And so to Bangkok. Our journey here was unusual....we arrived in the Thai town of Mukdahan after catching the five minute ferry journey across the Mekong from Laos. Nobody really spoke any English at the coach station where we were trying to catch a coach to Bangkok, but we finally parted with a couple of hundred baht each and were told to leave our rucksacks with the friendly girls at the ticket office. It was around 9am and we were told that the coach would be leaving at 1pm, or perhaps noon o'clock. Whatever...we decided to stay in the vicinity of the station and grab a bite to eat for breakfast. Just as we were finishing off the ticket office girl came rushing in to our restaurant to tell us that the coach would actually be leaving at 11am. So far, so slightly strange.

Around 10.45am we wandered over to the station to pick up our bags. Our bags were nowhere to be seen. Slightly scared looking Thai station staff ignored our repeated requests as to the whereabouts of our bags, but gave us the general impression that they were around somewhere, possibly already on the bus and that we were not to worry. Eventually a bus drove into the station and the ticket lady ran out to tell us that was our bus - we still didn't really know for sure that our bags were on it, but it seemed as organised as anything we'd encountered thus far so we thought we'd go with it.

The bus crew were incredibly friendly. We were the only ones on the bus, but assuming that other people would be getting on we sat next to each other. About ten minutes later one of the guys on the bus indicated that we were to be the only people on it all the way to Bangkok. What a result, a whole aircon coach to ourselves and the four crew, bit strange though. Anyway, it finally dawns on us that the particular bus we're on is not really meant to be carrying paying passengers. We only really realise this when going through a town about halfway along and one of the guys draws all the curtains and indicates that we should try not to look out of the windows until we are out of the bus station. When we turn the corner back out onto the road, all the curtains are opened and we all breathe a collective sigh of relief not to have been found out! The journey continued in much the same vein to Bangkok. Encompassing several stops along the way for food and drink and we were very well looked after by the crew, especially after we shared round some sweets :-) When we got to Bangkok we were dropped off randomly somewhere in the northern part of the city near a taxi rank with cheery waves goodbye from our friendly driver et al. A great journey all in all, particularly since we avoided any touts by being delivered into a random part of the city.

Unfortunately I'm writing this several days after we left Bangkok so will have to try to remember what we did. One thing I do remember is trawling round bike shops...more on that in a later blog entry.........Bangkok is a mixture of huge modern shopping malls, fantastic temple complexes, girly bars and very odd expats! Plus it was ultra hot and humid after Laos, but we did enjoy being back in a city again. Our new years eve was somewhat strange, we'd just had an early dinner and had gone back to our hotel to cool down before heading out into the centre of town to celebrate the arrival of 2007. I switched on the TV and that's how we heard about the bombings. The weird thing was sitting in our hotel room and hearing a massive bang just as we're watching the reports. Given the time we heard it I now don't think it was a bomb, but it was still a little disturbing. So we stayed local and celebrated with a random selection of expats and oddities.

We're now somewhere down the eastern coast of Thailand in a very nice town called Chumphon. We've lots to say about how we got here but as I've already said, that's another blog entry. B xxx

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Posted by Becky Hoare on 09 January 2007 17:29:00 ICT #