Bangkok

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Bangkok!

After bumping into two old mates who also lived in Wellington with me on Koh Tao, I took the VERY relaxing journey to Bangkok: smooth jet ferry under the sun and a bus on which I snagged a semi-couch so to speak and slept better than I ever have on a bus.

We arrived at 4 a.m. adjacent to Ko Shan Road, a notorious tourist bubble on the edge of Bangkok. I wondered why they even called them overnight buses if 99% of the time you still end up getting a hostel room because you're so tired. I wandered for a bit, vaguely taking in that the only guesthouses open only had their priciest rooms available, and stumbled upon some local Thai guys watching The Fugitive ... I stopped, and casually watched it for a few minutes before one of the Thais motioned towards an empty little plastic stool. Sounded a lot better than looking for an expensive room in the middle of the night and feeling quiet rested, I took it. So there I sat with 6-7 Thai guys, them having their usual iced beer and occasional cigarette, and watched Cinemax on their flatscreen TV on the sidewalk.

After the movie, all was put away, locked up, as if no one had been sitting there 3 minutes prior to that moment. Amusing.

Later that morning, after feeling like I had lived half a day by 8:30a.m., I'm walking along and a caucasian girl about my age comes up to me, "are you looking for a room?" I feel I know where this is going. "um, yes" "Well I know this great place just down there, hot water and everything, I'm flying out tonight and just want to shower and have a nap, so want to share the room?" ... I feel I need to put things in order here. "What's your name?" I ask, "Valerie.", "Hi, I'm Kate - so uh, what's the room like?". A bit impulsive, to say the least, but sometimes you go on your hunches and it turned out to be fabulous! Valerie is an Austrian medical student finishing a 1-month exchange at a local hospital here in Thailand and due to political distress, her flight from Krabi to Bangkok had been canceled and she was forced to take the overnight bus: she too, simply just wanted a shower and a place to put her bags. lol.

This afternoon I take the ferry and watch the city float by and then head to Wat Pho - an absolutely unfathomably large, golden, reclining Buddha pushing 40 m in height by 100 m in length. Totally indulgent and utterly impressive. The Buddha even had mother-of-pearl inlaid designs on the soles of the feet.

Then, to make a long story short, I walk for a couple hours, looking for a small temple with an apparently very big, round, and jolly Buddha temple. I find it, am told they're having a ceremony and to come back at 3 and additionally this is a different temple than what I'm looking for, so I leave and ask a few more people directions to my desired temple, get various answers, and end up back at teh same temple a little after 2, where they tell me it was open in the morning and they're now cleaning, it's closed. Besides, I'm at the wrong temple. I stare at the man opposite to me, standing directly in front of the temple's name plaque as he tells me I'm in the wrong place - clearly according to the map, people's directions, and the official name plaque, I am in the right place ... This is not uncommon in Asia. OK, a cool AC museum is sounding really good right now... I set down my things for a minute to take a photo with my flash new camera, then hop in a taxi to the museum to be told it's closed. I jump in a tuk-tuk to go to a 100 m tall golden Buddha, set down my things to take a photo ... and discover my camera is missing. So, exactly 1 week and 2 days after I bought my camera, it is lost/stolen = gone.

It was like a bad dream. This stuff doesn't happen to me. le sigh.

Tomorrow will be better. Lets hope the travel insurance pulls through...

On a good note, I ran into Omri, the super friendly Israeli with whom I got a ride from Bangkok to Sydney 200 m from my hostel today!! too funny. I LOVE when run into someone you met or know from another continent, it's even better when you're both from two different continents. 😊

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Comments

[The Texan]

Good ol Bangkok.. Now can you explain how you got a ride from Bangkok to Sydney?!=)