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Published: October 12th 2011
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Bangkok.... well, all I remembered is that we were here because we wanted to fly to Siem Reap and because we were kind of in the area, you know? The airport was a breath of fresh air - so clean and lovely and organised and full of flowers and pretty things. We weren't to know that it wasn't indicative of Bangkok itself.
We'd booked into the Atlanta Hotel which had mixed reviews on Trip Advisor to say the least, but it seemed cheap and not skanky and had a very robust policy against sex tourists. Also, it looked as though it was stuck in a bygone era of Art Deco meets staying with your parents for the weekend and this was slightly comforting.
Admittedly, the smell of urine in the lobby wasn't promising but (after several days of playing Sherlock Holmes) we gleaned that it was something to do with the red paint being applied to the walls and ammonia somehow played a key part. The room was again, communist era ghastly, the bathroom had bright yellow tiles that were so very dirty and cracked that it was hard to know what to say. Which was good really, as they didn't want to hear it. There were signs on every wall saying "No Complaints - Not At These Prices!". To be honest, The Atlanta was actually a very good value hotel and had a consistently good restaurant with very cheap prices. What you had to kind of put up with was the mad old waitress who came and stared at you as you ate - seriously one night she actually put her elbows on the table and put her head on her hands and watched us for several minutes. She also would take a fork and stir your food (whilst you were eating it) and check that there might be enough prawns or something and if you hesitated too long over the condiments, yup, you guessed it, she seasoned your dish in the way she felt you should be enjoying it. Funny at first and then in typical English style....we ran away and never said anything.
Realising that we were entirely useless in the stifling oppressive heat, meant that our forays into the outside world were reasonably swift. We did enjoy the air conditioning of the mall at the end of the road though and the icy cold of the Sky Train was a revelation!
We did the trip to Jim Thompson's house - three Thai houses joined together and made very lovely - one day and had a really good time. It was fun to get there on public transport although you need to remember to be fairly nippy through the exit gates at the train station otherwise they crash closed on anything that's left in their way! The house was beautiful and left pretty much as it was the day he disappeared in the sixties. Lots of art and lovely 'objets'. However, most of the tour group spent a substantial amount of their time tripping over the inordinately large steps into each room and stopping heart wrenchingly short of said priceless 'objets' in a way that made me suspect a very cunning insurance scam was at work.
We didn't have the cash to flash around and do the big things that most people do when they get here like go up to the water parks, feed baby tigers, do safaris and wash elephants etc. but we figured that hanging around the locals, their dodgy street food and the sewers was more hardcore!
Needless to say that were LOTS of fairly ropey (and very bored looking) prostitutes standing in front of almost every bar we passed. We're not in a position to judge anyone, but really, it was pitiful watching fat, balding middle aged men talking at tiny asian women who couldn't really understand them. Good luck to them but it was even more sleazy than we'd imagined and not hilarious or a bit of a laugh at all. Having said that, my last day in Bangkok was spent in and out of the bathroom, so I sent Ed off with the camera to take some photos of 'Annie's World Famous Soapy Massage' bar for posterity although not before he'd emptied his pockets of dollars so that he couldn't get waylaid by beer and wanton women!
We'd somehow managed to stay our whole two weeks in Thailand and with a sense of excitement, we were now headed to the airport and the temples of Angkor Wat. This was going to be epic and mind blowing.
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