Tales from Bangkok

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So I left Phuket and its couples, families, Swedish colonialists, suit-sellers and developers to it and decided that a 12 hour bus ride to Bangkok would be far better. The luggage area was in an open space down stairs on the bus where I found a spot and slept for most of the trip. As a result I highly recommend sleeping amongst the luggage. I strolled out of the bus and into the famous Khao San district of Bangkok at some sort of unreasonable hour. I wasn't feeling too bad and very pleased to have left all my package tour mates back in Phuket. Khao San's a pretty interesting place. I was expecting a bit more of a large-scale dodgy, rowdy red light scene but was pleased to see that it wasn't really like that in that part of the city. It's more of a backpacker pub, cafe and market scene where everything is walking distance.

But as day one went on I realised that things wern't quite right, I tried to endure my increasing stomach pains as I toured the museum, parks and palaces, but then I realised it was all over for the day. All my 'it will be fine, ignore the smells', 'I'll eat with the rats' attitude came to a close as my first strain of dodgy food illness came into effect. Yippie, so I spent the rest of the day and the next morning in (and out) of bed- but I had BBC to watch so things were great afterall! Anyway, enough of that. The next day I went for a bit of a boat cruise, checked out Chinatown and its bussling markets and took the skytrain (initially the wrong way of course) for a bit of a ride. Shopping was also on the cards. In Bangkok, clothing is so cheap and since hardly anyone speaks English, people don't come up to assist- brilliant! Normally I can't stand shopping malls, I despise mass consumerism, and whenever I see someone walking out of a mall with 3-4 bags, it doesn't look good. Well not that day, cause that was me. After my central Bangkok shopping extravaganza I went back to Kho San only to bump into some guys that I'd holidayed with back in Tioman Island. Well well, we had a bit of a catch up and shared some tails - actually it's happened about 4 times that I've re-met people, including on my flight to Germany!

Day 35 of 35 (or something like that) in southeast Asia was actually one of the best. A friend of mine who I study with back in NZ had kindly organised an interview for me to meet the Thai General of the Aceh Monitoring Mission (as some may recall from an earlier blog), at the Military Command HQs in Bangkok. Well it turned out to be quite a successful interview as we had a good like chat like old mates and it was quite an experience, and I saw no other tourists there. By midnight that same day, after a bit of entertainment in central Bangkok with some new Thai mates, I departed Bangkok.

So from sleeping with luggage followed by food poisoning then a major shopping spree, and visiting the Thai military HQs around a bout sums up my Bangkok experience. I decided that I'm going to go back there. I was going to fly through the US but I'll flag that one for the meantime.

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Photos

post-interview
and a few hours before departure

Bangkok
I got told off three times by security when I took this pic. Some sort of bullshit parade was taking place

Comments

[Brian Pink]

General Nipat
Pleased to hear you are spending some time working, wearing suits, and preparing for your re-entry into Statistics New Zealand.

[YaMamma]

Fashion
Son, clearly at my great age I am not up with the latest fashions. Who would have thought shirt, tie with sholder straps.

[Brititi]

Kees, you are wearing a tie! And you actually manage to scrub up well! Who did you pay to iron your shirt?

[Annick]

Making friend with the general
Nice to see that you keep up Networking in Thailand!

[DestinationAlgeria]

shirt and tie
I did'nt iron it, it came like that thank god.