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The room was so stuffy when we woke up to the aroma of unwashed clothes and stale beer that normally follows unhygienic men. I escaped as soon as possible downstairs to make a cup of coffee and breathe some fresh air.... Well more humid then anything but fresh all the same. You forget how humid it is in Bangkok compared to the dry, intense heat of Burma. Just sitting out of air conditioning for five minutes made me feel the sweat forming on my brow.
I was more composed now after yesterdays meltdown and I thought we would gamble on the unlikely prospect of catching a train to Chiang Mai tomorrow. I knew the chances were slim but I guess you need to have a little bit of faith. After Laura woke and had some breakfast we headed to the train station via the metro. On arriving a kind thai lady on the information desk asked the ticketing office about availability. As I guessed everything was full for the next 4-5 days except one train which had 3rd class tickets going tomorrow. I asked about them and the woman warned me off saying it would be a 16 hour train ride, on a wooden bench, packed to the rafters with only a fan to keep us cool. It wasn't exactly the most appealing proposition but it was cheap and maybe our only option. The information lady told us there was no need to book now but the train station does also offer buses. I knew if there were any seats available they would be extortionately priced and I wasn't proved wrong. The buses were going for about 1200 baht and we weren't going to pay that for a bus. Some how the travel agency could also conjure up train tickets (that were all sold out) but there would be a 1000 baht booking fee (£22.50) on top of the 600 or so for the ticket each. In a very polite and diplomatic manner, I told her her to shove it! We both agreed to come back in the morning and brave the 3rd class train tickets, either incredibly smart or incredibly stupid.
We decided to grab some food from a shopping mall we hadn't tried yet on our numerous visits to Bangkok recently called Terminal 21, the hostel owner had recommended it to us previously so we thought we would check it out. It was a pretty cool place with each floor representing a different city in the world. For example, the London floor has shops which look like red double-decker buses... There was also japan, Istanbul, Paris and Rome. The food court was on the 5th floor (San Francisco) and the choices were unbelievable, ranging from Chinese, Thai, Korean and so on. We settled for noodles and rice dishes, which were very cheap and then finished off with Laura's favourite... mango sticky rice, a revolutionary dessert that tastes just like rice pudding with the fresh sweetness of mango on the side.
On the way back down Laura spotted a new H&M that had recently opened in the last few days (she had actually spotted it prior to Myanmar so knew on returning it would finally be open). She popped in determined to find some shorts or something as all her bottoms (and tops) were now really loose. After about an hour I had one tee shirt in my hand and she had settled on some black shorts, a couple of tee shirts and a jersey dress. She seemed happy as she now had clothes that fitted and she had dropped 1-2 dress sizes... Girls eh?
We then headed to the local Topps supermarket where Laura was so glad to buy some fruit and juice. Thats the best thing about Thailand... fruit is so cheap and varied here. We also bought some soap powder and thus the evening consisted of doing laundry whilst watching films and eating ice cream... an evening of comfort prior to the dreaded train ride we had ahead of us tomorrow. On returning to our room later this evening we saw that the offending boys had all left and that we actually had the whole dorm to our selves... Lovely!
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