The term Big smoke is a bit too literal in Bangkok with a haze hanging over the city most of the time. It’s just after midnight, so technically it’s Saturday. After heading for bed around 9pm back in the bush it’s good to have enough to do to stay up late.
We were supposed to leave about 2 but by the time the driver arrived and we’d got our bags from the hotel it was about 2:45 when we got underway. It is a noticeably long trip and it took us 2 ½ hours to cover the 280km from the Wichian Buri hotel to the motorway exit nearest my Bangkok hotel. Given that the speed limit is 90 and we had a number of traffic light stops and a bit of a traffic jam just North of Sara Buri, you can probably do the maths and see we weren’t sticking to the speed limit. In fact we hit close to 160 in patches, mostly when another car dared to overtake us. Most of the time it was 120 to 130. We did pass some police, (not quite at that speed) and one of them waggled his white-gloved hand at us as a measure of his disapproval. The first 150km, had barely any traffic but even when it built up nearer to Bangkok, he managed to maintain the speed, swapping lanes all the time. At one time we hit a series of speed signs going from 80 to 60 to 40. The car did not slow so at the end we were doing more than 3 times the speed limit.
The last 3km from the motorway to the hotel took ¾ hour, so I wonder whether it was worth it.
The hotel room is certainly a number of very large steps up from the WB one. I have a separate sitting room with a small bar in one corner. The passage way past the bathroom also has the drawers and hanging space. The bedroom is very roomy and I have TVs in both rooms, but have not actually watched anything, other than the repeating hotel information channel.
Once I’d unpacked my first order of business was to find a book store, although I did check out the swimming pool and gym area on the way down. The Asia Books group has a store about a km from the hotel so I headed for that along Sukumvit Road. This is one of the main thoroughfares and has the sky train running along it to Siam station, which is an interchange point for the 2 lines. There are also 4 big shopping centres and other smaller ones as well as the National sport arena in that area. The street stalls were just being set up along the side of the road near the hotel with the usual mixture of cheap clothes, pirate CDs etc. I came across a Robinson’s department store and had a quick look but didn’t buy anything. Then I found a chemist and popped in to get some Immodium.
When I found the bookshop, it was closed but I remembered reading in the Bangkok guide that there was another one in one of the “Siam” malls. It turned out to be the Siam Discovery mall, which was next door to the one closest to the sky train station (it was too far to walk from the closed shop.)
I bought book 2 of an anthology by George RR Martin (I bought the first in NZ) and another Pern novel by Todd Macaffrey plus a book of essays on Thai history and culture. Each essay is about a page in length and is printed in both English and Thai. It was just over $5 and the other 2 were under $15. One of them had the UK price of 9 pounds showing, so they were about 40% cheaper.
I had a brief look at some of the other shops but wasn’t really in the mood so headed back to the sky train station and caught one back to near the hotel. It is about a 5 minute walk at the end. After unpacking I took a couple of photos of the night view from my 19th floor window.
I headed downstairs again and had dinner just across the road from the hotel. An entrée, fish for main, and 2 MaiThai cocktails for under $18. I starting talking to and then joined 3 American guys who are also here installing software for one of the big telecom firms. They had about 3 days notice and consequently only have tourist visa. They had just been to Cambodia to exit the country and re-enter to get another 30 days visa (for the second time since arriving). Apparently they officially went on a golfing tour of Cambodia but never saw a golf course. In fact, all they saw was the restaurant just across the border where they had brunch while someone else got their passports stamped for them.
We finished our meals and parted company. I went a few metres up the road to the massage parlour I’d seen earlier and had a 90 minute Thai massage. For this one you change into something like PJs and lie on a mattress on the floor. The massager then moves around you to get at you at different angles. There was a combination of hand and foot massaging, including a walk up my back as well as different stretches. She did a fair amount of work on the area of my back that has been sore but in the end I don’t think massage is the solution. Again this cost less than $15.
All in all a different evening than the last 10 days.
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