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Published: April 5th 2005
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Got here safe and sound. Flight was delayed for like 2 hours, so didn't end up leaving Sydney til 7pm, instead of 4.50. Got a window seat up the back of the plane, not that there was anything to see. It was good though cause I was in 70A, and there were only 75 rows, and the plane is narrower up the back from where I was so instead of 3 seats on the side there were only 2 so I had a gap of about a foot between me and the window and it didn't feel too claustrophobic. I was sitting next to a quiet Thai lady who has been living in Australia for 6 years, and is coming to Thailand for New Year - which is I think the 13th and 14th of April.
We had our own TV screens, so I watched The Incredibles, Spanglish, some Kath and Kim, and Bridget Jones 2. It made the time fly, I hope I have a screen on my flight to Zurich next week. I fell asleep somewhere over Darwin, and woke up when we were over Brunei - the screens also showed you the flight path, and there were games
Traffic Lights
The traffic lights have timers on them that countdown in green (or red or orange) how long you have to go (or stop or wait) for
too, like checkers.
We had really good food - I had some beef in red wine sauce thing with potatoes and a salad (which was really just some lettuce in a bowl with a tommy tomato), a square breadroll, cheese and crackers and a kit kat. For dessert we had a mini magnum, and we'd also had peanuts befor dinner. After they woke everyone up by turning all the lights on with 2 hours to go, we had some yummy noodle dish thing and fruit salad (5 cubes of melon).
Landed at about 1.50am, so were too late to catch the airport buses into town and would have to catch taxis. Took a while to get my pack and go through immigration as a few other flights landed around the same time. Caught an airport taxi for 700 Baht (about $23) which took me to the door of my hotel. The driver even carried my pack to the taxi for me. It was quite scary though when he decided to stop on a 4 lane highway just outside the airport to try look at the map i printed out of how to get to the hotel, as he had no
idea where it was, and couldn't really speak much english. It took us about 25 mins to get into Bangkok, and then another 10 minutes of driving around tiny sois where we had to wait for garbag bins to be moved so the taxi could fit through. We finally found it and he carried my pack inside, and then the hotel porter carried it up the 3 flights of stairs for me, so I haven't really had to carry it myself yet which is good (it weighed 22.1kg when I checked it, I think I'll topple over when i put it on tomorrow.)
I'm staying just off Khao San Road (anyone who has seen The Beach, with Leo Dicaprio, this is where he walks along the street at the start), at Sawasadee Banglumphu Inn (but this isn't the guesthouse where he stayed). I have a double room with a/c and private bathroom, which is good. Except that I forgot to not clean my teeth in the water (it was 3am (6am in Aus) and I'd just gotten off a 8 1/2 hour flight)and was noticing that the water pressure is really low here, when i realised and spat it out, but it was too late and and i kept waking up sick all night. I feel heaps better this morning, had pineapple pancakes for breakfast at the hotel. The food is unbelievably cheap, in the hotel restaurant it's 70 Baht ($2.30) for a hamburger, chips and coke.
Tomorrow I'll be moving somewhere cheaper though, it's my mission this afternoon to find where. Bought some fake Gucci sunglasses and and ISIC discount card off the street for $5 so I can get into the museums and stuff in Europe for student rates which will be good (you can get fake drivers licenses, diplomas and even degrees!), and have just been wandering the markets so far. Can't really buy much as I don't have much room to fit stuff in, but may mail some stuff home. Internet is only 45B for an hour, so I should be able to update this regularly. Tomorrow is a public holiday, Chakri day I think, so I'm not sure what will be open. Will go to The Grand Palace and Wat Pho when I can, and to the Indian dictrict and China town later in the week. Saturday I'll go to the weekend market - there's over 60 000 stalls there and i takes all day to walk around. Might go to the zoo sometime if i get the chance.
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anonymous
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hope you landed safely - Matt