South East Asia on a Hamstring – February 11

Bangkok, Thailand – February 11, 2000

I spotted the rest of my Intrepid group in the lobby, first thing in the morning. The five girls and Peter had just gotten off the sleeper train and Peter was checking them in. I avoided them but the hotel clerk later told me that Peter was paying my hotel bill for tonight. I saw one of the girls in the elevator – she said the National Park that I had opted out of had been more of the same. No activities, nothing special.

My planned excursion to the National Museum was thwarted by Kofi Annan and his pals. The Museum was closed due to the UN conference. Frustrated, I gave myself a new mission – to find the only iMac internet cafe in town. I followed a tourist guide’s instructions to Sukhimvit, the wealthier part of town where all the embassies are. I took the number 11 bus for about 40 minutes and couldn’t be farther from what I’d come to believe Bangkok was like!

The streets of Sukhimvit were pleasant and the streets were lined with trees. Upscale hair salons were prolific and I didn’t spot another tourist. The iMac cafe was small and pleasant and featured the furriest, cleanest mutt I’d seen in weeks. I relaxed, happy to escape the chaos of Bangkok and ready to take on the smoggiest city with renewed vigor.

When I left the iMac cafe, I saw an overhead train that looked a lot like a Metro car or subway. Curious, I went up the escalator to see what was going on. Sure enough, it was the brand-new, so modern that it wasn’t even finished when the newest spate of guidebooks came out, Bangkok Transit System Skytrain. It wasn’t too busy and had limited span, but a helpful, uniformed employee gave me instructions on how to get to downtown.

I took the train and it was as modern, clean and perfect as the best subway in the world. Well-dressed Thais talked on cellphones all around me and I relaxed in the air-conditioning. Unfortunately, the Skytrain went nowhere near Khao San, but it did take me to the center of town and from there to tourist attraction “Jim Thompson’s House” and from there to the water taxi back to Khao San.

Jim Thompson was an American silk entrepreneur that had a fantastic traditional Thai home on the Khlong that I’d taken a water taxi down just a few days before. The canal had looked gross from the boat but from the house, it was scenic and breezy. Jim Thompson had disappeared in 1967 without a trace, but my “Rough Guide to Bangkok” speculated that he’d been hurriedly buried after being killed by a car in Malaysia’s Cameron Highlands. An “English-speaking” Thai woman guided me and a group of tourists around the house. I didn’t understand a word she said but her voice was melodic and enjoyable to listen to.

The Skytrain left me at Tha Sathorn, a southern bridge with a pier for the main river water taxi. I took the first boat that came and made it up the river in no time. There was some construction going on and I had to get off across the river from Khao San and take a separate ferry service to a small pier, but I was astonished and energetic. I had crossed all of Bangkok in about six hours – after yesterday’s disastrous attempt to cover ground ending in discouragement, today felt pretty good.

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