The Burmese border is just two hours drive north of Khao Lak. There are restrictions, however, on entering the country by land and so we must make our way to Bangkok from where we will take a flight to Yangon, the capital of Burma.
We had bought tickets for the morning flight from Phuket to Bangkok but had received an email a couple of days earlier advising us that we had been switched to the afternoon flight
. Luckily we were not connecting immediately with the onward flight but staying overnight in Bangkok and so the flight change was not a big problem.
It meant that we had a few hours to kill on Monday morning before leaving Bang Niang. We wandered around the village for the last time and then lingered over rather good iced coffees at a pleasant little café. It was a somewhat hair-raising journey back to Phuket airport as our driver had a complete disregard for speed limits and double yellow lines, tailgating vehicles in front and overtaking wherever he felt like it, often forcing oncoming traffic onto the hard shoulder.
Having emailed us a couple of days before to change our flight to the afternoon, the check in staff at the Nokair desk, predictably, told us we should have been on the morning flight. The mix up was soon sorted though and we were issued with boarding cards. We had seats 45H and 45J, leading us to believe that we must be flying on a large plane
. It turned out to be just a 737-400 however. The seats were lettered A,B,C,H,J,K for some reason and even more bizarrely, the row numbers started at 31! The flight was on time and an hour and 10 minutes later we reached Bangkok.
As we descended towards the airport we could see widespread flooding below us. The recent devastating floods had closed the domestic airport but the international airport was still functioning.
We took a taxi into the city centre. There was no sign of flooding on the drive in and the heart of the city had apparently been successfully protected from the floods.
The taxi driver hadn’t immediately recognised the address of our hotel but it was in the Sukhumvit area, which we knew quite well, and he seemed to be heading in the right direction. Before long though we were all, including the driver, craning our necks from the taxi, as he drove slowly along the narrow alleyways running off the main road
. It became clear that he did not know where he was going. At one point he drove all the way up a narrowing alleyway with cars parked on both sides. No sign of our hotel there either, and he had to reverse all the way back to the main road. When we did eventually find it, there was of course an argument about the fare as we were unwilling to pay the full meter amount. Passers by became involved and a compromise was reached but then the driver didn’t have any change and the passers by became involved again as they all searched their pockets for change to help the situation.
The hotel was smart, modern and in an excellent position. We had already recognised some bars and restaurants that we had frequented on previous visits to Bangkok and after a quick shower we set out to explore further. It was the King’s 84th birthday. As we left the Piranha Bar the previous evening, Pak had warned us that it would be a national holiday and that everything would be closed for the day in Bangkok
. We had not been sure whether to believe him or not but now realised that he was winding us up. The banks and some of the shops had been closed it seemed but all the tourist shops, restaurants and bars were open as normal.
Bangkok seemed noisy, dirty and somewhat sordid after the pleasant, natural surroundings of Khao Lak. This was the Thailand of chaotic traffic, pollution, transgenders, beggars and girlie bars. A menace we had not encountered in Bangkok before was motorcycles being ridden at speed along the pavement careering dangerously past the pedestrians. There were crowds on the streets celebrating the royal birthday with lanterns and we saw our first reminders that Christmas was just around the corner as there were huge Christmas trees in many of the shopping malls.
We found our way to the Suda Restaurant, a popular cheap outdoor eating place, that we had visited many times before and tucked into what would be our last Thai meal for a while. After a couple of beers in bars close to our hotel we retired to our trendy room. It was described as "avant garde" and "chic" but lacked a window which we both agreed would have been nice
Our flight was not until 16.25 on Tuesday and so after an excellent breakfast we went for a wander around. It was a lovely morning. The sky was blue and the temperature a pleasant 30 degrees. We smiled smugly to ourselves as we glanced at the headlines of a Daily Mirror which we saw for sale - "Icy blast hits UK".!
After a 12 o'clock checkout we adjourned to a local cafe to wait for our taxi to the airport for the Air Asia flight to Yangon.
One Night in Bangkok
Monday, December 05, 2011
Bangkok, Thailand
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