Welcome to Central Thailand (19 - 23 December 2007)

---

Day 1 ~ After 4 years, we are finally back in Bangkok

We flew off in the afternoon of 19th Dec 2007 for our low profile (read: secret) trip to Bangkok cum Kanchanaburi (The Death Railway). With the exceptions of my parents and a few close friends, we decided to keep this trip a hush hush affair. Afterall, people will laugh to their graves that I actually paid $510 for our Thai Airways tickets for a journey lasting only 2 hours. This was pretty unusal for somebody whose travel philosopy is to "travel on the cheap".

Anyway, visiting Death Railway have been on my wishlist for quite sometime now. I was glad to have the opportunity to visit this peaceful place before the close of 2007. Telling people that I'm visiting the Death Railway and cemetries will only invite the floor to more questions and curious stares. The stigma associated with these places is just too much for them to tolerate.

"Wait till mum sees those pictures I took at the war cemetry. I bet she will jump!"

The new Bangkok Suvarnabhumi (read: Su-Wa-Na-Phun) International Airport that welcomed us was HUGE! From the plane, it was a good 15 minutes to walk to the customs. And we wasted no time in catching the 150 baht Airport shuttle bus to Sala Deang Station in downtown Bangkok where F was meeting us. As the bus approached the CBD, traffic turned into a crawl. It was the notorious traffic jam Bangkok was famous for.

Home tonight was the posh Somerset Residence that F was staying in Silom. What can I say.

"It was simply god-send!"

The apartment was new, posh and can easily accomodate 4 people. Breakfast spread was good even though the ang moh didn't seem too pleased to serve us. Anyway, that's his problem! The other complain I had for Somerset was it was about 15 minutes from the SkyTrain Station. This aside, the 1 night stay was fantastic.

In the evening, we covered 2 places that we missed out in our previous trip. One was the legendary backpackers haven, Khao San Road (read: so so only mah) where we finally had the chance to savour the chocolate banana pancake we seen in other people's blogs.

"Delicious!"

In my opinion, Khao San is simply overrrated. But it is still a relatively cool place to hang out for first-timers.

We had our dinner at Chinatown (Yaowarat). No shark fins on our table though bird nests was most welcome. Food was ok and three of us nearly choke.

Tomorrow, we will kiss goodbye to Bangkok as we proceed our journey to the west, Kanchanaburi ~ home for the Death Railway.

---