Bangkok

If there is one small niggle about travel over here it is that you are given no information in English about any of the journeys. So, you are never quite sure if or when you will stop, whether you can get food along the way or not etc. None of the staff ever speaks enough English to be able to tell us - which is fair enough - but given the number of Westerners who use their services a little printed info wouldn’t go amiss. We learned in India that most of the time people bring their own food along; if only for the fact that this is what they can afford. From our perspective we can never be certain that what might be available will be ‘safe’ for us. We eat from food stalls most of the time over here but these are relatively tame compared to the ‘transport cafe’ equivalent that some of the buses stop at.

I have been driven to wistfully wonder how long you would need to live here before you could risk a takeaway salad and a couple of chicken wings without throwing all caution to the wind? On the one hand we would love to pick up a take away soup, or fried rice or two at the start of the journey - but on the other hand do we risk keeping it for 3-4 hours before we eat it!?!?!?!? So far we have erred on the side of caution and make do with buns or sandwiches if we can find them. Most of the time this means that we start the journey with a bag full of white, refined flour and sugar in various forms.

On the trip down to Bangkok I had just fallen into a carbohydrate-induced stupor on the bus when we pulled up for a stop. Brett gently prodded me and asked if I wanted to get off as it seemed as if we were going to stop for a while. In my carb grouchiness I declined. 5 minutes later he came back to tempt me with the promise of Earl Grey tea (the holy grail as it were) which did eventually draw me back from the depths. The food stop was really lovely. Masses of dried fruits and candied this and that, which the Thais seem to love, and a really great food court. As both Brett and I had already eaten our store of processed food we were both beyond eating anything else. I can't be certain but I'm fairly sure that Brett shed a quiet tear while waiting for me.

The other drawback about not knowing when you will stop is the tricky task of planning when and what to drink. I now realise that the main reason people travel when they are young is because they can do so secure in the knowledge that their bladders are robust enough to carry them through the longest of journeys without a twinge. This is no longer true for me and rationing before and during trips is a sad necessity.

Suffice to say, we arrive in Bangkok on Saturday evening after 7 hours of dehydration and the aftereffects of too much refined sugar and carbohydrates.

We find that our hotel is slap, bang in the middle of the wholesale clothes market(we now know where all those market traders get their miles of gaudy shirts, shorts and skirts) and 20 yards away from the wholesale fruit and veg night market. It is fascinating see the range of goods in the market and to see yards upon yards of the different fruits; massive pineapples and watermelons; smooth skinned avocados; mountains of mandarins etc. One morning as we are going out we see the last of the avocados being picked over by traders - by now of course they are being offered the bin end price and there is no doubt that their own clients will be more 'East Street' than 'Whiteladies Road'. They look delighted with themselves as they pile sack upon sack of fruit onto their trolleys.

It was strange to be back amongst the hustle and bustle of a city after what seems like so long away from it all. Penang was busy enough but Kuala Lumpur was the last big city for us about a month ago.

Bangkok is not for the fainthearted. The traffic is horrendous, the air and water pollution is grim, the public transport is abysmal and just about everyone we come into contact with is out to try to scam just that extra 100 bhat or so from you. It has been lovely in Malaysia and Thailand so far as this hadn’t been such a problem but ... Bangkok is out to make you pay.

Our first evening (Saturday) we needed to check out transport information for the next part of our trip on Monday so we decided to take a taxi to Khao San Road (for those who aren’t aware this is the heart of backpacker land in BKK). For some reason getting a taxi outside the front of our hotel was a nightmare. I think the hotels conspire in the whole business. There was always someone just outside our hotel who would gladly drive you anywhere - but the prices they quoted were so outrageous they quickly realized that we were NEVER going to be using them. As it was a very big hotel full of foreign tourists you’d think there’d be taxis queuing up round the block, but it was next to impossible to get a taxi and the hotel wouldn’t call you one as you weren’t going to use their drivers.

We quickly figured out that it was best just to walk round to the nearest main street and hail a taxi or Tuk Tuk. Taxi drivers here will not use their meters if they can avoid it and regularly try to charge you about twice the going rate. We had managed to persuade our taxi driver to use the meter from the bus station to the hotel when we arrived so we had some idea what the fares should be. Indeed, when they do use the meter it is relatively cheap for us. We paid just over 2 quid (120 Bhat) for a journey that would have been the best part of 30 quid in the UK.

The first evening our taxi driver waved off our question about how much it would be and then said 150 baht so we told him to stop the taxi. He, of course, pretended not to hear until we insisted. At which point he grudgingly dropped his price to 100. Although we knew that was still too high we agreed as it was more hassle than it was worth to try to find another taxi willing to use the meter in a neighbourhood that we still weren’t familiar with.
However, the fare would have been closer to 45 if he had put the meter on.

And, they’re all in on it... The next day we had to go to the bus station out of town to book our tickets and the meter fare was 95 bhat. When we went to get a taxi back we had to go through the taxi rank and the man in charge looked us straight in the eye and said he “could” do it for 400 - like he was doing us a huge favour. When we told him it had cost us 95 to get there and didn’t offer to bargain with him at all, insisting on the meter, he waved us away growling at us to "have the meter then". It’s not that I object to them wanting to fiddle the tax man or whoever, quote me a fair price off the meter and I'll pay it (I'll even tip them), but don’t treat me like a walking cash machine.

But back to Saturday night...

Our taxi driver drives like he is being pursued by the hounds of hell so it is no surprise when we pull up to what feels like the gates of hell; aka Khao San Road.

I am drawn to think that if you have spent a summer holiday at club 18-30 in Ibiza or somewhere similar then KSR would probably be a homecoming of sorts. The road is probably 300-500m long and lined with pubs, cocktail bars (which often means a barrel with 10 bottles of booze on top and 20 chairs around it), market and food stalls and peole hawking pretty much everything. Plus, it is rammed full of people. For the first hour I was just in shock. After the last 6-8 weeks of relative calm and civilisation, KSR was a step too far too soon for me. Once my system had acclimatised about an hour later it was interesting to sit and watch the shenanigans of the different crowds of people. The buzz was very good natured and there was none of the aggression that we often have in the UK when so much alcohol is around. KSR certainly does let you know that you can get, and do, pretty much whatever you want in Bangkok.

Not so much sight-seeing in BKK this time around as we know we will be back for a day or two before we fly out in January. We wander some of the markets and decide to risk China Town for dinner on Sunday night. It is interesting to see once again how seriously how the Asians take their food. Brett is hoping for some more Cantonese food but we don't manage to find it so we have to make do with a local restaurant where the food is very good so he isn't too disappointed. Tuesday sees us packing up and skipping gently to the next part of our trip, which is Christmas on one of the islands on the East coast ... and only 12 hours overnight on the (yes you guessed it) bus. We have splashed out on VIP this time - loos and reclining seats - and hope this will make the trip slightly more bearable.