Back With A Bang(kok)

There was a commotion from outside the curtain that was essentially my bedroom. Just what the heck was going on? Someone was coming down the carriage and waking everyone up, but why? It was only 6:20am and we weren’t due to arrive in Bangkok until 6:30am/10:00am, yet this guy was shouting at everyone to wake up. It turns out the the one train we would have hoped would arrive later than expected was actually arriving earlier than expected. We would need to get our stuff together, get dressed and get out of the train in the next 5 mins as we would be pulling into Bangkok train station soon, and for the second time in our trip.

Time to go!

We jumped off the train and headed to the waiting area as it was still early in the morning. We had a couple of choices open to us: wait til half 8 and try to get a Government tuk-tuk (which cost only 20 Baht each and will take you round for the rest of the day…allegedly) to get to the embassy for our Vietnamese visa and then on to the hotel, or head straight to the hotel and hope that the room would be ready for us, although as it was still very early we doubted that very much. With no Government tuk-tuks in sight we jumped in a taxi and arrived at the hotel, with the aim of getting the visa later in the day.

The cat on the mat

We were greeted by a cat sat on the mat, and the hotel looked nice, although there were a few women sat on picnic furniture but the side of the road – we were not 100% sure why this was. Leaving the big bags in the hotel we had 2 hours to kill before we could properly check in, so we wandered the streets of Bangkok, still a little woozy from the early morning start. We found the National Monument just down the road and we grabbed breakfast and a coffee whilst we watched the morning hustle and bustle through the window. After a tournament of cards we were ready to head back to the hotel, so checked-in and got comfy.

After lunch we headed to the Vietnamese embassy and we were pleased to find that our visas had been processed and were ready. We had a quick look round the Siam area as there were supposedly some good markets around. It was more like shopping in Milan or Paris really, it was the posh end of town and we certainly weren’t going to get any bargains down there! By the time we got back to the hotel, and were greeted by the cat on the mat again, we were ready for a relaxing night. We grabbed some food and wandered the night markets for a while, but we weren’t going to have another big night out in Bangkok like the last time. My arm and head had only just healed after the last one.