for the last several days, i haven’t really posted anything in this blog… that’s pretty much cause i havent really done anything. i could write about the many times i’ve gone to the mall (i think i’ve gone every day for the last 10 days). i could write about how for some strange reason i’ve gotten into this weird schedule of going to sleep at 3am and getting up at noon. i could write about going to the movies *yet again*. i could write about countless hours spent on the computer researching airfares and how Cathay Pacific screwed us over. but all of these things aren’t exciting and i couldnt see anyone caring much. for some reason, whenever i pretty much decide on leaving a country and moving on to the next, i always just spend my remaining time counting down the days. i could be making the most of my time here in bangkok, but instead i’m just lazying about. i guess it’s just anticipation of moving on. well, as of tomorrow, things’ll pick up again. we’re taking off to beautiful indonesia… land of volcanoes, tribal villages, and excellent diving. it’ll be exciting to see what’s in store for us!<\/p>\n
******<\/p>\n
oh, here’s a random story that popped into my head. we arrived in bangkok the other day at 7am. exhausted and half awake, we took a cab to look for a place to stay. we went inside one hotel and after asking about the price, asked to see one of the rooms. this is something we do *every time* we check into a place. abroad, you never know what you’ll find in a hotel room. could be smelly, could have roaches, could be filthy… you never know, so you should always check before you pay. well, when we asked to see a room, he said the rooms dont get cleaned till 8:30am so we cant see a room, but he can show us photos, which he proceeds to do. we say that we’ll wait till 8:30 and then take a look at the room. to our complete surprise, he says no. he absolutely refuses us to look at a room unless we pay him first. he insists that if we want to know what the room is like that we can look at the photos. we tell him that the room might look different than the photos, and we’d prefer to actually see the room. waiting till 8:30 or whenever is fine. but he says no. he wont let us see the room.<\/p>\n
now, this is really bizarre. we’ve been on the road for almost 8 months now. we’ve probably stayed at around 60 or more hotels during this time… hotels spanning over 15 countries, and not once have we ever not been allowed to look at a room. WTF?! we ask him why he wont allow us to see the room, and he gets pissed off. “fine! the hotel is full then. go find another hotel”. what?! i couldnt believe how rude this guy was being. we tell him that we’re not trying to be difficult, we just feel like we should be able to see a room before paying. he tells us the hotel is full once again. we point out that just 2 minutes ago he said it wasn’t. “well now it’s full. go find another hotel”. ugh!!! in america, this would be the point when you ask to speak to his manager etc. but abroad, there’s no managers to complain to. there’s never any reprocussions to employees for being totally rude to us, ripping us off, etc. in some ways, this is the most frustrating thing about traveling. that someone can just utterly treat you like shit, and there’s really nothing you can do about it. or, a company can totally rip you off, and once again, there’s nothing you can do about it. lots of businesses totally thrive on the fact that they can rip off a customer, and then, since the cutomer is a traveler, the business will never see them again.<\/p>\n
oh well… can’t win ’em all i guess…. onwards to Indonesia!!!<\/p>\n
*v<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
for the last several days, i haven’t really posted anything in this blog… that’s pretty much cause i havent really done anything. i could write about the many times i’ve gone to the mall (i think i’ve gone every day for the last 10 days). i could write about how for some strange reason i’ve … Continue reading “sorry excuse for a travel blog”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}