Quik Thinking

In Bangkok, for the first time, we stayed in a hotel with a swimming pool. The pool was necessary because Katherine had been so badly bitten by mosquitoes that she was in dire need of chlorinated water in which to soak. After checking in, we ate dinner at a nearby restaurant that had an awesome tuk-tuk sign posted outside and then went right to bed, exhausted after a long day of travelling.

In the morning I awoke early (as usual) and set off on my own to find some street food for brekki. Before eating I stopped by a park to enjoy the fascinating sculptures on display there. While doing that I discovered a swimming pool that was open to anybody who wished to purchase a very cheap annual membership. And, of course, there were a bunch of people practicing Tai Chi. As I was about to leave the park, I heard music start playing all around me and everybody suddenly stopped and stood very still. It took me a few seconds to realize what was going on: the daily national anthem!

When Tony and Katherine had been trying to catch their flight from Tokyo to Bangkok a few days before, they'd missed it because Tony had forgotten his passport at home. They were able to purchase and take a different flight later that day, at which point they thought the incident had been put behind them. Unfortunately, however, Expedia then left them a message informing them that their return flight had been cancelled by China Airlines because they'd missed the original one. Annoyed at this reckless behaviour, we decided to visit the China Airlines office in Bangkok.

Getting there proved to be complicated because Google Maps gave us the wrong location for the office but eventually we found it. The woman at the customer service desk was extremely nice and promised Tony that he could get most of his trip refunded. She explained that, although the original return flight no longer had any seats available, they should be able to take a different flight within a day of it. That seemed reasonable enough so we left. But it then took several additional frustrating phone calls to Expedia before they were actually able to get the refund.

In the afternoon, after returning from China Airlines, it was very hot so we hit the pool. We had the entire thing to ourselves, which was nice. But there's only so long we could handle lounging in the pool and eventually it began to get a little chilly so we left for the Victory Monument, which is where I'd accidentally ended up when I caught the express bus from the airport a few days earlier.

By the time we reached it, we were rather hungry. The monument is littered with snack vendors so Katherine and Tony wanted to just nibble on snacks as we wandered around. Normally that would have been a problem for me because eating is a heavyweight operation for me thanks to Invisalign. However, at that point I had just completed the fortnight-long cycle for that particular pair so I decided to try an experiment. Removing them for the rest of the evening, I snacked with impunity. The freedom of being able to eat at will gave me quite the rush! The experiment was marred only when I managed to cut my thumb while peeling a local fruit.

After snacking, we took the skytrain to Bangkok's largest park and walked around for a while. Katherine bought a can of beer before we learned that drinking alcohol was not permitted in the park. I thought it was odd that beer could be sold in there if nobody was supposed to actually drink it. While Katherine furtively stole sips of her beer, we amused ourselves by watching an enormous crowd participate in an outdoor dancercise session. Although the participants were mostly female, there were plenty of guys too. 

As darkness fell, we left the park for the night market just outside it. There was a wide variety of food available there, although they wouldn't take our money. We had to purchase coupons and then use those to buy food. I was initially skeptical about ending up with extra useless coupons at the end but Tony pointed out that they would happily refund unused coupons. I guess they must have instituted the system to isolate the handling of cash to a small number of people. The food stalls are arranged in two inward-facing rows on either side of a lawn filled with tables and chairs on which to eat. At one end of the lawn is a stage on which various musical numbers are accompanied by dancing. It's a very pleasant experience.

Once we'd eaten it was time to hit the shops. Bargaining was underway everywhere we turned. Tony and I eventually grew tired of walking around and sat down to rest while Katherine continued window-shopping. I noticed several old white men accompanied by cute young Thai women. That didn't surprise me but what did was a young European dude with tattoos all over his arms yelling at an overly made-up Thai woman for trying to steal his medicines. She returned them and slunk off, disappointed. 

On our final day in Bangkok we decided to visit the zoo. I've been to many zoos in my life and this one was by no means among the best. However, I think I saw more interesting things there than I have any any of the others! At one point we were walking around when I spotted a strange lizard on the road being attacked by a crow. Never having seen a crow attack a lizard before, I stopped to watch. The crow seemed to be taking its time, waiting for a few seconds between attacks. The lizard, meanwhile, was desperate to escape and struggled mightily every time the crow grabbed it in its beak. Suddenly a young European woman walked by and, taking pity on the lizard, tried to shoo away the crow!

Some time later, we were looking at the reptiles when I noticed a snake that had just gotten hold of a mouse in its mouth. I think it had killed the mouse already and was about to swallow it. I hung around, curious to see what this swallowing process looks like, having never witnessed it before. The snake appeared to be in no hurry as it just lay there with the mouse in its mouth, tail sticking out, for a couple of minutes before finally getting down to business. Unhinging its jaw, it slowly stretched its mouth open even wider and very slowly used peristalsis to move the mouse into its gullet. Eventually the tail had vanished and there was a bulge in the snake's body that continued to move down. An amazing sight to behold.

At one point we walked into the sea lion show and found a troupe of monks in training. I'd never seen so many young boys in the traditional orange robes with their heads shaved! Despite being well behaved, they were by far the most playful monks I've ever seen. They seemed quite amused when I decided to climb onto a large dinosaur statue. 

By the time we left the zoo, we were quite weary from walking around in the heat for hours and watching a movie in an air-conditioned mall seemed like a welcome change. Alice in Wonderland was playing in IMAX 3D so we saw that before returning to our hotel room. I had an early morning flight to Toronto by way of Tokyo and Washington DC so I asked for a wake-up call. As it happened, I woke up on my own right around when I wanted to, which was good because that call never came! 

I took a cab to the airport, rescued my luggage and caught my flight, making it all the way to DC without incident. In DC, however, I had to go through the US CBP and the line was so long that I missed my flight to Toronto. The CBP officer was amused by the fact that I've had four different kinds of US visas but since I was just in transit he didn't ask me any questions and I was able to get on the next flight to Toronto easily enough.

Rather than flying back to Kuala Lumpur again before heading to Canada, I decided to simply fly into Toronto directly from Thailand. This meant that, unlike my forays into Cambodia and Sri Lanka, I had to take all my stuff with me when I left KL. That proved to be problematic because I was flying from KL to Bangkok on Air Asia, which has a much lower baggage allowance than my flight from SF to KL did. I ended up discarding a bunch of stuff in KL and still having to pay $40 in excess baggage fees. 

I also needed to exchange hundreds of ringgits for dollars after getting my rental deposit back. I'd hoped to do this at the airport but ended up getting there later than I'd meant to and standing in the wrong line for a while. To make things worse, I almost left my passport at the check-in counter. Fortunately, the flight had been delayed so I had enough time to visit a currency exchange booth. They were able to give me some Thai baht but when I asked for Canadian dollars they did not have any so I ended up settling for greenbacks instead.

When I landed in Bangkok, after leaving my suitcases at the Left Baggage station, I caught a bus into the city. According to Google Transit, I needed to transfer to another bus so I could meet my friends Tony and Katherine, who were visiting from Tokyo, at the Ekkemai transit station. Unfortunately, I had no way of knowing when to get off the bus and the conductor gave me the wrong information so I ended up going too far and found myself at the Victory Monument, which is quite far from Ekkemai. I was supposed to meet them at 2pm and it was already 1:40 so I took a cab to Ekkemai and got there with barely a few minutes to spare.

From Ekkemai we caught another bus and then a ferry to the island of Ko Samet. It was already dark when we arrived and we weren't sure exactly where our cabin was but Tony managed to lead us to it. The cabin had a miniscule bathroom and the veranda had a low-hanging beam on which I kept bumping my head but it did offer a nice view of the water. And there were a couple of pigs outside!

In the morning Tony and I set off to explore the island while Katherine slept. I noticed a tamarind tree growing near the cabin. Although most of the fruit had been eaten by ants, I managed to find a couple of god ones. I kept one for myself and fed the other to one of the pigs. As in Sri Lanka, there were no bicycles to be had. Apparently motorcycles are all the rage these days. What we did find was a place that served amazing pancakes and had hammocks to lie in after eating them.

We also found a better place at which to stay. It was run by a guy whose name was also Tony! Although we had to share the bathrooms, they were very pretty. Initially I thought there was no wifi but when I asked about it, they told me they'd just forgotten to turn on the router that morning and then did so. These people take power-conservation seriously! 

After moving our stuff to the new hostel, we headed to the conservation park where, for a few dollars, we gained access to a beach with gorgeous white sand, an incredibly gentle slope, crystal clear water, no current and barely any waves! We played in the water for hours, amazed by how the water seemed more like a giant swimming pool than a seashore. For lunch I ate congee and cheap fruit at a beach-side restaurant. The only problem with the beach was that there didn't appear to be any toilets anywhere on it, which eventually forced us to return to our hostel. 

Katherine and Tony decided to take a nap but I wasn't sleepy so I headed out on my own. Finding a little store that sold fruit, I bought and ate a mango and a coconut. I also picked up a pair of imitation Crocs before deciding to get a massage. Traditional Thai massage turned out to be similar to Khmer massage at the macro level, although the details are different. By the time I got back to the hostel, the mosquitoes were starting to make their appearance for the evening. Tony didn't seem to be bothered by them much but I got several nasty bites and Katherine was practically covered in them.

Once we'd picked up some more insect-repellent, we went out for dinner. I'm pretty sure our waitress was a tranny. I ordered fried noodles and they were really good. During my time in North America, I hadn't been a huge fan of Thai food but those noodles made me realize that I simply hadn't eaten good Thai food before. I washed them down with a pina shake that was gone almost as soon as my lips touched the straw.

Having sated our appetites, we strolled over to see what the beach looked like at night. There were glowing coloured balls hanging everywhere and music playing from various restaurants, all of which were packed with tourists. On the sand there were some fire dancers, a few of whom looked like their daytime activities were confined to a classroom. Also on the sand were some food carts hawking roti pancakes. If it hadn't been for my Invisalign, I would have eaten a pancake.

The next morning a thunderstorm broke over the island and we were stuck inside the hostel waiting for it to end before we could catch the ferry back to the mainland. The staff took advantage of the excess water to clean the floors! We watched the storm for a couple of hours before it finally died down enough that we could make a break for it.

When we got to the mainland, we had plenty of time before the bus was supposed to leave for Bangkok so we killed time at the market across the street for half an hour before returning to board the bus. Unfortunately, when we tried to get on, we were told that what we thought were return tickets were actually vouchers for tickets and we needed to exchange them for tickets to board. Kinda annoying but the ticket booth was right there so it seemed simple enough.

Ten minutes later we finally got to the head of the short but slow-moving queue and were told that all the seats on this bus were already sold and we'd have to take the next one in an hour. We could see quite clearly that there were several empty seats on the bus but pointing that out didn't seem to get us anywhere. So we had to watch in frustration as a bus they claimed was full pulled away with entire rows of empty seats staring tantalizingly at us.

We amused ourselves for an hour with the free wifi and a gigantic cockroach before boarding the next bus. It made good time until we hit traffic in Bangkok, at which point we crawled along beside the Skyrain track as trains whizzed by us. I would have loved to just get off and take the Skytrain but we had luggage that had been stowed so that wasn't an option and we had to wait nearly a hour before we could disembark.