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A couple days go by and I find myself in Siam Riep, Cambodia and a fairly slow Internet Cafe, but that’s ok becuase it’s only a buck an hour. I’m just going to spew stuff out from my notes because we don’t want to use more than an hour so we can explore maybe Tonle Sap Lake or something or other or else. Probably the lake.
On the flight from Singapore to Bangkok I found something the stewardess said to be pretty funny. She was reciting the rules and stuff and then she ended with “and remember, cell phones are a big no-no.” It was especially funny because of her cool foreign accent.
The flight into Bangkok was more gorgeous (can I say gorgeous since i’m male?) than flying into Tokyo. The rice fields are absolutely stunning, rows and rows of perfectly lined up shades-of-green fields.
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The plane landed in BKK and we’re taxiing over to the terminals and I look over and there’s a car stopped at stoplight, waiting for the plane to pass through and have the light turn green. I’ve never seen a road pass through an airport before. Ha.
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I waited a while for Danica at BKK and then realized I wasn’t waiting in the correct part of the airport so once I followed the signs that say, “meeting point,” I found her. Woo hoo! Off and running.
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I’d read in LP about taking the train into downtown Bangkok and it’s only 10 Baht, which is 25 cents. It was well worth taking, lots of poverty to behold, my first real sight of it, although Danica wasn’t impressed tooooo much because she’d just come from the Phillipines and they’re really really really poor there. We ended up sitting in the food & drink car even though a lady in there initially said we couldn’t unless we got something. Haha, food & drink car, probably not what you’re picturing. It was dirty, run down, all the windows were open, very hot & humid, and the lady was sitting up top of the wooden bench filling little plastic sacks with what looked like some sort of alcohol.
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We arrived at Hualamphong, the train depot after about 1/2 hour or so and started looking around. We started talking to a tourist advisor of sorts and he directed us upstairs to this little tourist office. The place was awesome, only because of the girl who helped us. She was hilarious, we nicknamed her Giggly because she was cracking all these jokes and would then giggle and giggle and giggle. Like, when we first walked in she said hi to Danica and I was paying more attention to try and circumnavigate all these backpacks lying all over, and she looked at me and goes, “hi, HI.” I looked up and said, “oh, hi.” And then she just started giggling. Hehehehe, hehehehe, for no reason at all. I honestly think she had a crush on me, heh heh, if only she could see my scruffy self now… the best joke I think was with a completely straight face, she goes, “Bus? No, airplane is much cheaper.” And Danica goes, “Really?” And then Giggly started giggling like crazy of course and says, “No, no, I’m joking.” We asked another girl working there if she’s always that way and she said, “Yes, always.” She was rad.
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So we booked a bus ride from Bangkok to Siam Riep with Giggly that would leave at 8am Saturday and supposedly arrive at Siam Riep around 5 or 6pm. More on that one later… much, much more. But first, to keep it chronological, we dived into the chaos called Bangkok and worked our way over to a hotel pretty much right across the street from the station, which is in Chinatown. The hotel rooms looked fine and they had hot shower water and they cost 550 Baht so we went for it. I’ll fill in names and price conversions sometime, I’m keeping track so far… anyway, we tooled got in our room and then tooled around Chinatown looking for food… BECAUSE i still had not eaten! I forgot that the cheap Tiger Air flight didn’t serve a free meal and i didn’t have any Singapore dollars so i went without. of course all the food and stuff was new to me on the streets so i couldn’t make up my mind.
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Finally Danica pointed to some soupy thing and we split it. We trucked around and found a noodly/vegatably dish and split that too. I took off and found some much needed water, and ended getting a bottle of Coke too because it looked real good. The place i got it from was like an open cafe kind-of place and probably about 15 guys were in there lounging and watching soccer. There was one lady, who appeared to be the owner or at least runner of the place, who came over to help me. I made it confusing because at first I said I wanted 3 and asked how much, but then I changed my mind and said 4, and then at the last minute I said I wanted the Coke too. So I kind of had her going in circles and it was getting confusing so some of the guys started jumping up and offering help. It was pretty funny and I had no idea what this one guy was saying for a long time but I finally figured out he was asking if I wanted the cap popped of and a straw. For some his hand gestures looked more like calisthenics.
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The coolest part of that night was when we started trying to find our way back to our hotel. We came up to this park area (no grass, more like a Seattle Center type of thing) and these guys were playing this super-gnarly game. It was volleyball except with a large brown wiffle ball thing (not too large, maybe halfway between a wiffle ball and a volleyball) and they were only there head and their FEET. It was incredible, one guy would toss the ball up to his server and the server would smash the ball over the net with his foot above his head. Then the returning side would kind of hacky-sack it back up in the air and then they’d spike it by just kicking it above their heads or actually putting their hands and the ground and kind of cartwheeling and spiking the ball. It was amazing.
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So we sat there for quite a while and ate mangosteins, which are a purplish fruit about the size of an apricot and you smush them until they crack open, which reveals a sweet white center that stains your clothes purple if you get it on them but tastes really good.
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The next morning at train depot, we were waiting to get on our bus and a little before 8am some military personnel came out and stood below this very large portrait of I think the president. At 8am on the dot, what must be their national anthem began playing and the officers were lined up and most everyone (except those sleeping) stood up and gave respect towards the portrait. I should say that the train depot is a large open room with the 2nd stories just being on two ends of it. Down below in the main open area are a bunch of seats with a bunch of Thais sitting and sleeping in them waiting for their train.
So now I’m up to the cool part, which unfortunately Danica’s beating me to. But we have to go because our hour is up. We plan to make another stop tonight for blogging so I’ll continue then.
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Did you see my comments on your Singapore blog? I am really enjoying following your progress. I had heard that Bangkok is a really cool looking city. I hope you find enough good food to eat…sounds as though it’s been a little scarce so far and you know how mom wants you to get enough to eat…giggle giggle giggle… will check out your next episode tomorrow. I rode the Honda Shadow today…it was really sweet…rides smooth & really is easy to ride…also got an interview at SFCC Tuesday AM…will skip over to read Danica’s blog now…love you…bye
Cynde mom | April 9th, 2007 at 3:25 pm |