We will be spending about 10 days in early Feb. and staying in the Sukhumvit district. Are there any ideas for things to do during the day that English only speakers can do on their own? What about tours that would originate in that area?

Another topic...I understand I do not have to pay any departure tax when leaving the airport as it is covered on my Northwest Airlines ticket. Was that correct advice?

Dear Audie,

If you are staying in a hotel, the front counter or lobby should have a desk or information counter for tours outside of BKK where you would not need Thai. Tour companies normally make runs through several hotels to pick up guests, so no telling how many others would be in your group.

My couple of recommendations for the Sukhumvit area would be the Queen's Park between Soi 22 and Soi 24, and the Emporium shopping center right at Soi 26. Not much else to see other than rows of shops of all kinds for tourists, department stores, smaller shopping centers and hotels and restaurants. The Asia Books retail store near Soi 15 is the original bookstore of its genre in town and provides a nice respite for browsing if you are walking up and down Sukhumvit.

In BKK, fairly close by BTS skytrain, National Stadium station, is the Jim Thompson house down a small lane backing onto a canal. One of my first recommendations for first time visitors to Thailand. Jim Thompson started the Thai silk industry and the house is marvelous for its architecture and its antiques.

Audie,

Also I know nothing about deals now with any airlines to have the airport departure tax included in ticket price. Perhaps, just don't know. Maybe when you give your ticket and passport to the ticketing agent, he or she gives you a printed departure tax receipt for you to use when entering immigration.

Other more recent travelers will know better than I.

As of Feb 1, the new 700 Baht tax (raised from 500 Baht) will be included in the final ticket price for international departures, just like the domestic departure tax has long been included.

There's lots to do on Sukhumvit.

It's one of Bangkok's main commercial arteries and contains its biggest tourist mile (from Nana to Asoke). There are literally hundreds of hotels, restaurants, clubs, dives, bars, fast food chains, shopping malls and just about anything else you could imagine (and I mean ANYTHING you could imagine) on the main Sukhumvit Road or its side streets and lanes (sois). One of the major sois (a main street in its own right), Thonglor, has become an up-and-coming venue for arty young Thais and is worth checking out for its caf�s and wide range of restaurants alone.

The Nana-Asoke strip has a lively street market in the early evening and a different sort of action after about 10 PM. After the bars close at 2 AM (or 1 AM or whatever it is now), Sukhumvit becomes a big informal beer bar with food and drink vendors materializing out of nowhere and all the bar workers, bar patrons, streetwalkers, freelancers, ladyboys, tourists, ex-pats, and other denizens of the night drinking and eating until the wee hours.

And last but certainly not least, the BTS/Skytrain runs the length of the urban part of Sukhumvit (the street continues out of Bangkok to Pattaya and beyond). So from Sukhumvit you can easily and quickly go up to Chatuchak market, for instance, or down to the river to catch the Chao Phraya Express boats which take you up to tourist sights like the Grand Palace and Wat Arun. The Chao Phraya boats are one of the greatest cheap excursions in Bangkok. You can start at Saphan Taksin/Sathorn (where the Skytrain ends) and take the boats all the way up to Nonthaburi, which is another province, jumping on and off the boats, for a couple of dollars. In Nonthaburi you can have lunch at the floating restaurant a few hundred metres downriver and watch the traffic on the river, before catching a boat back.

Don't feel you need to take organized tours to explore Bangkok. It's an easy city to get around. Taxis are cheap and plentiful (just don't take the ones lurking around hotels and tourist sights, and make sure they use their metres). Many people speak English. But the ones who try to tell you that the Grand Palace (or any other tourist sight) is closed are scammers and should be ignored. (Or you can fend them off with some Thai: "Mai ao khrap/ka!" Pronounced: "Mye ow c'ap" (for a man) or "Mye ow kaaa" (for a woman).

The only time when you really should take a tour is to those places where you need an explanation of the cultural context of something like the Grand Palace or the Emerald Buddha.

The tours themselves are something of a scam. Bangkok tour guides have to pay the tour companies to be allowed to work, and the only way they have of recouping their investment and making a living is to take their charges to restaurants, souvenir shops and gem factories which pay commissions. Even so, those commissions are split between the guide, the tour company and the driver.

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Thanks for all of the recommendations. We will not be staying at a hotel but I am wondering if I could not pick up a tour there anyway. It appears from all of the suggestions that relying on a tour is not really necessary. I was surprised at the warning of people telling you your place of destination is closed and the offer to take you somewhere else. I will remember that one cannot be too trusting.

Audie,
I agree with sonoftheheartland's suggestion of a tour of The Jim Thompson house. Inexpensive and interesting. Do it on your own. It's located on soi Kasem San 2 at the end. The soi next to Krit Thai Mansion hotel. When you leave, pay no attention to the person who will try to take you to a gem store where you can buy gemstones very cheap and resell them in your country and become rich. I explained to him that I was in the gemstone business in North Carolina and could buy them much cheaper there. (It doesn't bother me to lie).
Dave

I have the book Jim Thompson The Unsolved Mystery by William Warren. Has anyone read this book as I thought it would be good back ground before visiting his home?

I am familiar with Jim Thompson mystery but have not read Wm Warren's book. Warren is one of the old guard, excellent expat authors on Thailand and is well regarded because of his knowledge of Thai customs and ways.

Thompson basically disappeared in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia on a Sunday afternoon during a short holiday there with a few close friends from Thailand. No definitive explanation for his disappearance has ever proven accurate, nor was his body ever found.

hi Audie

first english is spoken extensively in thailand and all over bangkok.

there are all sorts of things to do that need no guide and a few where a guide would be helpful, but there are travel agents all over bangkok and you will be innundated with them at the airport when you arrive.
recommend getting out of bangkok if you have that much time if you can. you can do it very cheaply if you dont have much money. (an overnight bus to chiang mai for instance.

but there are tons of things to do in bangkok on your own including shopping at the weekend market, going to see kick boxing, going to the old capitol, etc etc.

you can do much of bangkok's sites on your own. Having a guide is faster and gives you more history, but it's not difficult to see the sites on your own and all have english language info

Many of the hotels in BKK is World Travel Service as their tour company. At least, the WTS desk is usually beside check-in.

The benefit is that the tour company will pick up and drop off at the hotel.

I second that recommendation from Braindrain for World Travel Service tours.

I've been on two of their tours in Bangkok.
Pickup right on time.
Clean, comfortable, vans.
Well organized transfer "hub" at their main office (with clean toilets).
Very good guide.

Door-to-door is a major factor in the traffic chaos of Bangkok.

WTS is more expensive than average.
But for quality and dependability, they are my choice and my recommendation to visiting friends.

Here's their web site: http://www.wts-thailand.com/

Note: Most tours from most tour companies stop at gem stores or other tourist shopping.
That did not happen on either of my tours with WTS, but WTS brochures explain that a few of their tours make a shopping stop at the end.

-- Peter
.

Audie -

Have a look at these.
All of them suitable for English-only speakers to do on their own.

Some of the activities that I recommend most often to visiting friends are not well known and easily overlooked.
They are the Segway tour, the Chao Praya River Tourist Boat, and the Siam Niramit show.
Web pages for those -- and other sightseeing highlights -- are below.

-- Peter


http://www.thailandsegwaytours.com/#Tourlisting

http://www.sow.champ.co.th/

http://www.thaioasis.com/bkkv/bkktopten.php

http://www.siamniramit.com/

http://www.shop2thai.com/thailand-tr...p?articleid=37

http://www.chaophrayaboat.co.th/tour...ayariver_e.htm

Will be in BKK for the 15th time between 8th and 15th Feb. If you want to meet up for a drink and chat please feel free to pm.
KC

Partial list of people NOT to trust in Thailand:

1. Anyone that approaches you on the street ... ESPECIALLY if they speak English

2. Tuk Tuk drivers

3. Taxi's that are NOT moving (e.g. standing and waiting for customers)

4. Taxi touts at the airport

5. Taxi's that claim "meter no work"

6. Gem store employees

7. Anyone that tries to take you to a gem store, massage parlor, etc.

8. Those "oh so friendly tourist survey people" on Sukhumvit. They just want your contact info so they can pester you with timeshare sales pitches.

Others may feel free to add on........