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Published: December 16th 2008
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It took most of the day to get from Battambang to Bangkok via a fairly painless border crossing , I’d heard it could take a couple of hours go get across, but we seemed to get through in around half an hour.
We dumped our bags in the hotel and headed down to the infamous Ko San road for our last night together as a group. The Ko San road is exactly what I expected it to be, hawkers selling everything from Suits to fake ID’s along with food stalls with slightly questionable hygiene standards. There was also a guy selling deep fried insects, I thought it was mostly a tourist thing now and was quite surprised to see a few Thai people buying bags of silk worms. I bought a bag and a cricket for everyone for a little under ฃ1 and most people managed to eat them. The good thing about the Ko San road is that it’s quite easy to buy cheap drinks (50p for a can of chang beer) from the 7-11 and walk around with them, you only have to pay for the more expensive drinks f you want to sit down somewhere.
The following day
Desert
Deep fried crickets we all went our separate ways I found a cheap room not too far from the Ko san road for about ฃ8 a night, there was a room for ฃ5 that had no windows, hot water or AC, but I thought I’d spoil myself. The room was above 2 bars both or which had a band playing until 2am, so it’s lucky I was so tired.
The problem I’ve got with Bangkok is that it’s really hard to trust anyone. It constantly feels like everyone is just out to rip you off. My friend Keith took a Taxi from the Grand Palace to the Hotel which is about a 20 minute walk and the taxi driver refused to turn the meter on and then tried to charge him 4000 baht (ฃ80) he managed to escape the taxi (whilst it was moving) but not before paying 160 baht which is twice what it should have cost him.
I decided to spend a day using public transport. I took a water taxi all the way down the river for 25p than the skytrain up to the MBK shopping mall for 50p then down to the Lumpini Park. I spent most of the
Desert
Deep fried crickets afternoon in the park watching locals exercising and wondering around all the lakes. At one point I was sitting on a bench on the edge of the lake when I heard a splash next to me, I got the shock of my life when I looked over and saw what I thought was the back end of a crocodile slipping into the lake about 10 foot from where I was sitting. I jumped up and followed what turned out to be a 4 foot long monitor lizard. Once I seen that one I started noticing them everywhere, they just roam around the park like squirrels chasing after the birds.
I’ve since flown down to Ko Phanyang to meet up with some of the guy on the tour.
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Varo
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I just returned from Bangkok and must say that I COMPLETELY agree with your statement: The problem I’ve got with Bangkok is that it’s really hard to trust anyone. It constantly feels like everyone is just out to rip you off. It was a disappointment - with the exception of the Luxx Hotel staff. I've traveled quite a bit and never before had I experienced the constant shower tricks that I encountered in Bangkok. Whenever I heard "You happy, me happy" I knew someone had made an extra baht at my expense... Siem Reap, Cambodia was the perfect antidote. Be well! Varo