As told by me

I had the best sleep in a long time and got up at a leisurely 10am, packed my stuff up and went downstairs for an equally lesiurely breakfast, when I encountered another quirk of Refill Now! – they only toast their bread on one side. When I enquired about this I was told that was the way the machine was set up. Oh well.

I hung around, making the most of the internet that they’d charged me 180 baht for, until 1pm, when I caught a taxi back to the embassy to pick up my passport. This was a very quick ride and I was in and out of the embassy in less than ten minutes, with my shiny new “Emergency passport”, which has four whole pages in it. I later realised why they issued it for seven months, which is that I need at least six months remaining to be allowed to enter Malaysia. That was very thoughtful of them, as I otherwise would have had a very boring and uncomfortable 22 hours sitting in transit at KL airport.

My next task was to go around the corner to the Thai immigration office to get an exit stamp, so they’d allow me to leave the country. The lovely security guard ladies on the gate at the embassy (as this was my third trip there in three business days, we were becoming good friends) offered to hold on to my backpack while I did this, which was just fantastic, so my ten minute stroll to the immigration office was as pleasant as the temperature and humidity allowed.

Once I’d got my ticket and form from the reception desk, I went around to the main office just as they called my number. I quickly filled in the form and submitted my new passport with the letter the embassy had given me and ten minutes later I was all done, much to the disgust of the American sitting next to me who had been waiiting there for an hour to report in, as he’d had to do every 90 days for the last ten years.

I’d allowed a good hour and a half for the embassy and immigration formalities so I was now well ahead of schedule. In fact, I really could have got a much earlier flight. Oh well, better safe than sorry and all that.

After my last Thai street meal for the time being (a decent pork noodle soup), I strolled back to the embassy, picked up my bag from my new friends on the gate, and jumped in the next taxi going past. The driver tried to offer me an all-inclusive deal of 450 baht to the airport, which I was pretty sure was too much, so requested that he just keep the meter running. We had a clear run out to the airport and the total fare, including the 70 baht worth of tolls, was 301 baht. I paid him this and he then audaciously suggested that I might like to tip him 30 baht! I told him that I might have considered it, if he hadn’t tried to rip me off at the beginning of the journey.

My flight was an hour late so I had a solid four hours to kill at the airport. This was not so bad though as it’s a shiny new airport and there were a few unsecured wi-fi networks to connect to. The flight itself was pleasant enough. Air Asia appear to be a pretty good airline – similar to Easyjet but with much more attractive staff and much better (and cheaper) food.

We finally arrived in “KL” just before 11pm local time (Malaysia is an hour ahead of Thailand), and I’d by now realised that I was going to have to get a cab to get to my hostel, which supposedly closed at midnight. I finally got in a cab after 11.30 and was informed that it was an hour into town. Why any city would build their primary airport 80km out of town is beyond me, but a quick call to the hostel reassured me that they would still be open when I got there (I’d emailed them from Bangkok to let them know I was going to be late).

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

I got up at the crack of dawn, had a quick shave and shower and headed out onto the main road, where it took me about 15 minutes to find a taxi driver, and then about another five minutes to find one who could understand where I was pointing on my map.

We set off on what ended up being a solid hour stop-start journey towards the embassy. The traffic lights in Thailand (it was the same in Chiang Mai so I presume it’s a similar story in most cities) are set on very long cycles and, in most cases, a crossroads will involve four full cycles – ie the opposing traffic does not flow at the same time. This means that when you’re moving, you’re going at a fair clip, but when you’re stopped at a light, you’re often there for a solid five to ten minutes.

I got the taxi driver to drop me at the Banyan Tree, as I had decided to get new photos done (the first lot were pretty awful, it has to be said), and about 20 minutes later, with a much more acceptable set of photos in hand, I dashed down the block to the embassy, to find a mercifully short queue at the consular desk.

After about a 15 minute wait, I was served by another very helpful consular official, who checked and confirmed that all my paperwork was in order, enquired about when I was planning to travel (tomorrow at 6.45pm was my answer, though until this moment I wasn’t holding out much hope of actually making that flight) and disappeared for a couple of minutes. When he returned, he said my new emergency passport would be issued for the maximum seven months (I would have been happy with seven days!) and would be ready at noon tomorrow, which would give me plenty of time to go to Thai immigration (very conveniently located two blocks from the embassy) and then get to the airport. As if that wasn’t good enough news, he also informed me that due to recent currency movements between the aussie dollar and the baht, the fees I was due to pay had actually dropped by 300 baht!

So that’s all good then.

In a decidedly better mood, and with a new-found appreciation for Australian bureaucracy (though it has to be said that during my time in the UK I had decided that it rated pretty highly anyway, at least in comparison), I set off up the road to Lumpini Park, a large oasis of green in the middle of the city. This is a pleasant enough park though it was a rather overcast and muggy day so I was soon thinking about the next airconditioner I could expose myself to.

This turned out to be the underground, which had a station at the far corner of the park, so I made my way over there, and after a quick bag search at the security barrier (that must be fun at peak hour), was soon enjoying the coolish climate of the platform at Silom station. After a couple of minutes a train, with suitably arctic air, whisked me along the short journey to Hua Lumphong station (the main Bangkok station), where I was soon sweating again.

I was quite hungry at this point and after wandering around the station turning my nose up at all the overly westernised franchise food outlets (subway et al), I found myself at a noodle stall just outside, where I enjoyed a lovely chicken curry with noodles. The only problem with this is that I now literally had sweat dripping off me (the curry wasn’t helping on that account), much to the amusement of the ladies at the noodle stall (I was a pretty funny sight, I imagine). After getting those noodles and soup inside me as quickly as possible, I then went and stood in the nearby doorway of the station (where the airconditioned air pours out) for a number of minutes, much to the continued entertainment of the noodle ladies.

With my sweat factor slightly under control, I decided to grab a taxi for the short ride to Wat Pho, down by the river. Wat Pho is a very large compound, though not as large as the Grand Palace next door. The main attraction here is the enormous reclining buddha, a good 50 metres long at least and probably 15 metres high.

I wandered around Wat Pho for about half an hour and decided that I didn’t have the energy (nor the inclination to cough up the 250 baht entrance fee) to manage the Grand Palace as well. As a compromise then, I hopped on the 3 baht ferry to Wat Arun, a large khmer-style temple on the opposite bank.

I was starting to fade a bit now so crossed back across the river and caught the express ferry down to Saphin Taksin, to get on the Skytrain. I had finished my book last night (Spook Country by William Gibson – a very good read) so wanted to hit a bookstore for my next installment. A short Skytrain journey took me to Siam Central, in the heart of the shopping mall district, and I wandered into the Siam Paragon centre. A quick enquiry at the information counter soon had me up three flights on the escalator and into an impressively large and well-stocked bookshop that catered for a number of languages. I found the english sci-fi section with ease and was very pleased to find a wide selection of Gibson books for me to choose from. I bought two and then headed down to the food court for a very good noodle soup with roast pork, which was surprisingly cheap (50 baht), given the salubrious surroundings.

I then caught the Skytrain out to the burbs and decided to see just how far the hostel was from the station. Forty hot and sweaty minutes later, I knew the answer.

I retired to the arctic airconditioning in my room, read the first chapter of my book and played some games on my computer (I’ve discovered an Age of Empires-like game which is great for killing a couple of hours). At about dusk I popped downstairs for a couple of quiet beers and a lovely (though a bit on the small size, given the price) Pad Thai, then retired for another relatively early night.

More Bangkok photos here

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

I found myself a new hostel on the internet, which though it is a way out of town, is at least on the right side of the city for the embassy, which is now my main concern. It sounded pretty interesting, based on the reviews I’d read, and once my taxi driver finally found it (it really is out in the sticks), I could see what these reviewers had been talking about.

It’s pretty much brand new, is well designed and is set in a lovely garden setting, with a small pool even, in a relatively (when the local dogs aren’t fighting) quiet suburban street. It has a very chilled, though not terribly cheap bar cum restaurant which opens out on the garden. It also has a rather odd name – Refill Now! (I believe the exclamation mark is integral to the brand, a la Yahoo!).

I spent a rather pleasant afternoon and evening here, making use of the unlimited (though not free) wi-fi, the highlights of which were the fried chicken and green papaya salad, though it was the smallest serving of papaya salad in thailand, and the Nadal v Federer final from Melbourne.

I then discovered one of the quirks of this place (there are a few and they’re all related to someone being a little too clever when designing it) when I went up to bed for an early night, as I wanted to be at the embassy first thing in the morning. After preparing myself for bed, I then discovered that the main light in the bedroom had no switch. I was informed that it was an automatic light, that goes off at 10pm and can’t be overridden. I suggested that this was absurd, that I really needed an early night and that perhaps I should go and find another hostel. I was again assured that it could not be turned off before 10pm so I went up to my room and started writing a complaint on their website. Magically, and without further discussion, the light went off about five minutes later – well before 9pm! – and my complaint went unsent.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

After a long sleep-in, interrupted by my breakfast arriving at 8.30am, the main task for today was to get back over to Kho San Road to the police station to report my stolen passport. I took a taxi over there and was in and out of the police station in under ten minutes. They really didn’t care about the details of the incident at all and simply wrote down my particulars, stamped it and sent me on my way. I was a little concerned that this wouldn’t be sufficient for the embassy, but figured that they probably deal with this issue every day, so took my one page report and headed down to the river to get the ferry down to the Skytrain at Saphin Taksin.

I got the Skytrain back to near the hotel then caught a taxi the rest of the way, and after popping into 7-Eleven (the hotel room is extravagant enough – I’m not touching the mini-bar), went back to my room to slob away the rest of the afternoon in airconditioned comfort, in front of the telly.

A bit after sunset, I ventured up to the aptly-named Vertigo bar on the rooftop (level 61), which Carl and I had made a half-hearted attempt to visit back in December (we turned up half and hour before it opened). This is, as you’d expect, a very spectacular setting, completely open to the elements, and the dining tables were almost completely full on this cloudless night (meals start at 14,000 baht = £280 per head). I went over to the bar and managed to scoff down one beer – at 300 baht a glass, I wasn’t going to stick around for two – while feeling actually quite a bit less comfortable than I had expected. Anyone with any issues with heights should definitely give this a miss, and I think I’m starting to fall into that category.

Having finished my Copenhagen-priced beer, I scurried back downstairs and caught the lift back to the relative, glass-enclosed, safety of the 40th floor, for some quality time with the Star Movies channel.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

I woke with a start, with the sun streaming in the window and spent the next couple of minutes in a fruitless search for a phone, that would tell me the time. I eventually found my walkman, which informed me that it was 2pm. This was a BIG PROBLEM, as my train to Malaysia was due to depart at 2.45pm. This was not the only BIG PROBLEM to be confronted today, however.

I very quickly packed up all my stuff and was somewhat concerned that neither of my phones nor my passport were immediately evident. The room had only two pieces of furniture in it though so it was easy enough to determine that they hadn’t been left behind when I grabbed everything and ran, tossing my key onto the reception desk as I went past. I figured the 200 baht key deposit would cover the late check-out fee but wasn’t going to hang around to discuss it. I then woke up a taxi driver and requested that he get me to the train station as quickly as possible. He drove off and as we made our slow progress across town, I frantically searched my bags for my rather important lost items. It became pretty clear fairly quickly however that we were neither going to make the train station in time, nor that my passport was any longer in my possession.

I had been carrying it last night (I sometimes decide that it’s safer to carry than to leave in my room – clearly on this occasion, I was wrong), though it was in a fairly secure, velcroed pocket down around my left knee, so it’s not something that would have fallen out. The fact that my phone was also missing also did not bode well. I therefore instructed the taxi driver to take me to the Australian embassy instead, as without my passport (and the train tickets that were with it), I wasn’t leaving town today.

I got to the embassy at about 3pm, which was just as well as they close early at 3.30pm on Fridays, and after a substantial wait (in airconditioned comfort so I wasn’t complaining too much), I was dealt with by a pretty sympathetic compatriot who started the process of sorting me out. Thankfully, my wallet had been untouched by whatever nefarious individual had taken advantage of my rather too inebriated state last evening, so I still had my drivers licence and cards, which go a long way towards fulfilling the identity requirements. The colour photocopy of the picture page of my passport was also helpful and is definitely something everyone should carry with them at all times when travelling. I was given the relevant forms and told to return on monday morning with the completed forms, a police report, two photos and a big wad of baht, and they’d turn around a new passport for me by the end of play on tuesday.

This all seemed a pretty satisfactory outcome, given the circumstances, and I was even given the card of a photo shop just up the street that is familiar with the rather strict photo requirements for an Australian passport. I thought it was a good idea to get that out of the way straight away, on the assumption that I would only be given an emergency (7 day) passport and that the state of me in the photo (unshaven, hungover, sweating – you get the idea) would not be a long term concern.

With my photos in hand, I then decided that I couldn’t bear heading back across town to Kho San Road to feel sorry for myself in a cheap hostel room, so wandered around to the Banyan Tree, a five star hotel that the photo place was attached to, and did some quick sums in my head to see just how much I was prepared to pay for a day of luxury. The room rate they quoted me was, somewhat surprisingly, about half of what I had decided was my upper limit, so I checked in and headed up to the 40th floor to what was really a suite, rather than a room, with a wonderful view out over the south of Bangkok.

I spent the rest of the day holed up here, enjoying the cable tv (including that amazing match between Nadal and Vedasco), a lovely bubble bath and a fabulous (though it would want to be, given the price) bowl of Pad Thai.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

Lonely Planet had promised me monkeys, and Lonely Planet (for once), delivered.

I was woken by a random knock on my door at 7.30am, which I ignored, but I was awake, and decided to get up and capture some of the early light. This turned out to be a great plan, as I got to Wat Phra Prang Sam Yod, just two blocks away by a bit after 8, where the monkeys clearly spend their evenings, and pretty much had the place to myself. I declined to pay the 50 baht entrance fee, primarily as I was scared of being overrun by monkeys.

I spent some quality time photographing the monkeys doing their thing, helped along by a local boy who was presumably the son (or employee) of the caretaker, and had my fears confirmed as I was set upon by a number of monkeys while trying to video their antics (I have a couple of dozen great videos of the trip, btw which will have to wait until I get near a wired internet connection to upload as they are rather large files).

Here is another monkey photo:

The monkeys appear to set out from this temple and slowly take over the town during the day, guaranteeing a slimy coating of monkey shit along those parts of the footpath that the shopowners decline to hose down every day. Clearly this is not to everyone’s liking, especially the shopowner I saw with a fake M16 airgun that was taking potshots at the monkeys on the upper floors (sadly he didn’t hang around for a photo).

Lopburi turned out to be quite a find – it really is worth a visit if you’re coming or going between Bangkok and Chiang Mai and can be done in just a couple of hours between trains.

I wandered on and found a couple of other impressive ruins including, especially, the big wat across the road from the train station.

I then proceeded across the road to the train station and bought myself a ticket on the ‘ordinary’ train to Bangkok that left at 11.04 (or so the timetable claimed, anyway). Then back to the hotel to check out and enjoy an hour of airconditioned comfort before returning to the train station to await the train, which finally arrived at about 11.40.

This really was the ‘ordinary’ train – wooden seats and windows wide open. I even had to stand for about an hour until we got to Ayutthaya, which wasn’t too bad, except that I had to keep moving aside to allow the small army of food vendors that kept moving up and down the train to pass.

We arrived into Bangkok about an hour behind schedule and I jumped off at the station before the main one as it was closer to Kho San Road, and jumped in a taxi for 10 minutes of airconditioned bliss, before checking into New Siam guesthouse again.

I then headed across the road to the bar with wi-fii and spent a couple of hours uploading photos and my blog, and chatting with some friends online whilst downing a few beers. Later on I headed out to a bar with a pool table I’d been to last time I was here.

More Lopburi photos here

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

After getting up surprisingly early, considering the volume of beer I had consumed last night, I had a shower, checked out and went down the street and straight into one of the old buses which crawl out to the old city. This particular bus was loaded with working ladies and their veg for the day and was a pretty interesting ride.

Once at the old city, I had a quick noodle soup for breakfast and then hired a bike from the shop across the road. Despite the dozens of shiny new bikes lined up neatly out the front, some of them still partially wrapped in their shipping plastic, I was presented with a creaky old machine, but figured that I wasn’t going to be doing any fast movements (today was probably the first day my shoulder could have managed a bike anyway), so I trundled off towards the ticket gate.

Having bought my ticket, I proceeded in to the old city, a series of temples and lakes in a very quiet and pleasant setting – well it was quiet once I got away from the hordes of schoolkids and the loudspeakers that were no doubt instructing them on the finer points of ancient Thai history. After a lovely ride around the main temples in the central area for a couple of hours (the other bits cost extra and I didn’t have time anyway), I headed back to the bike shop and hopped on an even slower bus back into town.

The slow bus actually diverted into the bus station (about 4km out of town), so I decided to jump off and find out about buses to Phitsanulok, about an hour east, where the nearest train station is. I’d been advised by my guesthouse to get the train to Lopburi, rather than the bus, as appparently the bus drops you miles out of town.

I really shouldn’t have bothered, as these buses run every half hour. So, I jumped in a Songtheaw, and for the rather ridiculous sum of 120 baht (given that I could have got there for the 20 I’d already paid on the slow bus), I dashed back to the guesthouse, picked up my pack and returned to the bus station to get the next bus out of town.

The bus was pretty painless, and I arrived in Phitsanulok in plenty of time to make the 3 o’clock train (the next one was at about 9pm). I bought a ticket to Lopburi (393 baht!) and also managed to get the (very helpful) ticket guy to sell me a ticket from Bangkok to Butterworth (in Malaysia), though he had to consult his help screen a number of times to achieve this feat. I knew the guy in Chiang Mai was lying when he told me the train was full.

The train was pretty comfortable, with decent aircon (it would want to be, given the price), and we were again only half an hour late getting into Lopburi (a short three hours or so), though I was a little disconcerted to be the only person to get off at the station. I was reassured that it was the right place though by the massive golden monkey statue on the platform.

I walked out of the station and quickly realised that I was no longer on the real tourist trail, as I couldn’t get a tuk-tuk or taxi driver to even pay attention to me. This was just as well, as it turned out, once I found the town map outside the station, as the hotel Lonely Planet was guiding me to was a short, though very hot and sweaty, three block walk away.

Once I checked in (400 baht for room with aircon, which was much-needed), I went out the front door into the middle of the night market. After wandering, well I say wandering but it was a bit more of a crush than that, looking in vain for a decent t-shirt to buy, I had some bbq chicken on a stick, followed by what I thought would be yummy pork on a stick, but turned out to be heavily glazed gristle and fat. I then spent a while looking for a street stall that was doing pad thai, finally found one, and filled myself up, then did a bit of internet, including booking my train ticket from Butterworth to KL, then went back to my room for some tennis and eventually went off to sleep.

More Sukothai photos here

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

After finally managing to get up at a reasonable hour, I popped around to Blue Diamond for one last time, then went back to the guesthouse, packed up all my stuff, and checked-out. Although I was getting the bus, I first took a Songtheaw to the train station, to see if I could book a sleeper on the Bangkok to Butterworth train for later in the week. The guy at the ticket office wasn’t terribly helpful however and dismissed me with the news that the train was fully booked. This was pretty disappointing news as I’d been planing to do that train journey from the very start, wanted to avoid paying the extra to fly down to KL, and also didn’t really want to have to spend much time in either Bangkok or KL before my flight on Monday night. I wasn’t entirely convinced that the train was in fact full though, and decided to try booking a ticket later through the internet. A quick tuk-tuk ride then took me to the bus station, where a bus to Sukothai was due to depart in 30 minutes.

The bus ride was fairly painless – apart from some general discomfort from my shoulder and the graze on the inside of my elbow which means I can’t get it into a very comfortable position – it is slowly improving though.

Once in Sukothai, some five hours later, I found my way to the Garden House (recommended in Lonely Planet), where I got a nice enough fan room with a shared bathroom for 150 baht – the cheapest room so far. It was just getting dark as I headed out for a wander around Sukothai. It’s a pretty unremarkable town (the old city is 12km out of town) but I found my way to the night market for a good plate of Pad Thai noodles, then headed to the Chopper bar, for a quiet couple of beers to contemplate my next move. One option that started to look good was to travel on to Lopburi tomorrow, about half way to Bangkok, where there are some more ruins and a whole lot of monkeys, apparently.

I decided that I needed to do a bit more research in the internet so headed back up the street to the guesthouse to use the internet, where I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could enjoy another beer while doing so. After some research and some chatting with a number of friends (one of whom has just got engaged, but I’m not allowed to say whom just yet), I then introduced myself to a group of other guesthosue residents, who were chatting away in the restaurant. Despite being sure they were German, and therefore opening up with some German myself, it turned out that while one of them was, the remainder were in fact French. I got through this minor faux pas fairly unscathed though, and proceeded to join in the conversation.

Once the guesthouse restaurant closed at 10pm, I suggested that we pop back to Chopper bar for a nightcap or two and even convinced the two lovely swiss girls that were quietly reading their books nearby, to join us. Once back at Chopper, I found another person to join our group who turned out to be Austrian, so, in the end, I had managed to manufacture a group in which the majority did, in fact, speak German. Strangley enough, my confidence with German has grown significantly on this trip, in no small part to Denise who was in my tour group through Vietnam, who was very helpful in correcting a number of pretty basic but glaring mistakes I used to make.

What had looked like being a quiet, hot and possibly boring evening in a rather uninteresting town, therefore ended up being really quite enjoyable.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

To celebrate Australia Day (or, Invasion Day, depending on your perspective) I had a very long lie-in, then headed out for a very late brunch at a restaurant out on the northern moat that I hadn’t been to before. My next appointment was with the internet, and involved the booking of a flight from Coffs Harbour to Sydney for next month, so that I’d be on the same plane as Dad.

I also finalised my plans for the rest of the week, and will head off to Sukothai on the bus tomorrow (it’s about half way to Bangkok), where there is an ancient Thai city to check out.

A little later, I met Ruth for a drink, again at the little Mojito bar, then went around the corner for a noodle soup for dinner and headed back to my room for a couple of movies and a relatively early night.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

After a very leisurely morning with a late breakfast at Blue Diamond and some more tennis from Melbourne, I headed around to Kafe 1985 in the afternoon for about three hours of quality internet time. I chatted with a number of friends on facebook and downed a few Singha beers, then decided to head out on the town, starting at the little Mojito bar near the guesthouse.

Here I met an interesting guy from Newcastle in England and a bunch of other travellers (a group of Argies, an aussie girl and her kiwi husband (Rob) and an american girl from Portland, Oregon). After a few mojitos, we went around the corner to Heaven Beach for some pool, some live music and a couple more drinks.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09