Moving On - Next Stop: Bangkok

So as planned, after four days on Phuket Island -- it came time to move and this morning I was among lots of others at the Phuket Airport. It's a busy place -- seemed to be almost exclusively Thai/Chinese vacationers. I hadn't booked the cheapest flight because I wanted to control my departure time and arrival airport, so I was on a $98 Bangkok Air flight which was also the same flight for Air Emirates, Ethihad, Qatar, airBerlin, Aeroflot, Eva Air, Garuda Indonesia, British Airways and China Airlines. It was an Airbus 320 with more leg room than I've seen on any aircraft in recent years -- and it was packed.

The flight was uneventful except that I was impressed that they served a full meal during the hour long flight. Upon arrival I followed signs to Bangkok's light rail and followed Google transit directions to a station close to the downtown -- and exited looking for a connecting bus. A friendly tailor shop owner offered me directions to the bus but then opined that for less than 100 bhat ($2.85 USD) I could be in an air conditioned taxi...so that's what I did. The hostel was directly adjacent to a massive, indoor flower market and while my initial room was coffin sized, they were able to upgrade me to a rather nice place.

After some quick study of the Lonely Planet guide -- I headed out for a walk with plans to make it to the Chinatown area for some street food -- and with the help of tripadvisor.com reviews, made my way to an excellent steamed snapper dinner:

And with my daughter Staci's advice ringing in my ears -- "take a tuk tuk ride!" -- I ended the evening with a quick and fun ride back to my hostel in a tuk tuk.

All in all, a great start to my short visit to Bangkok.