Back to Bangkok

The day we crossed the border back into Thailand, we left our hotel at around 8am.  In retrospect, we probably should have left at 5am because the wait time at the border is...outrageous.  We drove through the countryside out of Siem Riep until we reached the border crossing.  At that time, Kevin told us to go directly to the line up and get our paperwork done in order to exit Cambodia and enter the no-man's-land in between the Thai and Cambodian borders.  This border town is, as one of the other travellers put it, the Wild West.  There were carts full of goods (all legit I'm sure) being pulled by men and women dressed in rags and flip-flops crossing from one side to the other.  There were cars and motorbikes going everywhere, and the whole place had a certain air about it...hard to describe...but it seriously stank of rotting garbage because no one was responsible for cleaning up.

After getting our stamps to get out of Cambodia, we then had to walk across a bridge to the Thai border.  One we got there, there were hundreds of others waiting and we learned that our wait time was four hours or so to cross the border.  I won't go into details, but I will say that we managed to get across in a mere hour and a half.   We then got into two separate minibuses and were driven the rest of the distance to Bangkok.

For our last dinner we were back at Khao San Road amid the noise, backpackers, street bars, and street salespeople.  Good stories were swapped, and good words spoken, and then it was the end..  After dinner some people opted to go out for a bit of a night on the town and we began with a beer while sitting on plastic chairs on the street out in front of a laundry service shop.  After this we made a move to a bar where there was a good guitarist playing some good classic stuff like Oasis, Nirvana, Cyndi Lauper, and other things from the 90s which of course suited me just fine.  My night ended in a really cheesy and kind of weird underground night club with red lighting and a nearly empty dance floor.  I stayed there for about 20 minutes before bidding farewell to the others and returning to the hotel via tuk-tuk

The next day, some of us from the group who were still in town decided to head back into town to see Wat Pho (2nd time for me), the Royal Palace, and Wat Arun.  The reclining Buddha with the beautiful feet inlaid with mother-of-pearl is still a beauty even after all of the other beautiful things I have seen.  The Royal Palace is very impressive with beautiful hand-painted columns, walls, and very high ceilings. 

Wat Arun proved to be the steepest and scariest thing I have climbed this whole trip.  The steps become so narrow that you have to turn your feet sideways in order to go up or down and I learned that this is so you are forced to concentrate on what you are doing (ascending to heaven, or descending back down to Earth) so you take the experience more seriously.  Wat Arun has little bells everywhere that chime when the wind blows past them and it made the entire place tinkle magically.

To return back to the hotel, we shared a taxi with a negotiated price and had to spend quite a bit of time convincing the driver that we did not need a private tour to a snake show, or a ladyboy show, or the floating markets etc...And we were a captive audience because there was so much traffic it took us forty minutes to get back to the hotel.  That night, the guys went to see a Muay Thai match and Alison and I went to the giant and fascinating MBK shopping mall where I bought another pair of shoes...quality footwear...you understand.  We left each other that evening with a plan to meet up the next day and head to the SkyBar.  I went back to that mall the next day on my own and had my hair done.  It seems that everyone's hair got so dry in Cambodia and when the nice man asked me if I wanted a protein treatment, I said YES and I think I will have another one once I'm back home. 
Well, I never did manage to meet up with those guys.  I went on a day tour to the old Thai capital of Ayutthaya and saw some more interesting ruins that had been built in the style of Angkor period but were nowhere near as spectacular.  One of the highlights is a Buddha head that has tree roots growing all around it.

  The tour also took us to another temple with a very large sitting Buddha and I think that I am now officially all Templed out as they say.  The tour returned us to Bangkok along the river on a cruise boat with a nice buffet spread for lunch and I had some nice conversations with the other single travellers (assigned seating) and then returned to the hotel.  I was supposed to meet the Spanish guys for 5pm but they were a little late arriving and then too sick (food poisoning) to go out.  I left a message at the hotel for Russell and Alison but it wasn't meant to be because, in a final attempt, I went alone to the Skybar and had a look around.  Even though they weren't there I'm really glad that I got to see it.  What a lovely view of the city at night, with a live jazz band backlit with soft white lighting, and a fantastic bar and restaurant. 

I only stayed five minutes but it was long enough to get the  idea.  I returned to Khao San road and after a bit of searching, I found our tour leader Kevin in the same restaurant we were in a couple of days earlier, out for dinner with another tour leader and his group on their last day.  Since Kevin is so familiar with the nightlife of Bangkok, he was happy to go out with them to show them around, and I was happy for the company.

On my third free day in Bangkok I went to the Siam Square area in downtown and walked around for a little while among the boutiques and market stalls before heading back to the hotel for some down time.  I have learned that for a lot of these areas, the streetscape doesn't really come alive until the evening when the food vendors come out, and the streets become chocked with local Thais out hunting for interesting cheap fashions and cheap tasty street food.  I hung around Siam Square only long enough to buy a hair elastic and get a feel for the place. 

For my last day in Bangkok, I took the sky train out up to the northmost end of the line and walked through the weekend market.  I had thought that maybe I would be sick of markets and it's true that I wasn't tempted by the scores and scores of tourist-oriented trinkets, I was tempted by the art, the jewelery, and the shoes, and I was really impressed by the giant food area. 

Having finally recovered my appetite, I tried to compensate for days of missed treats with mango and coconut sticky rice, deep friend chicken in a spicy papaya salad, and some kind of mysterious sweet bread.  You can buy everything from birds and puppies, to knives and spoons, to fake flowers at this market and it was very easy to spend a few hours just wandering around.

That evening I meet up with Pooky and Sue for dinner since they had just finished their trip and it was nice to catch up with them and share stories.  We had dinner at a hotel on the water with a beautiful view and after dinner a few of us followed Pooky to a blues bar where she used to work as a bartender before becoming a guide. 

It was a different scene and full of expats from all over the world, and it was nice of Pooky to share a little bit of her life with us.

I know I have not gone into as much detail for these lazy days in Bangkok like I have for the others, but truthfully these days had a lot to do with relaxation and creature comforts and less to do with rushing all over to see everything there is to see.