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Published: February 7th 2007
The flight to Bangkok took considerably longer than I thought. On the way, I was entertained first with trying to figure out who the guys around me were. It was a large group of predominantly Americans and Brits, from mid-30's to probably about 60 in age. Some of them looked clean cut whilst others, including the guy next to me, looked a bit more...punk rock. Turns out it was Toto (remember the songs Rosanna and Africa from the 80's?) and their roadies. The Brit roadie next to me seemed surprised that I was unaware that yes, they are still together, and yes, they are still touring. Um, did anyone know that? Who actually goes to see them perform around the world these days? Lots of amusing roadie/music/travel stories later, I declined the invitation to hang out with them and the band at their Bangkok hotel that night and said I'd consider a backstage pass to their gig in Sydney the next week, the day after I arrived back. Why oh why can I rarely seem to run into A list famous people I'd actually like to meet? 😞
Once in Bangkok and through immigration I braced myself for the hassle
after customs and the heat. As usual, I'm not sure I was entirely prepared for either. I had also decided against leaving my massive suitcase in the airport for 9 days, perhaps after seeing another Asian entrance card declaring 'death to all drug traffickers'. But once I was dropped off near the hostel, hauling that thing down narrow streets packed with locals in 95 degree humidity was well...let's just say not fun.
Over the next few days I was at first a bit paranoid about getting sick/food poisoning and I won't deny I had more than a few McDonald's blizzards for that reason and also to cool off. It's now official that I will never live in a country on or near the equator: to say I dislike being sweaty and having my hair stand on end 24/7 is an understatement. These issues aside, I did enjoy Bangkok. The people were in general friendly. Once again, like in China, I wanted to go crazy and buy everything because everything is just SO cheap. As the pictures show, I played tourist and went on a boat cruise, wandered around, and saw nearly all of the major temples. I met a
very nice girl called Rachel from Wales and also Cameron from Canada and we ended up hanging out quite a bit. We caved and partook in what I have very little to say about because this blog is PG rated; of course I'm referring to a ping-pong show and if you do not know what that is then google it. The picture of Rachel and I below is in one of Bangkok's red light districts however I am convinced that nearly all of Bangkok is such a district. I don't think I ever got used to the plethora of western men (age 50-60, pot belly, etc!) walking around with Thai girls who were probably 18-20. Enough to make my stomach churn! We didn't last long at the ping pong show as it was just sad mostly. I felt guilty that we had even gone but it's one of those things I guess you do once to say you've experienced it. The time just flew by and unfortunately, like when I had been in Singapore, it was rainy season in Thailand and a least a day and a half was essentially wasted as it poured.
I couldn't just stay in
Reclining Buddha
That's a pretty massive Buddha.Bangkok the whole time but couldn't be bothered to head down to the popular beaches ie Ko Samui, etc. because the idea of all that tourism just turned me off (and so did the idea of spending hours on a bus when I didn't have all that much time in Thailand). I had decided to save the beach for a few days later so first I was off on a day trip to Kanchanaburi, several hours west of Bangkok and home to many WWII sites, including Bridge over the River Kwai and Hellfire Pass.
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