Trains, Buses, and Boats

Status Update

1. Happy 4th of July! I had the pleasure of celebrating 12 hours ago, and you all still have the rest of the day. Enjoy!

2. Thailand just elected its first female prime minister ever.

We went sightseeing in Bankok to check out the weekend market, the reclining Buddha statue at Wat Po, the Wat Phra Kaew Emerald Buddha, and the Grand Palace grounds, all within about five hours. We probably could have spent five hours at any one of those places. Fortunately we'll have a chance to make up some time in the places we passed through when we get back on Saturday.

Thai cat, not Siamese cat

We wrapped up our sightseeing with a walk through the city back to our hotel to pick up our bags, then flagged down another hot pink taxi to take us to the train station. The cabbie was a boisterous fellow who told us that the Thai king was born in Boston. And Thailand was called Siam up until the 1940's. And there are two kinds of cats in Thailand: Siamese cats and Thai cats. He said Siamese cats are black and cream colored with blue eyes. And Thai cats are cats of every other kind. Then he chuckled to himself and asked if we would pay him more than the metered fare. Mike was happy to. The gregarious cabbie got an extra 15 baht.

Taking the overnight train was an experience. Twelve hours in a rackety-clackety wooden train car with open windows and rotating ceiling fans and no insulation from the sound of passing trains that hurtled by in the darkness and seemed to shake our car off its tracks. After we endured the overnight train trip, we added another six hours between the bus, the cart, and the boat. The mode of transportation was my suggestion,and I consider myself lucky that bro and sis didn't throttle me to death when we got off the train this morning at 5:15. But they took the high road with a positive outlook. The wooden, open-windowed, rattling train was an experience, Lữ said, and it was an experience she would avoid repeating.

One good thing about the train was the endless stream of foodcarts that passed through our car. They let up for only about three hours in the middle of the night. It was like one of those sushi bars with the carousel belt full of plates that constantly glide by you carrying something new and tasty to grab before it slips past. It was lovely. All night long, food peddlers hounded the passengers with bowls of chicken and rice soup, trays of omelettes, tins full of custard pudding with lotus seeds, and plates of fresh sliced mangoes with chili sugar, wax apples, and pineapple. But they'll charge an arm and a leg in the cafe car...just like everywhere else in the world. The veritable buffet was a welcome treat, but I'm afraid my traveling companions and I will suffer from train-lag for the next few days. Personally, I don't think I'd terribly mind if I fell asleep for a hour as soon as I laid down on a massage table, but I think bro and sis would consider it a waste of ten dollars. That's right. Ten. For an hour.

We finally made it to our bungalow on the narrow isthmus south of Pranang Cape. The place we're staying at is actually not called Krabi, like I'd said earlier, but Railey Beach. The west side of the isthmus is a gorgeous strip of white sand beach on the edge of an aquamarine bay, tucked in between towering vegetation-covered limestone cliffs. There are three species of primates that live here: macaques, gibbons, and langurs, the latter sings a chorus in the early morning hours, I'm given to understand. Can't wait.

Bankok Highlights

Wat Po reclining Buddha

Wat Phra Kaew Emerald Buddha Temple

The Capital of Thailand

Bankok. The plane touched down at dusk, and it was already dark by the time we got our pictures taken, our passports stamped, and our driverwho led us to a hot pink taxi with a 15-inch subwoofer in the trunk
and a gold statue of Buddha on the dashboard.

Driving on the interstate highway from the airport at night, you don't see much besides buildings, billboards, roadsigns and cars that drive opposite side of the road. Feels kind of like the states, in a way.Bankok has a lot of pickup trucks and SUV's. Thanks to the light
drizzle and the balmy heat, if you can pretend that the rows of billboards and roadsigns are in English, and not the beautiful Thai script, than you might feel like you're driving on an interstate around Miami or Jacksonville.

We stayed in a hotel in a sort of backpacker's district, with a money exchange booth, a tour package sales desk, and a tailor, just in case you want to get a suit, all conveniently located in the lobby downstairs.

When it was time to explore this neighborhood with its shuttered two-story shophouses, we stepped into the drizzly evening air to the smell
of grilled food and tropical rain. We passed by tarp covered t-shirt and souvenier shops, cheap massage and beauty parlors, gaudy theme
tiki bars, and hawker carts with all kinds of grilled goods, pad Thai noodles, and fresh cut pineapple, mango, and papaya. Pushy tuk tuk
drivers tried to wrangle us into their natural gas powered open cart taxis. But we had only one thing in mind: food. We found a night market on the far end of a park and tucked in.

After slurping down steamy bowls of beef soup with angel hair rice noodles, and curry soup with chicken, egg, and peanuts, we meandered over to a brilliant dessert cart with bowls filled with things all the color of a candy store. We spooned gobs of a flan-style custard cooked in a pumpkin squash, and pudding with sweet sticky rice, drenched in coconut cream, chased by a rich green milk tea. This place is a foodie's paradise.

We're off to see the weekend market and the imperial palace today. But I'm most looking forward to breakfast, lunch, dinner, and all the in-between meals. Then goodbye, Bankok, as we board a sleeper car on an overnight southbound train tonight, headed for a bungalow in a town called Krabi.