Across Thailand

After having arrived in Thailand these two flashpackers became rather restless. Ian has already described the beauty spots of Hat Yai where we spent an evening and afternoon sampling the local cuisine and doing 'admin' stuff. We ended up - using Ian's description at the time - as 'shopping mall rats' for half a day while waiting for our onvernight train to Bangkok. In true Balham 'mall rat' style we did not purchase a thing and cruised in and out of internet and other cafes. Unfortunately, I could not convince Ian to spend some time in the the games arcade with me - pity.

The overnight train to Bangkok was very comfortable (2nd class sleeper; btw if you do not know this website yet, have a look at 'the man on seat 61', fantastic source for information on trains anywhere in the world; combine this webpage with the one offered by 'Deutsche Bahn' and you will never go wrong on train travel again). After a good sleep on the train, we arrived well rested in Bangkok mid-morning. Actually, in hinsight we were very lucky to have rushed through southern Thailand as one or two days after our arrival in Bangkok the South experienced the worst floods in decades which brought the region to a standstill for a week or so.

Bangkok was quite an experience. I have always liked this mad city and that has not changed; nevertheless, even the busy Bangkok that I knew from 20 years ago was restful compared to the city of today. We stayed about four days, and explored the central parts by foot, metro, boat, skytrain and only very occasionally by tuk tuk. I attach a few touristy pics, unfortunately, we did not take any from a very charming restaurant, 'Cabbages and Condoms', which could have shown some creative ways of using condoms for non-primary purposes (ie as lampshades, ties, etc). When leaving the restaurant you could grap a 'democrat' or 'republican' seize condom - the former being significantly more in demand than the latter. What this means remains a happy mystery to us as a we rejected to go along with such an old fashioned binary concept of politics.

Ian at the Oriental

Some sightseeing and essential shopping trips later (Ian is now equipped with a pair of Birkenstock like sandals, they seem to work their magic on him as he has stopped cursing them as 'hippie' shoes, but then his peaceful mind may also be the product of the recent yoga exposure - more of that later) we tumbled out of bed at 4 am one early monring to board a six am regular bus to Aranyaprathet to cross the Cambodian border at Poipet.