Thursday, April 21, 2011

Backpacking in SEA for 15 days: 25th Dec 2008

'crecok-crecok!'. this sound of the railways juz keep coming to my ears and its all the night!! yeah! we're still on the train bound for Bangkok from Nong Khai! throughout the night i woke up every now and then...but still managed to sleep.. hahaha... seems like i can sleep everywhere and anytime now... hahaha...coz i'm a light sleeper... so by right any slight noise i'll not be able to sleep. but so far, this trip has proven otherwise. =P

anyway i woke up ard 4.30am.... hahaha... a unique way of waking up on christmas morning!

then i read the guidebook... and sometime around 5.30am, the train started to have frequent stops... and i saw the elderly couple sleeping below us cleaning up and keeping their stuffs...then i knew... we're in Bangkok already... Yes!! we've finally reached another town on our agenda... hahaha.... by now, we're in the 4th country!!!

anyway, by right the train should reach hualamphong train station by 6.30am. this is the main train raliway station in Bangkok.....hmmm...but it was not so... i guess perhaps was the freaquent stops it had to make along the way. anyway the old couple got off at Don Muang station, tat's where they were staying... we said our goodbyes... pity we did not take photo with them.

anyway we reached Hualamphong station at 8am. and along the way, the train passed thru some roads and we saw tat the roads are starting to get congested!! and in my mind was "shit! how the hell are we going to get to our accomodation? coz taking the taxi or public bus, we'll definitely be caught in the morning rush hour.' then some more bangkok is super famous for their traffic congestions... so taxi and public bus is a no no....

Bangkok train station
hmmm...anyway when we reached Hualamphong station, we met the Swiss lady again...and she was armed with the Bangkok city map! tat's really wonderful...coz now, we can have a slightly clear idea how to get to our accomodation.... and surprising she was also staying in Sukhumvit but different street from us. so we asked around again...and we asked how do we get to sukhivmit. the person told us tat its faster by the subway... and subway was juz outside the train station! hahaha..so we need not walk tat far... and the 6 of us (including the swiss lady) went down and take the subway to the Sukhumvit station. so when we reached there, we asked for directions again (coz Sukhumvit is a huge area...and this is also the central biz district area in bangkok) and the person at the control station told us tat we were able to walk there... but for the Swiss lady we had to bade farewell... coz she was going in a different direction fr us... and tat's wat we did... so we went up to the 'upper world' and walked to our accomodation...

suhkmivit road

wah... the walk was super super tiring and far lor... coz we were also carrying our super heavy bags... and along the way we had to keep asking pple...coz i did not bring a gd guide book on bangkok as initially i thought we were only going to stay there for 1 day.... anyway we finally found our service apartment and check in!


wah when we saw our apartment it was HEAVEN!!! hahaha.. coz for the past few days we've been staying in budget areas and u kno lah... budget means the beds, toilets and everything are not very nice one lah.... especially when our last accomodation in Vientiane was like a prison cell... so when we saw our rooms in bangkok...everyone was loudly exclaiming how gd and how nice and clean it was!! =P


anyway all of us were super dirty and tired, so we washed up and wash our clothes before heading out. and we also had to make a decision as to whether we shld visit the kaikan in bangkok or juz go shopping and sight seeing for the 2 days in bangkok. but before we can do tat, the 1st thing we've got to do is to head to the Moh Chit bus station to purchase our bus tickets to Aranya Prathet on 27th Dec. Coz we were planning to stay at the border town for 1 night before heading to Siem reap the following day.


so we decided tat we wanted to do sight-seeing in bangkok. and after resting for a while, we head out... and head for Moh Chit. pity it was not a weekend... else we can go to cha tuk chat and do some shopping... hiaz... anyway... when we reached there, the bus station was pretty far away and we've got to either take a taxi or public bus there... we asked for the bus no... but the bus did not come! by then we've waited for like 1/2h for the bus... so keiko and i decided to go there and purchase the tics while harumi, toshiko & nobuko stay at the train station and wait for us.


as the bus din come, keiko and me decided to take a taxi to Moh Chit bus-station. and the taxi was costly manz... hiaz..no choice... so take lor... when we reached Moh Chit, we managed to purchase our tickets for the 7am bus.
after getting our tickets, we went back to the train station... and the both of us decide to take the public bus as tat will be cheaper. yeah... and its really cheap...coz the bus was 8 thai Baht per person while the taxi was 65 thai baht lor.

public bus in bangkok

anyway after meeting the rest at the train station, we head down to Maboonkong shopping center... yeah! this is a super big shopping center tat 1 muz not miss when they come to bangkok for holiday... hahaha... u can get almost anything and everything there! we had our lunch there and really bought a lot of things.... can u imagine, we shopped from early afternoon until evening leh... tat's wat we did tat day....


after our shopping spree, some of us had to change for more Thai Baht. bangkok at night

hahaha.... then after our shopping spree, we head back to our accomodation.
keiko's shopping

and this night, we bought 3 bottles of beer. they were Chang Beer and Singha Beer. hahaha... these are Thai beer... so must try...


chang beer & singha

and becoz our service apartment was not equiped with bottle opener, we had to ask the security guard to help us open it! hahhaa... and he has a very interesting way of opening the bottles...he use the key chain to open them! interesting isn't it?? =D

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