Back to bangkok

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Back to bangkok, where it's all meant to be easy considering it was my 4th time in the city. Oh no, apparently the bus was not going to drop us off in the comfort of Khao San Rd (as advertised back in Laos) but at the bus station, on the north side of town, at 5am! We quickly got over it and ignored the constant "taxi taxi!" shouts and headed off in search of a ticket stand to get a local bus into town, 30mins later and a lot of aimless wandering around we finally found it and hopped on the bus with the locals, paying a mere 20 Baht each instead of 150Baht (we later found out 20 baht was a rip off but nevermind!)

made it it Khao San road, dumped ourselves in a cafe had breakfast and finally found the energy to scout out a room at 7:30am.
We slept and then made it up again and set ourselves out on another mission, to go shopping! Found out the bus number and stop for Chatuchak market (which happens to be back at the bus station where we started the day!). Success we made it on the bus, paid our 7 Baht (hence the previous 20Baht rip off) and successfully managed to know when to get off too (with the help of the lady conductor!). Very pleased with ourselves we wandered round the market before then boarding the Skytrain to go to MBK shopping mall for some food and more shopping! And then being the bus birds that we are, we found out which bus number took us home and boarded that and then again with the help of the lady conducter we got off at the right place. Trouble was, it was the right place but round the corner which we didnt recognise and then spent another 30mins trying to recognise our road before finally spotting burger king and realising it led to all things backpacker-ish! Laura bought a camera, i got some souvenirs and we rode the public transport without getting screwed out of money by a single tuk tuk driver. SUCCESS!

Basking in our public transport glory we then felt confident enough the next day to catch a bus to the southern bus terminal, and then another to Kanchanburi (2 hours west of Bangkok) for a day trip. Started our well, found out the number, dodged the Bangkok marathon runners to find the bus stop and were successfully on the first lef of our journey...until the conductor told us to get off somewhere that looked nothing like a bus terminal. Turned out to be the floating market (which although very nice - not quite what we were looking for). After discussing (desperately trying to pronounce thai words and pointing at the lonely planet map) where we wanted to go with street cleaners, we hopped back on the same number bus we were previosuly on and found that took us straight to the southern bus terminal. So in this case, not so helpful lady conductor! We booked our ticket to Kanchanburi, boarded and breathed a sigh of relief that we were only 45 min behind schedule...until the bus broke down... another 30min wait to the next one came along and we all piled on...and then finally made it kanchanburi.
Still feeling anti Taxi's we decided to walk 45min to reach the museum and begin our sightseeing round Kanchaburi. At this point i'd like to point out that on not one of these journeys me and Laura had done was there another western person. We were so proud of ourselves!

Kanchanburi was nice, quite different to what i had expected and in some ways more built up and industrial. We looked round the Burma-Thailand Railway museum and learned loads about the Death Railway and the PoW camps. Was really well displayed and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. We also wandered around the cemetry there, and then we headed down to the river itself for a look at the Bridge over the River Kwai. It was lovely by the river, and we were both suprised when an actual (touristy of course) train went over the bridge! We then splurged and had lunch on the floating restaurant on the river, which was nice (bit expensive) and i really enjoyed my river kwai prawns in red curry (hot hot hot!). yum.

And of course, just to top things off, the bus back didnt drop us off at the southern bus terminal (as they say - cos that would be too easy) but somewhere on the wrong side of the river in bangkok. Luckily, now me and laura were savvy bus riders, recognised a bis number that went somewhere near where we were staying and jumped on that and hoped for the best! It worked! Another success!

So 3 whole days in bangkok and surrounding areas, and not a single baht was wasted on a taxi or Tuk Tuk. Victory for us!

Next stop...Krabi on the west coast

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