Lovely Bangkok has cleaned up its air

Trip Start Aug 24, 2008
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Trip End Aug 01, 2009


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Saturday, December 27, 2008

We had the most interesting bus ride from Koh Chang to Bangkok today. Our bus was a 'VIP' bus with bathroom, and was 'very spacious' inside. We sat on the bus for 30 minutes before it started up, and it was then that we realized that the bus was a little challenged! The muffler was either in bad shape, or non-existant. We were in the back so it was very loud even inside the bus. We pulled out of the bus depot amid a horrible grinding of gears, the beginning of many a kilo of metal to be ground over the next 5 hours. There were times when it seemed impossible for the engine to accept the next gear change, and we coasted in neutral for several seconds as the driver ground more and more metal off of the cogs. It became quite hilarious as he tried and tried to put the thing in gear. The windows on the left side of the bus were all cracked, I mean ten to thirty cracks per window! The air conditioning was challenged, and not cool enough to keep us cool, while it dripped a constant two drips per second on the woman who sat in the front right seat. Otherwise the ride was fine.

The Bangkok air seemed a bit smoggy from the outskirts of the city, but I remember it being much worse 18 years ago. We walked around tonight after a nice dinner at an Indian restaraunt. I hardly noticed any pollution, and the number of tuk tuk's on the street has dwindled. We heard that they were trying to eliminate them, and it seems with the new sky train, the public transportation things are much better.

Our eyes were too big for our stomachs, and we ended up walking out of the restaraunt with a large doggy bag. We had agreed to give it to a street person on the way home. We weren't 30 seconds from the door of the restaraunt when we saw a likely candidate. When Jim held out the bag of food for the dirty, bedraggled man his eyes became round and large and he placed his hands together in a preying form, touching his hands to his forehead in thanks. He touched Jim's hand in a gesture of thankfulness and walked away happily inspecting his meal. It was a really neat interaction with the man and really made us smile not only on the outside but on the inside as well.

We are in the process of deciding what to do about our transportation to Chang Mai. It seems that all trains are full until into the new year, so that leaves us with an overnight bus. We will arrange that tomorrow and get on one hopefully tomorrow night to give us enough time to take part in the 'Mahout Training' where you can tag along with elephant trainers for the day and learn about some of the conservation efforts taking place in the country.
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