24 hours on planes and in airports is far too long, and my back stated this loudly upon my weary arrival. Yet the flaming sun and suffocating humidity of “the hottest city in the world” mended my tiredness quickly as I sought my hotel for the next several days.
I boarded the plane in LA, not knowing much about my travel plans other than my desire to visit Thailand, Bali, Vietnam, and Angor What in Cambodia. I figured I would discover my path in the days it would take for me to apply and await my Vietnam visa.
My first night was accompanied by another solo woman traveler from England. I forgot how easy it is when you travel alone to meet and befriend beautiful people from all over the world. It is comforting. It has been, and continues to be my experience that nice people tend to find each other. The next morning I took a leisurely stroll, and discovered the great Reclining Buddha, and the Emerald Palace and Buddha. Outside of which many monks were shopping for a new, carved Buddha pendant, inspecting each one for the artist's accuracy with mini eye pieces. Striking.
I spent the next several days in Bangkok roaming the streets, and trying to steer clear from Khoa Son Road, the travelers' epa center where food is three times the price, and the streets are thronged with drunken partiers coming and going through Bangkok on their way to their next full moon party. Food here is not as good at the food carts in the surrounding streets where the Thais eat. However, it is on Khoa Son that tickets of every kind and visas of many SE Asian Countries can be obtained for onward travels without having to leave the “safety” of the farong (foreigner) meca. Many people don't. Some of us did.
I took the public ferry many times from just behind my guesthouse, Bella Bella, to downtown Bangkok—a 30 minute ride past huge wats (temples), markets, and fancy waterfront hotels. The sky train connected here, which I used to navigate my way to the Vietnam embassy for my visa. Downtown Bangkok is a world of a difference—gold-lined, towering designer department stores and shopping malls sprout just above the people selling food on the streets. Food wrapped in banana leaves, placed in buckets, balanced on bamboo rods atop their shoulders. Returning, I connected with the subway to the train station for my onward ticket to the beach—which I decided was to be the two islands of Koh Chang and Koh Payam on the Andaman coast, near the border with Bangladesh. The mountain girl in me wanted to head to Chaing Mai in the north, but a girl had just returned from these islands, and a light bulb went off in my head that this was to be my decompression spot.
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