One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster (but only if you can figure out the bus system)

Remember that time I said I wouldn’t neglect my blog, and would write every week, and then I fell off the face of the earth for almost a month?  Nope.  I don’t remember it either.  So let’s press on.

Somehow the leisurely wind-down from my month of teaching craziness was anything but – I barely made it to the airport this morning after sleeping through my alarm (note to self – those people who stay up all night in anticipation of an early morning flight might have the right idea).  But after racing through Taoyuan airport and running down innocent Taiwanese I made it to the plane, and arrived safely (and sweaty) in Hong Kong.  I had a nice airport nap, and enjoyed the free wifi and feeling of travel limbo while waiting for my connection to Bangkok.

And then, when I woke up, everything started going just a bit wrong.

Our flight was delayed, and once we got on it we just sat there.  For an hour.  With no air conditioning.  In the midday Hong Kong heat.  And I must say, we were a pungent bunch.  But finally we were given the sweet gift of air con, and then took off for our ultimate destination.  Tomorrow I’ll be meeting up with my friend Cory and we will be living the life of luxury, but for today I thought I should get myself acclimated to the Spartan measures I’ll be taking for the rest of the trip.  So I booked a room in the “backpacker” area of town, and I set my course to get to the hotel from the airport via public transportation.

Perhaps I should mention that I’m not all that good at orienting myself on buses.   Trains, no problem, whether above or below ground.  But buses require a sense of direction that I don’t exactly possess in any kind of useful quantity.  So maybe I should have thought twice about my brilliant idea to take not one, but two buses into the city center.  I guess it’s a classic case of hubris – I’ve successfully navigated NYC!  And Taipei!  And Bloomington, Indiana!  I can do anything!  (except get around Jersey).  The misadventures really pick up when I disembark from the airport shuttle at the main bus station heading to the city.  I knew I needed bus 556.  What I found were buses 551, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9.   Seriously.  So I looked at the routes; none of them appeared to go to the area I wanted.  I thought about just canvasing the station, meekly asking every driver “Khao San?” until I hit upon a winner.  Instead I just went up to the first bus that seemed be carrying other dirty backpacking westerners and whispered “Khao San?”  The driver nodded, so I got on.

You know, I really should have gotten off the bus the minute the other scruffy westerners came over and asked me where they should go while in Bangkok – they had no idea, you see, and had just randomly chosen a bus.  And these were the people I had pinned my hopes on.  But no, I got another brusque confirmation that the bus was in fact going to Khao San, so I settled in.  Fast forward to the bus entering the city proper.  I’ve just awoken from my 4^th nap of the day (I still don’t function well on three hours of sleep), and the ticket taker is telling me that the next stop is Khao San.  I thank her profusely and gather my stuff.  I notice that my crunchy cohorts are getting sent off the bus as well.  As the bus rolls away, I start to take in my surroundings: I was aiming for a nightmarket-ish tourist area.  This is a highway in front of what appears to be a Thai housing project.  No matter, it’s probably just a short walk, right?  So I boldly start off in one direction, but when nothing appears but more highway I give in and ask someone which way I have to walk to get to Khao San.  Except  I can’t walk there, because I’m nowhere near there.  Apparently I need to take the 36.  So I fight my way onto that bus.  At this point it’s rush hour, and bus drivers here just kind of slow down a bit and open the doors, expecting us to jump on.  Once on the 36 a nice man tells me that no, the 36 will in fact not take me to Khao San.  I need to take the 12.  I get off the bus.  I’m starting to get worried.   I try to get into a cab.  I plead, “Khao San?”  And the driver says “No!  No, no no!” and waves his hands back and forth.  I get out of the cab.  I realize I may be in over my head.

But I rallied.  I figured, okay, I’ll get the 12.  It has to take me somewhere, right?  So I get on the 12.  While this was not the end of my transportation adventures, it was certainly the most colorful.  The bus had a wooden plank floor, and driver had rigged old school speakers throughout the vehicle so he could play an array of Asian pop songs.  Loudly.  I can’t argue though, because the man was clearly a professional.  At point, feeling a bit peckish, he reached behind his chair, pulled out a spoon, rinsed it with water outside his window, and the reached back into a cooler to get a jar of mysterious food that he promptly slurped down.  He then placed the spoon back behind his chair and continued on his way.  I should mention that the spoon wasn’t actually used for eating, rather he used it to fish the jar out of the cooler.  But you’ve got to appreciate the cleanliness, right?  I mean, it is next to godliness.

The purpose of that tangent was really to avoid the next sad part of my tale.  The 12 does not, in fact, go to Khao San.  Or at least, not that 12.  I needed the “other” 12.  I was assured that 12 would be air conditioned, but somehow I didn’t think the music would be as good. 

I was getting desperate here, folks.  I could not get onto another bus.  Also, I’d been traveling since 6:30am.  It was now 7pm.  I hadn’t showered.  I’d barely eaten.  I was broken.  I fell to pavement, threw my arms up in the air, and yelled, “Khao SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!!!!”

Oaky, that may be a bit of an overstatement.  All I really did was run down two elderly Asian women in order to secure the next available cab.  Miraculously he understood when I sobbed, “Khao San”, and soon I made it to my destination, only three and a half hours after getting off the plane.  And from there it only took me another 45 minutes to find my hotel!  I’m amazing!  I can do anything! 

My first impression of Bangkok – this is where bad 90’s cover bands go to die.  Every few feet I was met with the sounds of Nirvana, Radiohead, Eric Clapton, and Red Hot Chili Peppers sung by a guy with a guitar and a questionable sense of pitch.  The other stores were reliably pumping out the Summer of 2012 Club Anthems – I’m pretty sure that by the end of this trip I will be convinced that I do in fact have the moves like Jagger. 

After my day of traveling I only had the energy to crawl to immediate sustenance, but damn it was good.  Spicy coconut curry with chicken and, perhaps, white asparagus?  Whatever that vegetable was, it was the perfect curry conduit.  And the curry itself was so delightfully layered: spicy, salty, sour, sweet.  The national flavors of Thailand, if I’m not mistaken.  I topped that off with a fried banana crepe, and took a bit of a walk around the neighborhood.  I found all kinds of interesting things, including an alley that seems to be dedicated to prostitutes.  Yup, less than 24 hours in Bangkok and I found the scooter girls.  I really need to start using my powers for good, not evil.

Tomorrow I’m going to attempt to hit the weekend market before meeting Cory for our flight to Chiang Mai.  However, I can’t guarantee anything.  Instead of finding the market, I might accidentally stumble into Thailand’s first manned mission to the moon.  Either way, I’ll be sure to be on time for this flight.  Cory has a travel itinerary spreadsheet, and she’s not afraid to use it!