Thai Trip Report: Day #5

Our first objective for the day: find a place for money exchange.  Nook, our tour guide from the first day, recommended one business, Super Rich, stating they frequently had good exchange rates. We headed there and it was quite the adventure.  Sites, sounds, and different areas of the city we had not yet been.  Once we reached the place, we enter and they have quite the operation going.  One person checks you in, checks your passport, etc, then you take a seat.  The next person takes your money, counts it out, and a second person verifies, then you take a seat.  You are called up to collect your money when the transaction is complete, and you are to count your money right there.  All of this was orchestrated by tv monitors displaying your number.

After the money we were hungry and hot and Matt was complaining about too much walking.  We head across the street to the mall area and check out their food court.  We ate in a Japanese restaurant (which Matt described as an Asian Friendlys).  I ordered a Korean dish.  All the while, American music hits were blarring overhead.  I swear it is a miracle everyone here isn't suffering from hearing loss.  All the music all the time is sooooo loud!  Matt still wishes to sit and take it easy, so we head to Siam Paragon cineplex.  This is supposed to be a very nice, state of the art movie theater from my research, but aside from super comfy seats, there is nothing special about it.  It was 180 baht per person for the tickets ($6/person).  We get some popcorn and snacks for less than 300 baht and head into the movie.  "The Tourist" seemed like an appropriate movie to see!  Afterwards we head back to the hotel for our usual late afternoon nap.

Siam Paragon Cinema Lobby

Waiting for our movie to start!

We had a dinner cruise planned for this evening. The company offered a complimentary shuttle from our hotel to the pier, but we declined, as the map to the location looked simple enough. Big mistake. We get to the area where the pier is located with 35 minutes left until the cruise is scheduled to take off. For 45 minutes we frantically ran around asking everyone for help, but no one was entirely sure how to help us find our way. Two men at two different piers very well could have been amusing themselves with us, as one would tell us to go to one pier and the other would tell us to go back to the original pier. Ten minutes after the cruise was scheduled to depart, we hopped in a taxi and headed home to bed. Frustrated and disappointed, we were in no mood for dinner anymore.