One Night in Bangkok

The stamp in my passport says that I need a new visa starting next Monday to be able to stay in Vietnam. That means 90 days of our trip are already over.

The only thing I knew until the day before departure was that I would start on Saturday and meet Laura in Hanoi the following Friday. I knew that I wanted to be away for a week and be in a nice place, but something stopped me from making any decisions.

Anyway, on Friday evening I booked a flight to Bangkok and on Saturday 10 minutes before departure I also booked a backpacker hostel.

It was just as hot in Bangkok, there are 1 million more people living in the city than in Saigon and there is also noisy traffic here, but my first impression was entirely positive. There is a train! A real train that takes you from the airport to the city center!! You don't have to download an app to call a cheap taxi or find your way around a crowded airport and negotiate with a taxi driver. No, there is a real train. So I took the train in the direction of where I was going to sleep to drop off my things and was just happy.

At some point I got out and immediately found a bus stop. I had withdrawn some money at the airport, but it was only spat out in 1000 Bhat notes. Anyway, I quickly jumped into the bus, which had only stopped halfway, and the lady, who was initially nice, wanted 8 Bhat for the journey. I didn't understand anything and held out the 1000 Bhat note to her. She looked at me in disbelief, complained loudly and threw me off the bus at the next set of traffic lights. Luckily for me, it was right next to a 7eleven and they had Snickers on offer. A Snickers for 40 cents. That was my lucky day.

Then we continued on foot. The feeling of the city caught my attention. There were pedestrian overpasses, functioning traffic lights, some well-developed pedestrian paths, parks that kept flashing and yeah... that's all it took to make me happy. I was in a city that had a functioning infrastructure and that was really impressive. Don't get me wrong, you don't always need pedestrian paths to be able to walk on a street, but after 3 months in HCMC I'm happy about every other little detail.

I arrived, threw my things on the bed, took a shower and explored the city a bit on foot. I visited Wat Pho, a Buddhist temple in Bangkok's old town, and saw a lot of gold there, ate delicious curry and then, at around 10 p.m., I happened to end up on Khao San Road, a very crowded party street. Since I hadn't done any research and just set off in the evening because I just wanted to party a bit, I was surprised that I happened to end up on a street like that.

The very busy street had lots of live music and a lot of clubs. I met a Peruvian who showed me two small hidden bars where they played fantastic live music. This was great. But when his, as he called it, "Latino self" came out and he just wanted to dance, I danced a little too badly. I was alone again, saw a couple of skewered scorpions, had a final beer and went home. But then I ran into the arms of a drunken Scotsman who accompanied me, very unsteadily, to my front door.

I was in bed at 4 a.m. and the alarm went off at 10 a.m. I showered, packed my things, checked out and was in a breakfast cafe. The weather was getting dark and the monsoon was coming. I was able to get on a bus in time and got off in the Pathum Wan district near a large mall. I watched the storm pass by from there and then walked under covered, above-ground walkways. The Baiyoke Tower looked incredibly ugly from below and was definitely not the prettiest building in the city, but it was the tallest.

A little over 320 meters and I think about 80 floors high. I bought a ticket, took the elevator 76 floors up and walked two more to get the best view of the city.

There was no one there, just me - I stayed for almost an hour and when I had seen enough, I drove past the Royal Palace again and looked for a small restaurant. I ordered a salad, chatted with my best friend via video call and booked a night bus to an island for the same evening. The salad arrived and consisted of 90% roasted peanuts, 5% onions and 5% limes.

So weird