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Published: July 16th 2017
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Geo: 13.7308, 100.521
Our flight leaves Cairo and after stopping in Bangkok to let us off continues to Kuala Lumpur and this apears to be the destination of the mostly moslem passengers. In fact, there cant have been more than 4 or 5 Europeans on both flights combined so I am already feeling in a minority. Jai goes straight to sleep on the plane before we have taken off but I hang on until the meal has been served before joiningher. I pass a good 4 hours drifiting on the edge of sleep and feel a little better for it. Disappointed to see that the inflight movies are the same as the last flight and suffer through The Rock starring(?) in Mysterious Island which is dreadful on all counts. We arrive in Bangkok at 14:00 Thai time - UK + 6hrs and find the arrivals area at the airport nearly empty. With most of flight remaining on baord this makes things even easier and we quickly pass through a deserted immigration and collect our bags. Jai's daughter has kept our phone SIMs alive in our absence so we dont need to buy new ones and change our numbers this time. We call
our taxi driver and find that he is en-route to the airport already. We make our way to the place where we meet him and he arrives shortly after us. In no time at all Mr Noi has us on the way to our guest house in Banglamphu. Thailand still has not had any real rain he tells us so I promise him that we have brought it with us.
We check-in at New Siam I leaving most of our baggage in the hotel lock up so that I dont have to carry it upstairs with us. Jai heads out for coffees and some water whilst I shower off the grime of travelling. Jai returns to say that it is raining heavily and that she hadto borrow an umbrella from reception. Perhaps my promise for the rain is comingtrue already. Coffee and a croissant then how good that bed looks.
After a short rest we go for ataxi to Mo Chit bus station to buy tickets for our last leg tomorrow night. It takes ages to get a taxi. Most simply drive past without stopping andthe couple who stop wont work on their meters and demand an exorbitant fixed rate for the trip. Eventually get a willing cabbie and we are off into thetrafficchaos that is the reason for most drivers not wanting the trip. Took best part of an hour to reach our destination. We bought VIP tickets in the downstairs cab of the 20:00 bus as planned and then taxi back to guest house in what appears to be even worse traffic chaos than before. The driver of our return taxi tries to win a tip by playing me 'English' music although he was a bit confused when I didnt get too excited about Boney M, John Denver and someone he called Ganghis Khan ?!
We eat at the guest house not liking most of the food that we have eaten in other places around here then head out for a walk. It has been raining and the streets are wet but it is still very quiet everywhere. Several large new bars in the street by the VIengtai Hotel are busy but they were the only ones. Khao San Road looks a mere shadow of its former self. Bars must be trading on the name and I guess rents must be high so beer and food prices are likewise on the dear side. People are voting with their feet and their wallets and going elsewhere whilst remaining in the area. Changed some money at a much better rate than this time last year - 49Bht / 1 pound - but it is still a long way short of the 70Bht I wasgetting just a few short years ago. We head back to the room for an early night and safely tucked up by 20:30.
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