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Published: January 28th 2007
Wat Arun
As ssen from the riverboatWe left Australia, relieved and slightly apprehensive about getting back to what we saw as adventure travelling i.e. trying to get by in a country that doesn't speak your language, has limited safety guidelines and is generally a bit more exciting than your standard western society. After an uneventful flight we arrived in Bangkok and negotiated our way into a taxi and managed to make the taxi desk attendant understand where we wanted to go. Note to anyone thinking of traveling there: there is a public taxi service outside the terminal building on the ground floor. If you get a cab from a tout inside the terminal it costs about 3 times as much but you get a very swish car I am told.
We arrived at our hostel on Thanon Silom which, as the hostel was keen to point out, is the 5* hotel district. Our hostel was nice enough but our room was tiny, seriously, it was a cupboard in disguise. After a nights sleep we headed out to explore the local vicinity before getting on the sky train to go to the Vietnamese Embassy. Visa application lodged, we took advantage of the English pub located around the
corner from our hostel. Bit of a cop out but jet lag had worn us down and we couldn't be arsed to find a more local version. After a pint of Tiger beer I was ready to hit the deck. Dinner in a sushi bar followed and we ended our first pretty un-Thai day with an early night.
We became slightly more adventurous as the days continued. It turned out we were across the road from the Patpong Night Market which is great fun. Stalls crammed with fake Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Tiffany jewellery. In amongst all this are the sex show touts - "you want ping pong show, lady?" - and any number of other sights to see!
We also spent a large portion of time cruising the river by the lcoal river boats. Excellent mode of transport if you ask me. After nearly getting ripped off twice by the ticket ladies ("39 baht" - total sum of the cost printed on the tickets equals 26 so that what we gave her, she seemed happy enough) we managed to make it to, amongst other things, Wat Po. This is a temple which is home to the world's
Guarding Wat Pho
One of the largestbtemples in Bangkok and the home of the reclining Buddha largest reclining Buddha - and what a Buddha he was. After the cultural doings we headed to Khao San Road to check out the official backpacker district. It was suitably seedy looking and the local people who worked there were some of the most miserable looking people we met in Thailand. I guess we travellers are a double edged sword - the money from tourism is welcome but the additional work load isn't always. Especially when the work is for the most impoverished of tourists! After a nice lunch and some people watching we headed once more into the fray and caught the boat home.
We were only in Bangkok for 3 days as we wanted to head off quickly and try to catch up with Becky and Tim in time for my birthday and to have some belated celebrations for Mike. Mike's birthday was celebrated in his usual style- minimal fuss and plenty of booze. We retired pretty hammered after a day of pottering around and drinking too much! On the fourth day we headed off into the sunset by train. Thinking we were getting some luxury accomodation for the night we excitedly got into our first class
cabin on the train to Nong Khai (on the Laos border) and found it to be disgustingly filthy. I was getting slightly panicky about the whole night spent on dirty seats surrounded by filth until the guard came by and folded out our beds and made them up with clean sheets and cushions. After that everything was a lot better and I slept the whole night through yahey! Now we just had to get across the border into Laos!
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