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Day 51 - Siem Reap to Bangkok
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We were up at about 6am to pack and get ready for our ride to the airport, and our flight back to Bangkok.
We spent a lot of time last night trying to book flights & hotels for the next few weeks, so it was good to actually prepare to board a plane rather than go crazy planning them.
Our friendly tuk-tuk driver from yesterday had remembered when we planned to leave the hotel (and maybe that we were good tippers ?!), so was waiting outside for us to take us to the airport; it was definitely a bit of a novelty to use the same driver for 3 days, he was like our personal chauffeur !
The trip to the airport was longer than we expected, but we'd left plenty of time so it was no problem. The airport itself was small but very attractively laid out (is small but, is niiiice...), and even had a Dairy Queen, which I haven't seen for years.
So one 'banana split blizzard' later, we sat down at the extortionate-but-fast internet PCs in Dairy Queen, and looked at hotels in the beach areas that we were ultimately headed for over the next week or so.
Neither of us were too chuffed about having to spend ANOTHER night in Bangkok (flights leaving there today were extortionate so we had to stayover), but when we arrived there after a good flight it was like visiting an old friend.
Having been there a few times recently it was nice to be able to navigate the airport on autopilot, and we even had time to find a cheaper way into town: the public bus. It took us a while to figure out what the hell was going on (no English signs) but eventually we worked it out and hopped on a bus to the city centre.
This bus took a fraction longer to get into town, but was more than a fraction cheaper. Ok that's not strictly true, it was approx 1/5 the price of the "Express" (i.e. "Tourist") bus, a real bargain: 32 bahts each rather than 150 bahts.
We had already decided to give the Kho San road a miss this time (it gave Katie the creeps), so we headed for the more expensive but much nicer Siam Square area, where we'd stayed on our first nights in Bangkok over 50 days ago now. We weren't impressed with our choice on that occassion (booked over internet so always a lottery), and this time we had time to look at a few options on the same street.
We alighted at a stop called 'Victory Monument', which unsurprisingly had a monument dedicated to some sort of military victory (no idea and couldn't be bothered to reach for the Lonely Planet !) in the middle of a roundabout, and a Sky Train station above it.
From there it was 3 stops to the National Stadium, where we got off and walked to the scene of our first Bangkok experience so many weeks ago.
Bangkok has definitely grown on us, I think we were just jet-lagged the first time we got here, in the middle of a hot afternoon, so I probably owe the place an apology ;)
It's an impressive city, with great transport, excellent food & shopping and plenty to see. It's not even as smelly as we remembered, and the temperature was also more pleasant !
We found a better value hotel very close to where we first stayed (600 bahts v 900 bahts, with better a/c & more comfortable bed), so we were happy.
We dumped the gear, and headed for the excellent food court in the MTB building at the Siam Square crossroads.
They have a wide choice of styles, tons of choice, and the prices are good, so we loaded up on some dim sum, stir fry and Japanese rice bowls, washed down with some very tasty fresh juices.
We then went upstairs to the cinema with the idea of killing some time, but all the films were awful, so we wandered off in disgust.
We found an area of the shopping centre devoted almost exclusively to copy merchandise, which was very odd. There was a guy selling Tag Heuer watches, loads of Ralph Lauren polos, fake handbags, that sort of stuff. I had to laugh out loud at the brazeness of these entrepeneurs, and I wondered how on earth the developers got away with giving these counterfeighters leases ?!
We then walked over the street and into the "old" part of Siam Square, with small streets of independent shops, internet cafes etc.
We found a great 'market' area which was also full of fake gear, and we spent ages in an excellent shop selling knock-off t-shirts, and yes we bought a couple ! They had Bathing Ape, Pharrel's new label Billionaire Boy's Club, that sort of stuff... it was suh-weet !
Oh, and we saw some "feet-pants", what the HELL is going on here ?!
We tried (unsuccessfully) to burn the latest photos onto CDs (think the camera sometimes does something weird to the files on the SD card so PCs can't access the photos), caught up on some emails, and updated the blog as I was a few days behind after our long days and short nights in Siem Reap.
As we were walking down the pavement we passed THE WORST busker we have ever seen in our collective lives ! He was playing AIR GUITAR and wearing a mask ?! He was obviously too ashamed to rock out in public. I don't know, those guys playing air guitar in public, what losers. Ahem ;)
By this time it was now nearly dark, so we walked over the road to the other gleaming malls in search of another cinema, and had exactly the same experience, they were showing a load of rubbish, so we went to get some dinner.
This husband made his wife very happy by agreeing to eat at Pizza Hut, where we were amazed and embarrassed by the behaviour of some of the westerners dining there, giving the staff a hard time for basically not being a Pizza Hut in America, which isn't really fair. We thought the food & service was great so made a point of being extremely polite and friendly !
We then headed back to the room for another early night, ready for another early morning and our Air Asia flight to Surat Thani, the gateway to the beaches of southern Thailand.
We can't WAIT...
Lots of love,
Al & Katie xx
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