A relatively stressful two days

Day 85 - 18/08/2010 - 22:16 - Bangkok, Thailand

Well we've had another two days and for me they've both been rather stressful. Bangkok is, I believe, the biggest city we've visited so far and is a lot less well served by public transport than other big cities we've visited (Moscow, 10 million and Shanghai, 9 million) by public transport. Bangkok has a population of 11 million, the place on foot to navigate to me, is pretty daunting, especially as we're not in the main districts.

Nonetheless, they all add to the experience and we've certainly had a lot to take in the last couple of days. We got up nice and late yesterday, knowing our bus wasn't until 11:30am. We had some breakfast and were downstairs with our bags just before 11 giving us time to check our e-mails etc. We were picked up by a tuk tuk driver at 11:15 and taken to the bus stop which was an outdoor (but covered by sheet iron) office with a few plastic chairs scattered around outside the concrete cubicle. As soon as we got there the woman told us that it was delayed by an hour. Great, I thought. I could see how this was going to pan out - longer than expected journey already - which I had been told could be anywhere between 7 and 9 hours. The woman behind the desk told me (optimistically) 6 hours.

Nonetheless, we sat and read books (I took the lonely planet book and Laura read a book I bought on Angkor) and the time soon passed. Getting near to half 12, lots of moto drivers started showing up around the office and at about 12:20 there was a lot of shouting and looking anxious. The bus was here, and the moto drivers descended upon it like a pack of ravenous wolves, eager for some business off those getting off in Battambang. When that had dissipated, we got on board and sat down. The coach was scorching hot and the A/C is only what I can describe as crap. I was really suffering with the heat on there and could feel a headache coming along long before it (eventually) did. We got to Poipet by half 2, which, to my surprise was in line with what the ticket office woman had told me back in Battambang. We took great pleasure in watching the scrums at the 2 stops prior to the border too. In one instance people actually got on the bus to try and sell things.

The border process was hassle free, surprisingly. I've heard lots of bad things about Poipet but we received no hassle. We were stamped out of Cambodia very quickly, walked the 1km or so to the Thai immigration and barring some jobsworth telling us to fill in EVERYTHING, there was no problem. The only worry was before entering immigration seeing a sign saying we were 303km from Bangkok and it being gone 3pm. Damn, we're never going to get there by 6:30pm, I thought. Wrong again. We were shoved into a minibus, Laura and I right at the back, and we BOMBED it to Bangkok at speeds I can only describe as license revoking worthy in the UK. By this point I was getting quite a bad headache as the seats weren't that comfortable and we were packed in like sardines. I had only been faster on this trip on 3 occasions - 1 was the Maglev in Shanghai and the other 2 were planes. That's how quick he was going. We got to Bangkok by 6pm - 5 and a half hours ago we were in Battambang. Seriously crazy stuff - I wasn't complaining though - I was close to a much needed bed and a clean bathroom (the service station in Thailand left a lot to be desired).

We got dropped off somewhere in Bangkok - now I know the main island where all the old stuff is. But at the time I didn't know. There was an ATM in sight so we headed there first. Won't be using that bank again, they charged me three bloody pounds to take money out! Buggers. We were then approached by someone who showed us where we were on a map - nowhere near our hotel. Of course he could offer us a tuk tuk service. He wanted 500 baht originally (around £10) as he said it was "very far". I wasn't in the mood for bartering but managed to get it down to 350 (£7). It was expensive but I wanted to get to the hotel. Turned out though, our senile tuk tuk driver who the man (clearly the boss) showed us to had no idea where he was going. He stopped around 5 times to ask people, kept getting All Seasons (our hotel name) with Four seasons muddled up (I wish), actually dropped us off (or tried to) at the All Seasons Place office complex! He drove like a mad man (although this in Thailand is pretty normal it seems). He also drove down alleys and when we got to our hotel which I not him spotted (I think it was by chance we were driving down the road) he drove up the next road, right to the other end to drop us off at another fucking office complex. My head by this point was seriously exploding. It took a fucking hour to get to our hotel (or at least 100 metres down the next road from it!). To top it off, he actually drove into a metal parking barrier (he tried to go under it but the tuk tuk was too tall!) What a dickhead! I gave him 300 baht in the end, he didn't deserve a penny. I was seriously livid and unsurprisingly, he didn't question the missing 50. We just walked off back down the road to our hotel.

Luckily we checked in OK, our room is really nice (probably the best yet). The restaurant is affordable and we went to bed early, me really suffering with a migraine - induced by the very first coach and amplified by a senile prick with no sense of direction or how big his tuk tuk is - what a day.

Today has been equally stressful but at least we actually did something remotely leisurely today. We walked to the nearest Sky train station (which is 15 mins walk away) and got it to the terminus as I wanted to see this statue thing. It was another 20 minutes away in blistering heat. Our map was rubbish and not to scale. We were very far away from where we wanted to go so turned back once we'd seen the statue back to the station and then got that to the river port. Strangely enough the best way for us to get to the old island is by sky train AND boat. What a weird combo but it works and we got to the stop near the royal palace on the river and stopped for lunch somewhere. Whilst there we saw the palace shut at 3:30 and it was 2:30 when we sat down for lunch. We thought we'd check it out just in case we were wrong but lowe and behold it was 3:30. It didn't matter though, we were planning on seeing the 2 wats near to the palace that were in our guidebook, both shut later.

We got to the palace to see the bad news at 3:15. There was a VERY official looking guy outside saying it was closing (which it was) and that we should go to these other attractions. He called a tuk tuk driver over and said it would be 20 baht to see 3 attractions (around 40p). We thought it was strange but he looked official and we went with it. As soon as we got in I knew we shouldn't have as I'd read some scam along these lines but it just hadn't clicked! Luckily we did get dropped off at the first attraction. The driver said "20 minutes" which also rang alarm bells (why does he make the decisions on time?). We looked around and then got our guide book out. Surprise surprise, there it was. "This attraction is closed, here are others for 20 baht in a tuk tuk". We sneaked out of another exit, to the main road and got in a tuk tuk back to one of our other backup places for 50 baht (£1). This evening we read stories on the Internet of the exact same thing happening, including the first stop being a legitimate tourist attraction. The next place would be a shop of some sort where it would be black market (fake) goods like gemstones (actually just glass). If we bought something, we'd have been ripped off. If not, we'd go to the next attraction (a long way out) and be abandoned (the deal was to be taken back to the Palace). We didn't lose any money and got to see the Golden Mountain (the one we got taken to) and Wat Pho (the massive reclining Bhudda) before heading back to our hotel. Lesson learnt. Tomorrow we're going to the palace EARLY as well as seeing another Wat (Wat Aran). Hopefully we'll have time left over to see other things (without being scammed!)