Chekout time in the guesthouse wasn't until midday so I pottered around until then and left at twelve. There was plenty of time to get to the airport as the flight wasn't due to leave until 4.30pm. The airport was, however 30km away so I made sure to have plenty of time. I had a 1km walk to the nearest sky train station where I could catch a train down to central station from where the airport bus departed. The walk in the midday heat with the two rucsacks left me soaked in sweat. With my clothes sticking to me it was a blessing to get into the air conditioned carriage of the sky train. I settled into the airport coach and caught a last glimpse of the Ptronas towers dominating the city skyline as we made our way out of the city. It took about an hour to reach the airport. Along the way we passed Sepang, Kual Lumpur's Grand Prix circuit. The Malaysion Grand Prix will be held here in a weeks time and the area around the circuit is festooned with posters advertising the event.
The flight itself was a two hour hop over beautiful turquoise waters of the gulf of Thailand. We landed at 5.30pm local time. Nearly three hours later I reached the hostel. My first impressions of Bangkok shortly after arriving weren't great. In fact after the first night I thought I detested the place. I thought it was tacky, dirty, smelly and too crowded for my liking. My opinion of the place changed over the days but in those first 24hrs I just wanted to get out of the place. I didn't particularly like the hostel either. I was on a creaky top bunk in a cramped 4-bed dorm directly beneath a roof fan. There was a strange smell in the place of an unwashed toilet. To be fair the hostel was clean but the smell was wafting in from somewhere. I had been told it could be quite difficult to get accomodation in Bangkok so I booked the hostel on the internet. It was the first one I found which had decent availability and I booked it there and then. The hostel was situated in a street off one of the busiest aeas of the city, Thanon Sukhumvit, a major thoroughfare along which ran a high concrete skytrain similar to that in Kuala Lumpur. Sukhumvit hosted everything from 5-star hotels to street day/night markets, bars restaurants, a myriad of tailor shops and some of the infamous red light districts. A flotilla of girls and paunchy, pale middle aged men trawled the streets in search of each other, negotiating prices before heading off into the night. It was very different to any other city I've been to. Its very much a city that doesn't sleep. There's nothing innocent about this city of angels. I looked around the area for about two hours, had a pizza in one of the restaurants and had a look in to an Irish bar, 'The Dubliner', which was showing Australian rugby rather than any of the world cup qualifiers so I left them to it.
When I got tired I walked back to the hostel through the brightly lit humidity. The street markets were still in full swing, the streets were busy. People were buying anything from clothes to fake designer gear to knuckle dusters and viagra. I weaved my way through old guys with young girls, touts for local brothels, tuk-tuk drivers and drunken tourists. I saw one English lad almost run over by a bus as he lurched on to the road. After all the sights of the trip so far Bangkok was probably one of the biggest eye openers.
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