Bangkok II: Same same but different

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The journey back up to Bangkok was a pretty long and sleepless one. The 3 hour ferry to the mainland was fairly pleasant, and we had a few hours to get some food in Chumphon before getting on the bus. However, the bus wasn't too comfortable, and this was added to by a noisy group of English lads (shamefully) who drank and shouted nonsense into the early hours.

When we got kicked out, bleary eyed, onto a random street in Bangkok at 5am I was relieved to find that I knew where we were and we made it to a nearby cafe for a drink while we waited for a guesthouse to open. Needless to say that the rest of the day was a wipe-out and I slept through most of it.

Second time around Bangkok isn't quite so hectic as it first seems. Having acclimatised to the heat (partially) and knowing my way round the Banglamphu area made it a much more comfortable place to be. This was pretty lucky as we had lots to do over the next few days using Bangkok as our base.

Our first priority the next day was to move to a nicer guesthouse (to the same one I used first time around) and sort out our visas for Vietnam. Getting to the vietnam embassy proved to be the most difficult aspect of this as every tuk-tuk driver either wanted to take us to the TAT (with whom they have some sort of deal) or to a shop ("Thai fashion, high fashion") on the way. We finally got a driver to take us straight there and after asking about 8 people for directions along the way (!!!) we made it. The visa process was relatively straight-forward, however we timed our application with a national holiday so we won't get our visas for about a week. Plenty of time to see more of Bangkok and do a couple of overnight trips to nearby towns.

For the remainder of the day we looked round the huge MBK shopping centre and bought a few bargains (replacing clothes ruined by the laundrette in Ko Tao!) and eyed up a few purchases to bring back after my finl stop here. In the evening we went to the cinema in the shopping centre to see Ice Age 2. This was notable for two reasons: firstly having to stand to pay our respect to the King before the film started, and secondly that Ice Age 2 is ace!

As we were not far from the area, and I had a girl with me for protection we cautiously decided to have a walk round the infamous Patphong area. It wasn't as easy to find as we first thought and we walked through a pretty seedy area (groups of young girls hanging around outside shady looking buildings) and the local gay area (complete with a few too many admiring glances for my liking).

We knew we had eventually found the right place when we were attacked by a number of men wielding leaflets complete with cartoon pictures of exactly what the girls in their bar do (and sometimes complete with a suitable phrase such as "ping-pong, banana, baloon"). We thought it'd be quite fun just to wander round, but the amount of harrassment from the promoters combined with a genuinely seedy atmosphere made it quite an uncomfortable place to be. Where there were open bars, or places with doors open it looked like rather than dancing or serving drinks, the girls were simply stood on stages waiting to be 'selected' by some drunken farang. Less glitzy and far more seedy than I had imagined.

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