Like a banana pancake for mosquitos
Bangkok,
Bangkok,
Thailand
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Bangkok was exactly as I remembered it - a sprawling metropolis with intense traffic. I only planned to stay a couple of days to visit a doctor for more malaria meds and to fill out an immunization form for school for the fall, plus I needed to buy a guidebook for Cambodia and eat some sticky rice with mango and pad thai. I knew that all of these things could be accomplished in the touristy area of town, so I hopped on the airport bus to Khaosan Road. On the bus I met Dorien, a Dutch girl who was on day 1 of a year long trip, and decided to share a room with her.
Nothing super exciting to report from Bangkok. I enjoyed some delicious food, eating at my favorite vegetarian restaurant, May Kaidee's, four times plus partaking in the wonderful street food that's available 24-hrs a day near Khaosan Road. I also went back to the weekend market along with Dorien and spent an afternoon escaping the heat in the massive air-conditioned malls.
I spent a large chunk of time reading up on the internet about the border crossing to Cambodia. This is probably the most scam-filled border in all of Asia. There is a "direct" bus from Khaosan Road to Siem Reap, but it is not-so-affectionately called the scam bus because it purposefully takes about 4-6 hours longer than necessary in order arrive late enough so that everyone is too tired to go find their own place to stay and will stay at the guest house that pays the highest commission per person to the bus driver. Both the scam bus and the Cambodian border officials are known to attempt to get as much bribe money as possible for the Cambodian visa. And then most transportation on the Cambodian side of the border is run by the government mafia who purposefully charges more money than they should and also attempts to sell its passengers to a guest house. I wanted to be extra prepared to navigate my way through the border crossing and come out relatively scam free.
