Bangkok won't let us go!!!!

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So another day in Bangkok.. and a completely different experience of the city.
Breakfast was a warning for the remainder of the day. As I wolfed down my Thai green curry and rice for breakfast (I love having dinner at breakfast!), my mouth suddenly went on fire! Now I hate spicy food... and I had just chewed up and swallowed a red chilli! The Thais seem to throw chillies into anything.

After that unpleasant experience we went to get money exchanged on Koh San road. A fellow traveller came over and started talking as I waited in the queue. After asking me about where I lived and most other aspects of my life, he commented on my legs.. ‘you have very strong legs’... Taking it as a compliment (naturally!) I said thanks.. to which he replied.. ‘yes, strong legs....like a horse... or a fresian cow!’ Goodbye!

Next on our agenda for the day was finding a tuk tuk. We wanted him to take us to the train station to buy our tickets to Chiang Mai then take us on to the various attractions around the city. I haggled his price down again (Never take the first price!) He told us he would take us to the travel tourism which was much closer and we could buy our ticket there and we agreed. Ten minutes later we were sitting in Candy baby’s office and she was trying to organise our whole trip! She also said there was no way of getting on the train to Chiang Mai that day unless we bought the package from her. She also said that we would have no chance of getting accommodation there. We severely pissed her off by leaving! We went to some of the main attractions in Bangkok via our tuk tuk. At the Golden Tower we were approached by a nice looking Thai man who explained about the different Buddha statues etc.. He suggested to us when we were leaving that we go to a government travel tourism agency. Funny enough...our tuk tuk suggested that one when we got back in! We explained that we only needed the ticket and he nodded yes..so we tried it...and the same thing happened again! I should point out at this stage that all the tuk tuks get tokens for petrol from the tourism agencies for bringing people there! At this point we went back to our hostel then walked around trying to get taxis-none of which would take us to the train station to get our tickets. One actually picked us up and then turfed us out a bit later when we said ‘NO TRAVEL TOURISM!’ We had to walk back to the hostel. Bangkok certainly did have us at this point and was not for letting us go!

We ended up getting our 20kg backpacks on and got a taxi easily enough then as it was clear we were only going to the station and we said we already had our tickets. It meant sitting at the train station for hours before our 15 hour train to Chiang Mai but what the hell! We sat there, had our meal, Gillian freaked out over a cat, a massive rat ran in front of me...and I began to wonder just what had been in that Pad Thai! We boarded the sleeper train and all the anxiety of the day evaporated as we were surrounded by laughing happy authentic Asians that weren’t looking for your money!

As much as I loved Koh San road, and the fact that we didn’t really let ourselves get ripped off, Bangkok is a for a few days...not any longer!

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