Slept better on the bus than I was expecting, but we arrived later than I was expecting, due to all the delays. Not that it really made a difference to me. Eveline was meeting her friend from Switzerland, who is now a monk in Thailand. We fought off taxi drivers, and I was told to hop on bus 53 to get to the MBK Skytrain station. I hopped on, and pointed to the MBK skytrain on the map for the ticket collector (buses in Asia seem to have a driver and a separate ticket collector – I guess labour is cheap enough to do so). She nodded, and nodded again when I asked her to tell me when we were there.
After about an hour I was starting to wonder just how long and winding the bus was, and when I saw the same place I’d gotten on the bus, I asked her again – and she was a little less reluctant to admit she had no idea what I was talking about. I got off the bus and asked another transit operator, and found out I wanted bus 16 which was across one of the canals. I crossed over, but couldn’t find the stop for 16, so I asked another driver, and he pointed me further north. I headed that way and finally managed to find a stop.
Hopped on there, and managed to get to the MBK station pretty easily after that. Took the skytrain to the stop nearest the guesthouse I was hoping to stay at, and was quite happy that it wasn’t far from the station at all, and then happier still to find out that there was a dorm bed available.
Spent the day walking along the main road near my hostel. Reached Siam Square and the MBK Centre, and had a look through there. Tons and tons of shops, selling everything, but mostly cellphones. So many cellphones stores in fact, that I’m not sure how they all stay in business. Wandered back through the multitude of malls on the north side of Sukhumvit, not because I wanted to shop, but because I wanted to avoid the heat. Nothing too special, although one of the floors had a number of exotic car manufacturers. Fact of the matter is, that even the streets are lined with vendors, so it’s pretty much impossible to avoid someone trying to sell you something.
Here’s a short list of some of the things I’ve seen for sale: a guy walking around with a basket full of knives for sale; a woman holding about 20 disco balls of various sizes; Viagra; bootleg dvds, music, software, video games; souvenirs; and of course, sex. Some of the prostitutes look disturbingly young, and I’ve seen more than a handful of older western men with young Thai girls. Hard to get very far without someone trying to sell you a massage by a scantily clad girl.
Met two people in my room: Jasper from Helsingor, Denmark who has been travelling for 6 months, and leaves for home tomorrow. He says I’m the first person he’s met on his travels who knew where Helsingor was; and Jimmy, an older guy who has been travelling for four years, and realized today that he’s out of money, so he’ll be heading back to Holland in ten days. He played us a little tune on his harmonica, then headed out for the night.
