March 26, 2026

I had been looking forward to spending time in the Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok airport, but the onerous trek to my onward gate was not what I had anticipated. I move along a relatively convoluted path from my arrival gate, pass through a low key security check for transfer passengers, then continue on to the next gate, having to walk in a straight line from effectively Gate 1 to gate 75, without the benefit of a moving walkways, an inexcusably poor design and reflection of substandard usability. I really would have expected a more pleasant experience reaching my gate so following such a long cross-Pacific flight.

As there are no services in the vicinity of my gate, I will be happy to stay in my tranquil enclave until the flight to Bangkok departs. I certainly will never consider Hong Kong as transfer point for any cross-Pacific flight following this experience, especially considering the quality of competing airports in the region.

Surprisingly, I arrive in Bangkok not particularly exhausted, and even better, passing through the various arrival steps is relatively painless. I embark on the slog to the Arrivals area, fill out the designated electronic card, then patiently queue; the lineups for non-Thai citizens are exceedingly long. Most of the arrivals are east Asian, so they won’t have had such long flights, but for people coming from America, such as myself, the wait is painful. Given the extent to which Thailand lives off of tourism, I just can’t see the authorities going overboard with reviewing travelers’ credentials.

It does seem strange to me how a country can be completely overwhelmed by tourists, and that in perpetuity — even though the country did experience a dramatic drop during and following Covid — not that the extent to which the country is touristed is something I am dwelling on now. I had harboured tremendous animosity to the nature of tourism in Thailand in the past, given that I spent at least some of my visits in the more popular southern and beach destinations, but that is now far back in time, and I will be focused on other areas of the country on this trip where there are presumably far fewer visitors.

I continue through the baggage claim and into the mob in the arrival area. Happily, I don’t need to withdraw local money as I exchanged a buffer in Vancouver. I walk past booths selling cellular mobility services, which I have decided to not pursue at the airport, although that may present problems as I try communicating with the host of my Airbnb in some back alley of town in the middle of the night. And as it turns out, this will be an issue later on. I had wanted to postpone getting a SIM card until I am in town, as there are apparently significant price differences between the airport and the city. The prices I see posted for prepaid SIM cards run around CAD $80 for a month, which seems excessive to me.

Taking local transportation at this hour is not an option, given how late it is, although even during the day would represent a serious effort, given the length of the journey and the inevitable treks through the MRT stations.

Bolt seems to be the ride-hailing app of choice in Thailand, and I have definitely used it, although I don’t recall its specific idiosyncrasies. A major concern about using a ride-sharing app to hail a car at a transport exchange such as the airport is that their cars may be blocked by taxi drivers, as they represent an unacceptable competition. As per the agent at the information desk in the Arrivals hall, that is not the case in Bangkok, and I can apparently get picked up at any of the building’s gates, which seems fairly incredible, but then again, this is Thailand, a country about as user-friendly for tourists as it gets.

There are a variety of fare types for Bolt cars, with quite a price spread, although I can’t fathom why there would be so much difference. A car in the end is just a car, although I suppose that the size would make a difference for larger parties. For just myself, the simplest vehicle is acceptable, although I can see that I will be enthralled with the fact that you can take motorcycle taxis in Thailand, which Malaysia has sadly banned. But that certainly will not be a suitable option now, given that I have baggage and the distance we have to cover. Then I am shocked at how inexpensive the fare into town is …

Looking through the car windows as we glide westward toward the centre of Bangkok, the urban morass of the city appears to be utterly vast and dizzying, the nocturnal landscape possibly lending a charm it may lack during the day. There are so many neighborhoods we pass through dominated by skyscrapers — but who lives in these places, anyway?

We never broach the core area of the city, as I’ve decided to stay in the Taling Chan canal district on the west side of the river. On the map it didn’t look so far, but in reality it is! I track our progress into what appears to be a residential enclave adjacent a canal area; we proceed as far as some narrow and quite atmospheric alley, but it seems I have to now continue down an even narrower alley on foot, cross a canal, then somewhere beyond is my Airbnb. This isn’t really what I had intended at this point of my trip, never mind the risk that my Airbnb may not materialize, a very unappealing prospect, given how late it is and the fact that I have no data on my phone.

The closest I can find to the location the Airbnb maps onto is a gated compound that doesn’t have any signage indicating that it may be an Airbnb. I contemplate continuing on in the L-shaped alley, but there is a gathering of feral dogs who bark aggressively at me, approaching me with their fangs bared, an impromptu introduction to the realities of Thailand’s stray dog problem and the other function Buddhist monasteries serve (in the corner is a somewhat beaten up gate to a temple). The dogs hide out at the temples, and while they may be docile during the day, they are anything but when dusk sets in.

I enter the compound again, unclear as to how to proceed. There seem to be several living units in a row in the structure that occupies the expansive lot. Fortunately one unit’s patio is illuminated, and the young man seated in the spare light springs into action when I motion for assistance. He calls the host and soon they arrive — the unit in question is in the corner, next to the young man’s place.

I am soon settled in my new home, relatively spacious and functionally adequate, but somewhere also quite stark, with the necessities that Airbnb guests may expect, but little beyond, certainly not of a decorative nature. The enormous courtyard is largely just an abandoned area, but it probably wouldn’t matter much to the hosts, as they own a broader swath of property in the area, and hence won’t be particularly lacking. What may be a concern is that the space is quite far from anywhere, which of course was hardly a surprise when I booked it.

On the lower floor, a cozy living area with tasteful couches and armchairs, a small, anodyne eating area including a table with some chairs, and at the far end, a kitchen with basic appliances, cookware, a fridge, microwave, range, and so on, although I hardly see myself embarking on grand cooking efforts in Bangkok, then upstairs, two rooms, one empty, the second the bedroom with very basic appointments, with a very large bed, a cabinet and two nightstands, and not much else.

Both floors of the house are lined with large, shuttered windows, providing a bounty of natural light — except for the visitor from a northern clime, the windows need to stay shuttered during the day at all costs, given the intense heat. And since the lower floor is also fan cooled, while the bedroom is airconditioned, I naturally gravitate to the upstairs area. Even at this late hour, the heat seeps through every crevice of the walls and engulfs my newfound world in a syrupy morass …