Bangkok

Technical Difficulties: I'm dealing with some formatting issues, i'll see how i'm going to deal with them another time!

-bk

2 nights ago I arrived in Bangkok international. I must admit it was quite an uneventful arrival. I got of the plane, went through immigration, collected by bag, found a taxi and came to my hostel. All the stories of getting attacked at the airport by people trying to get you into their cabs is quite true. But for some reason they did not seem to want to bother me that much. Not that i'm complaining. They probably don't see me as that ideal a foreigner to harass. At least in comparison to the other people that got off the plane with me

My hostel has an incredible view from the 5th floor where my laundry is currently drying. I have a sweet view of the downtown district and skytrain with a few sun chairs to lie down on.

Oddly enough, an American that stayed in my room last night also stayed in my room in HK, but we never really spoke. He did recognize my bag though and that's about as far as we spoke. He'll be leaving today so I don't think i will speak with him again.

I met a nice British girl (Annie) in the morning yesterday. We started talking and ended up spending the day together touring 2 Wats (Buddhist temples) in downtown Bangkok. It was quite interesting as everyone assumed that she was my girlfriend. Most people also assumed i was her tour guide and were left alone for the most part by scammers and tuktuk drivers (3 wheeled motorcycle carts). The funniest thing is that no one believe that I was Chinese either. Most Thais thought I was Korean, Singaporean or even Thai. Today I will be travelling alone so i hope i will be able to use that to my advantage. I hope to experience Bangkok without the annoying scammers trying to sell me tours of Bangkok.

At night we met up with another British traveller also staying in our room and decided to go on a dinner cruise up the river that runs through Bangkok. We decide to leave our hostel at 6:15 to grab some hawker food (street food) before heading East to the river. Our boat was to leave at 8:00 pm and take us up and down the river till 10 pm.

Now that was the plan for the night. But of course things never go as you expect and last night was just one of those nights. We walked up to the main road hoping to jump into a cab. After looking down the street we realized that the cars were not moving at all. So we decided if nothings moving then why don't we just walk down the street to the next station. See how traffic was down there. The short version of this story is, we jumped onto a skytrain, went down 6 stations, got off and cars were still gridlocked. I have never seen anything like this before in my life. Some of the bridges we passed over (6 lanes) were completely backed up as far as we could see coming into town. We were beginning to think that maybe something had happened? Some major traffic accident or news event causing all the chaos? I looked around at the people on the street and in their cars. They gave me the impression that this was the way things are around here. I'm not sure if I believe it yet but i'll see tonight what the traffic is like.

So we never did make it to the river cruise. After getting off at the station closest to our destination, we spent the next 30 min standing in the rain fighting with tuktuk and taxi drivers to take us where we wanted to go. Frustrated, wet, hungry, and past our departure time, decided to go to a different restaurant and just sit down and eat by the river. We jumped back onto the skytrain (which is brand new i should add) and travelled to a new place we hoped would have less traffic. We were right in thinking that a cab would be easier to flag if we went to a major train station. What we didn't expect is that we would be getting into a taxi being operated by the stupidest taxi driver in all of SE Asia. Even with a map in hand he couldn't find the place we wanted to go. We drove around for what seemed like an hour in the middle of now where. Finally, after WE pointed out some landmarks, we decide to get out of our cab and walk. For a taxi driver to have a map and still not know where he's going has got to be one of the weirdest thing i have ever encountered. How the hell does he make any money?

Walking around in the middle of now where was also no picnic either. I'm glad i was with 2 other people or i'm not sure what i would have done. In the end, we did actually find the resteraunt we were looking for. It had a beautiful view of the river and the food was not too bad either. So, with stomachs full, some alcohol in our blood, we decided to head closer to home and check out some of the local bars and put the earlier part of the night behind us.

We moved to Asok station and perused some of the local watering holes found near by. I decided that at this point I'm not going to drink anymore (I am still a little sick and on antibiotics) since its practically impossible to keep up with British people. Now at this one bar, the strangest thing happened. We're standing around enjoying the atmosphere when all of a sudden i hear this strange squeaking/trumpet sound. At first i thought it was just traffic of some kind until i heard it again and again. i turned around and about 20 feet away from me, there was a baby elephant standing in the middle of the street. Its owner wanted tourists to come over and pay to feed it. It was the last thing i expected to see on a city street. I wonder if its a common thing like horses in downtown Victoria? If it is then where is all the elephant poo? Either way it was a strange sight to see.

Now to the final leg of our journey home. Of course this would only happen to stupid tourist like us. We hail a cab, get in, and ask him to take us to the next station down the street (Skytrain is closed at this point). He didn't really understand english but we pointed to our map and he said ok. 5 min and 40 THB later (approx 1.20 CDN) he drops us off. We got out and found our local 7 eleven. Walked a bit down the road and started talking about taxi services back home in London and Vancouver. Normally they take you from pick up point right to your door. But i guess in asia they would rather just drop you off somewhere easier for them to turn around and let you walk. Again, this didn't bother us considering a cab ride like that would have cost at least 10 times as much back home. It only began to bother us when we realized that we were on the wrong side of the street and had to cross over. Then it started to bother us even more when we realized that this was not actually our stop. And finally, what really pissed us off is when we realized that he actually just picked us up, and dropped us of at the next station...in the wrong direction! So of course we're all fuming now after having such a pissy night (that's British, my British mates have started to influence me. For some reason after only spending a day with British people i find myself spitting out a few words with an English accent once in a while. Odd eh?). So we finally hail another cab and go in the right direction this time and finally get home to some more hawker food, chicken this time.

Note for all you techies with a GPS (Dad, Monkey, Q, Nick, etc...)

If you read the instructions on your GPS, it will clearly state that the GPS is a navigation aid only. See specifically, navigation AID. A GPS does not replace a map or a compass. It will not help idiots like us find our way around without any sense of basic direction. Let me explain a little more clearly. My fone has a build in GPS with local area maps of any city i wish. It is an extremely powerful tool but guess what? It onyl works when i don't need it. It does not work in bad weather (rain or cloudy) or in cities with too many buildings. It did not work anywhere in HK, even in wide open areas (I blame the smog). Generally it only works when i'm bored in my hostel. Remember, if you're going to trust your life with something (which i haven't yet b/c i read the fine print in my instruction manual), make sure that its reliable. I love my fone for all that it can do, but I will be buying a compass shortly.

I wonder what tonight will bring?

More weird stuff like this?

Ronald doing a Wai