Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

So, after sleeping on the seats at the airport, I took a taxi into town.  There were companies that tried to get me to take their services but after finding out the prices—Yikes!  I wanted to really take one of the cheap buses into town but I figured on just taking a taxi because I needed to go to the train station.  I’m sure that one of the buses went there but because it was my first day, I just decided to take it easy, more or less.

The taxi ride cost B320 from the airport.  That is about what it should cost so I wasn’t ripped off or anything.  That converts to around nine U.S. dollars.  I went inside the large building and enquired about a ticket north to Chiang Mai.  Well, I was already expecting the response I got just because a lot of Thais go north during this time because it’s the new year and its cooler everywhere as well.  The response was no room on any train.  So I looked at the surroundings and found a T.A.T. office, a Tourism Authority of Thailand office, where they might be able to set me up with something.

The woman who helped me was named Eat.  Not sure how to pronounce it but it definitely isn’t “eet.”  She gave me a bottle of water that had plastic over the top.  You don’t peel off the plastic but use the pointy straw they give you to puncture the top.  I was scared to death because it wasn’t “bottled” water.  I managed to book a bus seat to Chiang Mai and a train back that stopped in Lopburi so I could spend the last day touring the town infested with monkey’s and the old capital, Ayuttaya.  Eat tried to sell me a three day trekking tour up in Chiang Mai that involved sleeping out in mosquito nets.  I had been cautioned against doing such a thing and I wanted to be sure to get up to Chiang Rai before the end of the trip.  I was just sort of surprised at how people latch onto the tourists.  Even the travel agencies, God bless them.  At least they’re not like tuk tuk drivers.

I left the office and went to my hotel where I would staying the next two evenings.  I took the metro from Hua Lamphong railway station to the Sukumvit exit.  There, I transferred onto the skytrain and took it to the Nana station.  The hotel was actually quite visible from the skytrain but I didn’t know that.  I did end up finding it with my map.  They let me check in even though it was still only about 8:30 am.  Getting there, I began to realize how small (or big) the scale was on the map I was using.  I don’t think I ever truly grasped how large Bangkok was while I was still in town.

I stayed in room 2321.  I showered and shaved and headed out on the town.  I didn’t want to miss the city because I was sleeping away jet lag.  But I really wasn’t too terribly tired.  I felt okay.  I managed to take the skytrain to as close as I could get to Jim Thompson’s House which is where I visited first.  I spotted the Brioke tower, one of the taller buildings in Bangkok that a friend had told me to go to.  After trying to get over there for a half and hour, I gave up and walked a little through Siam Square, a major shopping district in Bangkok.

From Jim Thompson’s House, I started walking towards the Grand Palace and Wat Pho.  I ran into some tourists who looked like they should speak English because they were Caucasian.  I asked them if the Grand Palace was in the direction I was headed.  They responded with an accent that I figured probably wasn’t American.  The Grand Palace was this direction but at least a 40 or 50 minute walk apparently.  They advised me to hop on a bus, specifically bus 15, because it would run very close to the palace.  They must have been able to read Thai because the only bus map I was able to find was all in Thai.  I never thought about looking in my guidebook to see if there was any sort of description when I was there.  What my guidebook did do, I later discovered, was told the major places large popular bus routes went.  That could have been of some help but I did hop onto a bus 15 and rode out to the palace for only B7, or 21 cents!

The entrance fee for the Grand Palace was a lousy B250 or $6.  It was very cool though.  They have an Emerald Buddha high up on a pedestal that people come from all around to pray to.  The ornamentation on all the buildings within the palace were very detailed, beautified with small mosaic-like decorations.  They were probably combinations of jade and other types of glass.

I left and went to Wat Pho, the largest reclining Buddha in at least Thailand.  There is a massage school located right next to the temple that I decided not to patron after hearing about my sister’s painful experience with hard-pressing thumbs at the school.  I opted to wait until I got up to Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai where I figured the masseurs would be a little more gentle because they were smaller towns and not so urban.

I took a tuk tuk up to Khao San Road, the major backpackers district in Bangkok.  Many things Thai can be found here, sometimes for a deep discount considering that there is a wide variety of competition in the area from all the tourists.  I managed to find an internet place to email the states.  I didn’t ever eat at a restaurant in Khao San Road just because it felt so congested.  There were neon signs everywhere you looked, trying to get you to visit their guesthouse or buy clothes from them.  Basically, it was a sensory overload.

I tried to locate the National Theater to see what was playing that night.  I passed through a park to get over there.  I saw the Thai people relaxing.  Children were trying to fly a kite.  All I could think about was how cold it was in Utah right then.  I couldn’t find the theater so I walked back to Khao San Road to catch a taxi back over to the hotel I was at.  As I looked in my money pouch to see what I had, I realized I only had about B100 left, not enough for a taxi back downtown.  Clearly, the area of town that I was staying was not exactly the best located simply because it was far away from a lot of the tourist sights in Bangkok.  Don’t forget to book your hotel ahead of time near the Grand Palace!

I went up to an exchange booth to change my traveler’s checks.  Now, I didn’t have my passport with me at that moment because my sister had told me to lock up my passport and plane tickets whenever there was a safe to use.  Little did I know that you needed your passport to exchange traveler’s checks.  I got up to the window and the man told me it couldn’t be done.  I asked why.  And can you guess what he told me?  You’re right:  I needed my passport.

It was then that I really felt penniless and broke in Bangkok.  No place would switch the money for me.  It felt like the popular rhyme, “Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink.”  I had the money.  It was simply locked up in a traveler’s check.  I didn’t want to try to get the taxi to wait for me outside the hotel while I exchanged money or something.  So I walked around 3 to 4 miles probably back to the nearest skytrain and took it back to the Nana station to my hotel.  It was kind of a frightening experience to realize that you are sort of broke.  I don’t think I ever want to be broke in a foreign country again.  I pray that never happens because I felt really stupid.  I did get to see a lot more of Bangkok that way.  I passed by a few important buildings like the Democracy Monument.

I got back to the hotel around 10:00.  I got to bed around 11:30 because I was having fun watching the TV.  No, I can’t remember what I did that night.  I just remember coming home and getting to bed really late.  I figured that I could sleep on the bus or train tomorrow because I decided I was going over to Kachanaburi where the Death Railway is.