheet.where you state whether you have anything to declare or not. Seems like the easier choice is 'nothing to declare' as you can simply breeze through the immigration counter.
Your first interaction with a Thai person is when you present your passport and arrival/departure card. Not only was the man who served us efficient and polite (he smiled when he greeted us!) but he also stapled a loose page from my girlfriends passport back into place! The whole procedure took less than a minute.
Arriving at 5pm meant that the airport was eerily quiet. The greatest amount of travellers arrive in and around midnight. Perhaps this is why we felt so much at ease. The was a queue of about 10 people in front of us at passport control and by the time we got to reclaim our baggage it was already on the belt.
We were most apprehensive about leaving the arrival hall and entering the main foyer. Lonely Planet perhaps talks up the level of touting that is present here. In saying that we were approached by about 4 people offered their services to bring us into town. A polite no was enough to deflect them however. The lack of bedlam could be put down to the fact that we arrived in early October which is considered low season for tourism.
The main foyer in the airport is simplistic, clean and has clear signposts in English marking the direction of the airport taxi desk, accommodation information and so on. There is an ATM that takes visa cards on your left towards the end of the terminal. I was able to withdraw 5000 Baht (about 120 euro) without any difficulty. No charge seemed to be applied to my account for this transaction. There isn't much in the way of food and drink facilities but a Supermac's type joint seemed to be doing quite good business.
Getting into town couldn't have been any easier. If you follow the airport bus sign (a little confusing as it points towards a car park, but ask at any of the information desks and they will help you) you will find a rather basic counter clearly marked that is going to the Khao San road. This bus (the 'A2') is one of 3 airport owned buses that travels to different parts of town. For most the 'A2' which passes through Banglamphu (where the cheapest accommodation is located) is the one to take. These buses are air conditioned and comfortable (in that old school bus type of way) with the added advantage that the driver seemed semi-sane.
All in all Bangkok International was a pleasant surprise. The fact that we arrived in low season probably helped but all the same the only thing that you really need to overcome what it throws at you is a little common sense and an extra large can of deodorant.
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![Let'S Shop Bangkok Thailand [DVD] [NTSC]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/88249882.jpg "Let'S Shop Bangkok Thailand [DVD] [NTSC]")
Feb 11th, 2003
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