Bangkok, Khao Sun Road & an Overnight Train to the Railey Penninsula

I had set off on my tour of Thailand solo, but luck threw me into the bottom bunk at the Refill Now! Hostel. Leon Smith was already in the top bunk, he was also almost over Bangkok and looking to see the better parts of Thailand. I had promised a friend I would tour a little Bangkok since, as he put it, "It makes you appreciate everywhere else so much more!" - OK, I'll take that. Leon obliged to spend a few hours snapping some shots around this exciting & very interesting to navigate city.

So he "guided" me to the canal system within the city that was once known as the "Venice of the East" - a stretch, I know, especially since I witnessed raw sewage dumping into the canal where we were jumping onto our water taxi. But anyway, it was a crowded boat and they charge like 25 cents to ride, at certain times two boats pass each other in a narrow part of the canal and everyone knows to huddle behind the plastic tarp wall that I had allowed to drop down in front of me... yep, you guessed it, splashed down the front, thanks again Buddha for not getting it into my mouth. (I had been warned to keep it closed in this situation) Lesson learned we made it to our spot and jumped out to see a temple -- SO, none of this is really interesting me anymore, I'm not into religion enough to delve inside of these places, and honestly the architecture loses it allure after about the hundredth one. I continued on, this was my first "tuk-tuk" ride, it's a motorbike/scooter which has a two, or four, or sometimes six person carriage on the back. These guys are nuts, weaving into oncoming traffic whenever it might save them a second. I was loving it, the methods of navigating this city are WAY more fun than the standard sights. Next I attempted to see the Grand Palace only to find out I wasn't dressed appropriately, (It's too hot for pants!) so we wandered through another temple. The pics will be cool but it seems that only the outdated/aging relics are on display, the real shits kept away from the tourist train and their flashing machines. Onward still, a walk to the Chao Phraya River which we took a ferry across for another quarter and yet another temple. Cheers to Leon for seeing it all through with me, I'm tired just writing about it. We didn't spend long there so back across the river we came, ended up sitting on some upside down plastic trashcans while a local man fanned the sweat off our faces. Oh wait, I forgot to mention we had just ordered "street" Pad Thai - and the local man, who was the vendor, noticed we were sweating profusely so he shared some of his air. The Pad Thai was awesome, two bucks, fresh & fast, but maybe not the best choice on a hot sticky day in Southeast Asia. Whatever, another tuk-tuk ride to the train station to finalize our plans south.

Leon didn't really have a plan, just go places he hears are cool and enjoy them. I had heard of an area where the rock climbing was second to none, and the beach was mighty fine as well, so he agreed to take the 15 hour overnight train with me. We bought our tickets, went down to the "Metro" (their version of a Subway) - this was cheap, easy and clean. Once we arrived at our stop we ascended to the "Sky Train" (an elevated train) - also cheap, easy & clean...plus a great view of the city. I felt like I'd seen my sights and now it was time to relax by the pool, have some dinner and head out for my only real night on the town.

But wait! There's one more mode of transportation I haven't mentioned, this one was Leon's favorite by far and according to him I was to "have a go," so we did. After the Skytrain there's about a 30 minute more walk to our Hostel, we were a bit out of the way for good reason, so we needed another ride. At the bottom of the stairs from the train were a row of dudes wearing red vests on scooters, like a taxi stop. We jump on the back of this thing (helmet-less mind you) and they ride us back to our place, it was nuts but I wasn't too freaked out, actually pulled my camera out and snapped a shot of Leon, best fifty cents I've ever spent on travel. These little bikes (125cc) can't go very fast with guys our size on them but it's of course the oncoming traffic I worry about, and I was wearing flip-flops. OK maybe it was a little disconcerting but it was another thrill to add to the pile so I went with it and it worked out just fine.

That night we headed out on Khao Sun Road, the infamous backpackers area where the nightly booze fest takes place, or as my friends & I from Cali like to refer to it, amateur hour. Eter Callejas, another friend from the hostel, joined us this evening, the three of us took our hostels personal tuk-tuk to the Skytrain, well almost the Skytrain. Actually we got out early since there was an elephant walking down the street and all of us wanted to have a look. We were quite buzzed but it was good times for sure, dudes let us feed it and pet it or whatever, it was a fun five minutes but the novelty wore off as we were declining taking a ride.

Once on Khao Sun it was your typical night market, with a few twists. The first was the amount of people, they were everywhere and it was like spring break, one place actually brings a 4 foot tall glass "keg" to tap right at your table. Not my style (anymore ;) but it was amusing. I just found out last night that it's currently the southern hemisphere's summer break, that coupled with Dec thru March being the "high season" most likely created this craziness. The second twist was the insect cart that came by us, I had never seen anything like it & because of my interest in trying most everything once I asked which was the best... the roasted insect merchant quickly pointed out the crickets & grasshoppers. (I guess the maggots & roaches aren't American favorites) Eter was totally down with this idea, I imagine our enthusiasm & the encouragement of a dready who had been snacking on them recently pushed Leon & I into picking out a grasshopper. He sprayed it with soy sauce, salted it, we "cheers-ed" our four inch snack and crunched it down. .. ... .... ..... It was OK!Kinda like a potato chip, the taste was fine it was the barbed legs which feel stuck in your throat until your next drink that makes it freaky. Actually took a couple beers before that feeling went away. The rest of the night was pretty normal, hit a bar with A/C, a not so common luxury which I imagine cost us a few more cents for beers in the long run. I eventually found my way back to the hostel for a good nights sleep. The next day was pretty much just recovering by the pool & packing for our trip south.

It's time for some more traveling, this time we were taking an overnight train. Our taxi was late picking us up at the hostel and it was rush hour so we were a bit stressed when we arrived at the train station with about five minutes to spare. We stocked on snacks/water and found our seats. Basically since we booked late all that was available was a 2nd Class A/C car with reclining seats, not too bad for 15 bucks, our train departed. Five minutes in our train stopped and lot's of people filed into our car from the front of the train. Hmmmm, what is going on? Not many English speakers in a 2nd Class train car leaving Bangkok... hmmmm. What's that smell? Finally somebody thought of the word Fire -- I guess the car in front of us had caught, still not clear exactly how but basically once everyone had moved all their crap from that car to our car we started backing up, back to the train station. Yippee. Of course I'm antsy anyway so I got out and watched the process of disconnecting the car from ours, waited an hour for another engine to hook-up and pull that half of the train somewhere, where they dropped off the bad car, reattached a new, hopefully safer sleeper car, and hooked the entire train back together. Another two hours go by before we leave, now I'm actually OK with this since a Thai train rushing down the one train line had no appeal to me whatsoever. We were off schedule and they needed to squeeze us in wherever there was room, I just kept thinking of the Metrolink engineer who crashed a train because he was text messaging and missed the red light. There were so many stops on our express train but once it got rolling I roamed around and saw some interesting sights. We were apparently in the "family" car, as I moved forward people were getting more and more energetic, to the point where I was blocked from going by a band jamming & singing! People were trying to set me up with drinks but since I had exhausted myself on purpose so I could sleep on this crazy train, I politely declined and wandered back to my seat for some quiet time, 13 more hours to go at this point. When I woke up it was morning and since we could actually see outside I enjoyed the rest of the ride through rural Thailand. Our train was to Trang, we took a bus from Trang to Krabi, a tuk-tuk to Au Nang and finally a longtail boat from Au Nang to Tonsai Beach, where a guy named Ronald Post was waiting to meet us.

I'll get into the best part of my trip to Thailand (so far) in my next post, this one ended up being too long.