Bangkok
Before the army came in
Bangkok really blew my mind. At the train station we were greeted by tourist support people who directed us to the fantastic underground train. Fun using the electronic ticketing machine trying to find work out where we were going in Thai script. An underground and a sky train ride and we bypass a 2hr bus ride to our hotel near the NZ embassy. A quick visit and Al's passport appears good enough to continue traveling on (it glued itself back together on drying). We get a Cambodian visa from the embassy, visit the inner city parks (really nice green spaces), then try and find some wats.
After a museum visit to learn a little Thai history, we knowingly get sucked into a tourist scam. It was elloquiantly done. 1 person tells us the place we want to go to is expensive, and we should go to the free Watts instead, and points us in the direction of the bus-stop. We get off, and a Thai guy grabs our map, and draws circles of all different places to visit, then hales us a tuk tuk and makes it sound like a great deal - it's a Buddhist holiday, they give coupons to taxi drivers, it's fashion week, they give coupons to drivers who deliver tourists. Knowing something is up, we go to our first Watt. Next, it's on to what is clearly a fake watt - the lucky Buddha, the amount of luck you receive is in relation to the amount you give (but there's no donation box, you fools), then to a fashion store where we aren't even slightly tempted, and back to a watt under restoration where we meet a supposed Indonesian who's been adopted by some poms (although he thinks we're from England even with our NZ accent) and he's been given a similar deal, and isn't it great, except they took him to a jewelry store, and why wouldn't you want to pay for your trip by taking gems back to NZ to make a huge profit on. We were so lucky to be invited to the gem store too. Alas, we were getting pissed off with the need to get "coupons" our scam to get a cheap ride around in a tuk-tuk and see another side of the city (i.e., the backstreets, alleys and deviants) for bugger all (1hr for less than a $NZ) had achieved it's purpose, and we took the bus home. Cheers to the tuk-tuk driver.
From Bangkok we head south to Ko Chang - the eastern bus station is really nice. We take a fancy 1st class bus where they dole out bickies and water and tea/coffee and stop at posh stops with nice loos.
On our return to BKK we headed to the floating market - the trip there was more eventful than the market itself which was over-touristy - (the real market was on the back streets of the town). I have new found respect for bus drivers, and for the size of Bangkok. We head to the southern bus station, during rush hour. The bus drivers in the city are seriously amazing. I would last about 20 seconds. Warning: ask which route the bus takes back - we went the long way taking and extra hour (longer but cheaper - go figure).
We'll
wait and see what BKK is like in on the 25th post-coup when we are due
back there.
Afterwards
The coup d'état of '06 didn't really change things much. It was bloodless, unlike some of the earlier coups, and there wasn't the huge political protests seen in 2009/10 with the Red and Yellow shirts. The police were replaced with baby-faced soldiers that had orders to smile at the tourists. Still, it isn't every day you see rocket launchers and tanks in metapolian areas.
