My passage to Yangon in Myanmar had been mostly land travel; at my choice. I had left KL at 9.30am on the 26th January to embark on a 9hr coach trip to Hat Yai in Southern Thailand. The coach was aircon’d and I had a single reclining seat with adequate leg room. The 9hr trip passed smoothly and comfortably. The coach made it’s way into the centre of Hat Yai and I hopped out fairly close to one hotel that I had stayed at before in the smallish town. However, although it was pretty good value for money at 750baht/night I knew I could get lower. With bags loaded about my person I made way through the central streets of Hat Yai focusing on ‘guest house’ accommodation. The results were dismal. Grey sheets, mouldy, smutty walls and incredibly bad smells left me cringing and depressed. I needed to come upmarket and finally found a clean room with shower and toilet, tv, aircon and fridge for 450baht per night. I had only one difficulty with this place. The pillows had this really weird strong contaminated foam rubber smell. I tried not to think what the contamination might be. If I led on my side it was just too much and prevented me from sleeping so I had to acquire a technique of falling asleep on my back with my nose in the air! I spent a couple of nights there and tried to enjoy the shopping and food that the small town offered but couldn’t really get into it. I decided to move via train to Bangkok. On the evening of the 28th Jan 2008 at 18.05hrs I boarded a night train destined for Bangkok. The trip was scheduled to to be 16hrs and would arrive in Bangkok at 10.20 hours the following morning. It eventually arrived at almost 14.00hrs making a total journey time of over 19hrs. The cost was 900 baht. It was a sleeper. An aircon’d carriage and crisp clean and comfortable bedding helped me toward a great nights sleep which made the 19 hour journey bearable approaching pleasurable.
I had no accommodation booked in Bangkok but had been in email contact with a friend who had been staying at guest house called ‘Wendy House’ near to the National Stadium. This would be my target location and a tuk tuk made an efficient means of transport there from the railway station. Wendy House had a room but it was 1000 baht per night. Nice room though! However 2 doors away was ‘The Bed and Breakfast’ for 500 baht a night which I moved to the following day. No TV or fridge and just enough room to shuffle around my single bed but close enough to still be able to use the Wendy House wifi from my room. It was my new hutch for four nights whilst I was getting the Myanmar visa processed. I spent the days re realizing that I don’t really want to live in a city. Hot, dusty, jammed and polluted. I think I will always enjoy being in the city environment in short bursts but full time… No thanks.
My most pleasant day was spent with an old pal from the semiconductor days. We did a city tour on the river. As is the case with many cities Bangkok has a river life that predates most of the modern concrete city of Bangkok. We took in a pleasurable couple of hours of the from a long tail boat with captain that we hired for a reasonable 1200 baht. The path of the Chao Praya river through Bangkok is complemented by a network of canal ways that supported (and still do to some extent) small to medium industries as an economic means of moving materials in and products out. This was most evident when the following day I visited the Ban Jim Thompson. This American built himself a traditional Thai home or ban on the canal to support his growing interests and business in the Thai silk industry. Sadly and spookily he vanished whilst on holiday in the Malaysian Highlands in 1967. Now the house is open to the public as a salute to the contribution to Thai silk that Jim made during his time there. Storytelling scrolls, ancient Chinese blue and white pottery and Buddha statues figure largely in the décor. Built with the most prominent entrance from the canal itself, the house is a lovely robust dark wood construction characterized by open airy landings, shuttered window openings and shady gardens. The lady guide couldn’t do R’s and still had the rise and fall of the Thai language in her voice when she spoke her English so I had to listen very carefully to connect it all together. She also seemed to have a thing about potties and was keen to point them out in each of the bedrooms to us all…??.
Down The Road 