Bangkok Again

Dearest Blog Followers,

This is a post we wrote while in Bangkok and meant to post for you before our week in the Andaman Islands.  We ended up not having internet our last day in Thailand, so didn't get this posted--sorry!!  We also apologize for our lack of blogs since Thailand.  We are in India now, which is a whole different world!!  We are in the process of getting stuff uploaded, but the internet is a bit dodgy, so bear with us!!  More fun adventures to come, we can assure you!!  Now, for the much awaited last Thai blog....

Last time we wrote, we were sitting on a patio enjoying our sunset view of the Vang Vieng river in Laos.  We left Laos the following morning for our long travel day back to Bangkok.  Our bus ride this time was a bit less eventful; we were in a nicer bus and knew what to expect, so this time could take in a bit more of the scenery as we bounced around on the bumpy roads!  We had no breakdowns, which is a major plus on road travel in Laos!  It was very hectic getting from the capital city of Laos across the border.  The bus drops you off in Vientiene, the capital of Laos, which is about 20km from the border.  Even though we paid about $6 total to travel the four hours to Vientiene, the cab drivers first quoted us about the same to take us the next 22km!  They knew they have you in a tight spot, but we haggled our way down a bit.  So we got a tuk tuk with some fellow Americans to the Laos border, where we waited to get stamped out of the country and pay our leaving fee.  Bit of a joke, seeing how we just paid lots for our visa five days earlier, but we guess that’s how these countries make their monies!! 

From the Laos border, you need to get over the Friendship bridge into Thailand.  Again, we got harassed by overpriced cab drivers, but found the local bus and went across.  Getting back into Thailand was a bit less painful (no struggle to get a visa here!) and after we got our passports stamped we knew the price of a tuk tuk to the train station, so even though they tried to get us, we were onto their game!! 

We arrived at the train station and found a nice little roadside restaurant (our favourite!!) to enjoy our now favourite foods—noodle soup for Ang, and pad thai for Steve.  We had a nice little visitor to our dinner—see the pictures below!  We boarded the train back to Bangkok a little after 6pm and snuggled into our bunks for a swaying sleep on the train.

We arrived into Bangkok a little late, around 9am, but perfect timing for seeing the city waking up.  We decided to stay in a different area of Bangkok this time, seeing how big this city is, it is nice to get a different vantage point.  We stayed in one of the big shopping areas, Siam Square.  We took our two days left in Bangkok to see more of the city.  We walked around our new neighbourhood and took in the busy traffic and huge skyscraper buildings.  We got our first taste of muay Thai boxing right near our hotel.  It was neat, but not something Ang would necessarily want to sit through for three hours!  They usually have 8-10 competitors a night, with each pair having about five rounds against each other.  Lots of punching and high kicks, with some very interesting Thai music thrown in between!

Our second day we set off to explore in the other direction, and found what we had been looking for the past three weeks: a grocery store!!  We do love the local food, but curry for breakfast just wasn’t cutting it!!  We were very excited to have some yogurt, milk and cereal—a great start to the day!  This grocery store had tons of samples; kinda like Costco, but healthy foods.  They cut up fruit for you to try, trail mix, and even some cereal and milk.  We found a delicious new cereal out of these tastings, so its just too bad we didn’t find the grocery store sooner.  We then continued walking down into the Chinatown market areas.  There are streets and streets full of vendors selling anything you could imagine!  We were in the market for some t-shirts, but since the expanse of items goes on and on, it seems you can’t really find what you need!   We ended up taking a cab to a different market area and finally found some mens clothing, although Thai men must not have been rugby players in their former lives, because they don’t seem to have anything bigger than mediums!

On our final day in Bangkok, we are going to go pick up some clothing we ordered when we first arrived in Thailand and then head off to the airport to meet the Shay family.  We fly out to India tonight, and then out to the Andaman Sea for the next week.  Likely no blog updates till we return, but trust we will keep having lots of fun!!  

Our dinner guest at the restaurant outside the train station in  Nong Khai.  Very cute little elephant!

Steve and his Burmese tailor friend in Bangkok.  Beautiful new suits hand tailored.

We hope to post our blog from our sailing trip in the Andamans as well as our first week in India shortly.  Cross your fingers the internet holds out!!