Day 2: Bangkok

Brent's sleeping quarters

Our train car

We woke up early today because we are still adjusting to the time change. We ended up going to McDonalds for breakfast because it was the only place open that early. On the walk there everything smelled like garbage, but we found out later that was because the entire street was flooded the night before. Apparently the flooding hadn’t been bad and it was due to the high tide combined with all the floodwater. We spotted our first sewer rat on the way to McDonalds, which was kind of disgusting. After breakfast we decided that we should get out of Bangkok so that we wouldn’t be stuck there if the flooding gets worse. Its also difficult to tour the city when traffic is even worse than normal, and lots of areas are on a “holiday” to prepare for the floods. We went to the travel desk at our hotel and bought bus tickets to Tung Wa Laen beach about 250 miles away, for a little over $10 U.S. per person.

            After that we decided to go get our hair done. Bruce and Brent got their haircut extremely short…not quite a buzz though, for only $5.00 U.S. I got my first set of highlights for $20.00 U.S. While I was getting my highlights the boys went and purchased fresh mango and Brent bought some shorts. This is by far Bruce’s favorite thing in Thailand. Everywhere we go he asks for mango. We decided to walk around the backside of the main street and found matching necklaces and got our first 1 hour Thai massage, which felt amazing for only $6.00. Incredible!! Left the massage place and tried a street vendor’s coconut snack, which consisted of grated coconut inside of warm sweet bread.

            Next we went and visited the Buddhist Temple near our street. There was very helpful kid there, which escorted us about. Instructing us on when to wear and when to take off our shoes. Then he led us to an old man who warned us of all the tricks the Thai people pull on the tourists, and convinced us that the tickets we purchased earlier were so cheap because they were planning on robbing us. Supposedly people report reburies from the super cheap bus rides every day. He told us we should go visit the TAT (Tourist Authority of Thailand). So we let our friend flag us a honest tuk tuk driver to take us there. From there we purchased new train, bus, and boat tickets for a total of $118.00 U.S. per person, which we decided later was maybe more than we should have paid. The tuk tuk driver took us back to our hotel where we packed our bags, checked out, and flagged a taxi for the train station. Once we got there we found out that we were going to have to catch a bus to a different train station due to the floodwater. The Thai train station personal were really helpful and came and got us when our bus arrived. We took a bus over to Nakhon Pathom and close city where we caught our train. With much help from the locals we found the right car and then searched for our seats. Much to our surprise we had one upper bunk bed and two seats. We had been informed we were getting three bunk beds because the train ride was 8 hours and through the night. Everyone else in our car had bunks. Needless to say we were not pleased with the set up and confirmed we had the right seats and were in the right car with about 12 different people. Passengers around us were beginning to laugh at us but we were sure there had been a mistake. We finally started to accept our fate of sitting for 8 hours in these very uncomfortable seats instead of sleeping on comfortable beds. Twenty minutes later we saw a train employee come to the car right next to us and fold the seats into a bed and pull another bed down from up above. We all had a good laugh and were very relieved. We all slept very well and arrived at our destination at 7:00am.