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Published: July 31st 2008
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Bangkok Palace
Our brief visit to the busy, busy palace. Here we are again, a new summer and back where I was a year ago.
I could mention the amazing flight. Seeing as we were flying with an Indian airline, we were naturally served copious amounts of curry. Of course they were all pretty good. For airline food. Although the one that came up around 3am Indian time was a little unnecessary.
So. By time we got to Bangkok we had had about 3 then 3 hours of sleep in around 48 hours. Although aren't too sure about the actual time because we still haven't worked out the time difference. Naturally, first thing we wanted to do was find a nice place to have a nap. But first, some administration - we needed our headache inducing Vietnamese visa, from the embassy on a place called Wireless road. Anybody who knows about hunting down one of these elusive oriental consular species will know that the general organisation of the services is perhaps marginally counter-productive to tourism.
Naturally using the cheap taxis, the driver wasn't familiar with taking people to the central business district of Bangkok. But he didn't mind at all. He was perfectly happy reading the map while
Chinatown's Secret Shrine
In that odd tiny cafe we found in Chinatown. Possibly shouldn't have photoed a shrine in retrospect. driving. And so we found ourselves dropped off outside the Carlton Hotel, a wonderful and wholly representative place of the Entire Southeast Asia experience. Managing to find the embassy quite easily, we had the gut-wrenching fear of having to negotiate with the Vietnamese consular services. Fortunately for us, though unfortunately for the contents of this blog, this turned out to be refreshingly simple and quite uninteresting. So that was it - we were heading to Vietnam on the 7th of August.
For some unknown reason, the train to Chiang Mai was full the following night, so we had to settle for wonderful air conditioned beds that immediate evening. Anyone knowing Bangkok would be jealous of our ability to get out of there so quickly, unfortunately we had already booked our room just next door. Thankfully a nice Thai speaking person rectified it and very nicely gave us a change of date. An act of kindness we returned by "going to get our bags from the room" i.e. having a shower and changing clothes in the room we are no longer paying for. Never mind, it's Karma, somehow.
After deciding that Holly looks funny in odd clothes put on
Grand Central Bangkok
Not a great picture I know. But this is Bangkok - what do you expect? her forcefully by gangs of women on stalls, and that Chinatown really didn't have anywhere for tourists we could see (and getting a couple of cheap beers in some old woman's shop/cafe who clearly never sees any backpackers), we managed to get on the train. Just in time... For a power cut that lasted about half an hour. The men fixing it, after working for five minutes, decided they couldn't be bothered so sat on the tracks and had a spliff. This was about the time I remembered 'express' trains in Thailand actually go slower than buses, and alternate between geological ages of sitting at approximately 0 mph, and brief moments of high speed shaking at high speed, wondering if this may, in fact, be the last journey you ever take.
I also noticed the stations are incredibly low in Thailand, wondering if someone decided to make a quick buck by shaving off and seizing the top 20cm of concrete. Apparently that's where the money is.
Just to introduce this trip - we (my sister Holly and myself) are planning on visiting Northern Thailand, before heading across to Laos and then down the East coast of Vietnam. Should take us about four weeks, hopefully no more as we have a plane home to catch.
At 10am the next morning, after a night that got almost infinitely better after putting in earplugs and accepting inevitable death, we arrived in Chiang Mai. This is where the trip really begins.
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