Road Report Archives

Siam, I said

After leaving the insanity of India I knew there was no way to top it. I was extremely happy to be going to Bangkok and it was even nicer than I expected. I could easily see why it is the most popular tourist destination in southeast Asia. The traveler’s infrastructure is very easy to deal with and yet the place is very exotic. It’s also the first ridiculously hot country I’ve been to where some of the locals have the good sense to wear short pants.

One thing that makes the place feel so exotic is there are temples (called Wats) everywhere. About 300 temples are spread all over the city and all of them feature a gold covered version of their Buddha, but in various poses. The largest and most spectacular is called Wat Pho (seriously). (I hope they add a question mark to the end of the name some day) Wat Pho contains the famous Reclining Buddha, which, just like it sounds, is a gigantic gold Buddha statue about 50-feet long that is laying on its side and practically fills the entire room.

The thing that makes Thailand feel less exotic, but very welcoming, is the unbelievable amount of 7-Elevens. Some even face each other on opposite sides of a street. You rarely have to walk more than 100 steps to buy a Slurpee, which is a very good thing.

One night in Bangkok I went out with a couple of Dutch girls I met earlier in the day. We ventured into the Patong district where many of the city’s best nightclubs are mixed in with the infamous‘go-go bars’. While we were walking around we got dozens of solicitations to see something called a ‘Ping Pong Show’, which seems to be sweeping Bangkok’s adult entertainment world. I never got an exact explanation of what it is, but I have a guess. The strangest thing was they usually asked the Dutch girls and ignored me. I guess they figured if the girls would go see it there was no question that I would follow.

The main down side to Thailand for me was the spirit-crushing heat and humidity. It wasn’t so much the heat, as it was the humidity, but it was also the heat, when combined with the humidity made it hard to breath much less think or walk around. I didn’t think the laws of physics would allow it, but somehow April is the single hottest month there. After a few days in Bangkok I took an overnight train to a bus then a ferry to the touristy island of Ko Samui.

Thailand is very well set up for tourists, but they still do a few things differently there. I’m sure the crowded air-conditioned bus to the ferry was supposed to be non-smoking, but that didn’t stop the driver from smoking himself while hanging his head halfway out an open window. Just before we got to the port he then swerved over to a small store and ran out to get another pack of smokes.

I then took the 90-minute ferry ride to the island and wedged myself into an 11-seat van for the ride to the other side of the island where most hotels are. The van was air conditioned too, but the A/C worked just well enough that none of us went unconscious. It must be a common thing in Thailand, because suddenly and without warning the driver pulled over to a rural 7-Eleven and ran in while the other 9 passengers and I were struggling to breath. A few minutes later he emerged with a bottle of water and what appeared to be a cup of fruit punch for himself. He then hopped in and drove on. I figured that he must have rationalized that if the rest of us died during the journey that he should be fully hydrated to drive our corpses to the morgue.

I got a cheap flight from Ko Samui to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and then the next morning flew to Sydney, Australia.