Bangkok

And so we piled onto a bus with a lot of other tourists and left Siem Reap, bound for the modernity and neon of Bangkok, City of Angels. The journey was not the most pleasant - these days the roads from Siem Reap to the border are at least surfaced, but this advance merely means an opportunity for roadside toilet/snack stops to spring up, meaning every tourist bus needlessly stops at one for forty-five minutes (both on the Cambodian and the Thai portions of the journey) so that we can all buy things to eat and drink and generally compulsively CONSUME THINGS AT ALL TIMES as we're ferried from one "experience" to the next like the great pasty-white children we apparently are. It also means that there are more tourists making the crossing, which means a three hour queue at the border. Still, I made this trip some years ago (this is Sam writing should you not have realised) when the roads (on the Cambodian side) were a string of potholes, and frankly even with stops and queues and wasting of time this journey was way better, so one mustn't complain.


So, to Bangkok. We stayed on Sukhumvit Road, away from the "backpacker mecca" (or some such guidebook nonsense) of Khao San Road. Not so that we experienced the "real" Bangkok, you understand, just that I have as many Chang beer vests and Bob Marley sarongs as I need (that number: zero). Sukhumvit road is supposedly sex tourist area, but where we were there wasn't much sign of that, fortunately. We were staying in a Hostel International, which was a place that loved rules. No gathering together after midnight. If you break any furniture consider it sold (a good wheeze, this, as it means they get their own guests to pay for wear and tear). Etc etc. I had to go out into the Bangkok night to watch the England - Ukraine match, a thrilling game to watch between 1.45 and 3.45am. The washing machines on the roof could not have their settings changed - clothes filthy from cycling round Angkor Wat? You can only have standard wash. WE KNOW BEST. Still, there was no notice up saying we couldn't replenish our supply of detergent at their expense, so they hadn't thought of everything.

Bangkok is a cool place, especially having been in Cambodia. It's thrillingly modern, with 24 hour 7-11 shops (also Tesco Express type affairs, here called "Tesco Lotus", presumably in a cynical bid to appear more South-east Asian), and actual public mass transit systems: an underground and a monorail (perhaps the man who sold them the idea suggested that it was "more of a Phnom Penh" type of mass transit system). Sadly these public transport options don't go everywhere we wanted to go, meaning we still had to fight the traffic in buses or taxis (we could have got tuk-tuks, but the reputation they've now got is extraordinarily bad).

While there we saw the sights: the Royal Palace, a couple of Wats (like a Thai monastery/temple), the river, the exoticism of a McDonalds after being in two countries where the golden arches are not yet permitted.

We also did some shopping, buying some clothes from the hip young things (or whatever the guidebook would say) around Siam Square and in the MBK shopping centre. Plus we replenished a lot of medical supplies from one of the many Boots establishments found in Thailand's capital. All told, Bangkok has left a good impression with us, and is rated quite highly in our "list of cities we've been" list.

The moral of this post would seem to be that modernity and development come at a price. But then so does everything. And the price is usually worth paying.