Back in Bangkok

To start off with a famous oneliner: " it feels good to be back!". :-)

My flight from Amsterdam to Helsinki couldn't have been better: I had the entire row of seats to myself, so I had no complaints on the comfort at all! Also, the Finnair staff was very friendly, so that's a big plus... The Helsinki airport was kinda boring, but that didn't matter because I only had to wait for one hour for my connecting flight to Bangkok (and I had my MP3 player ready).

The Flight to Bangkok was another story: no legroom at all, crappy entertainment and bad food. That combined with the fact that I had no sleep at all (ok, I might have dozed off an hour or two) this may have been one of my worst flights ever (who in the world eats pancakes with spinache for breakfast?!?!?!).

The moment that I finally had the feeling I was going to fall asleep my neighbour at the window thought that the time to sleep was over and opened the windowshutter; blinding everyone with the morning sunlight. It did gave me an impressive view on the snowy tops of the Himalaya though...

As I left home, it was snowing and around 0 degrees Celcius. The contrast with the weather in Bangkok couldn't have been bigger: it's about 35 degrees Celcius out here and the humidity is incredible! As I was here last year, I had no problem finding the way to the Airport Expres bus. So: too bad for the taxi drivers trying to convince me to take a very expensive taxi ride... :)

As I got out at Kao San Road I had already made up my mind to try my luck at the Soi Ram Buttri (one block away from Kao San Road). I tried several guest houses, but everything was full untill I got at the New Siam Guesthouse (in Soi Chana Songkhram which is a side-street of Soi Ram Buttri). I now have a "closet" with a single bed for 280 Bahts a night with a shared bathroom. Oh well,... It's clean and cheap so I'm happy ;-)

I decided to make a little walk to the Grand Palace and it really was nice to be back and see the familiar sights. Even the women with the wooden " frog-things" (you people who've been to Kao San Road defintely know what I mean) didn't bother me. The abundancy of 7/11's is also comforting (we should have those in Holland). During my walk I met a teacher from Chiang Mai who joined me for a short time. Then I went back to have a beer and watch the crowd at Kao San.

I'm now also familiar with the concept of "beergirls". It turns out that if you want a Singha from a girl wearing a "Federbrau" outfit: you're not gonna get it. So I settled for Federbrau which was actually quite good (or I'm to tired to notice how bad it actually is). Also, I forgot how large a "large beer" is here in Thailand: 660 ml!

I went to get some rice and red curry with pork to eat and now I'm going to relax with my book and have a good night of sleep.