March 12th - Cycling in Bangkok

After a semi-gross breakfast in the semi-gross hotel restaurant, our group convened for the morning activity. Biking in Bangkok! We took to the streets as a gang of badly dressed tourists and tore it up (we swear the sunhats were imperative). Bangkok can be oppressively hot at certain times of year. This was one of them. I felt for our fearless leader, Bom, as he watched this gaggle of rubbernecking newbies attempt to navigate rush hour traffic. We made a number of interesting stops: a fruit stand for some jackfruit, the Golden Mountain and a presidential mansion where we gobbled down some tamarind. Cycling is one of the best ways to see any city and Bangkok is no exception.




We returned to the hotel with a few hours to kill before heading to the train station for our overnight trip to the Laos border and Vientianne. I accompanied the photog, Jun, around the corner for some delicious curry soup ($.50!!) while Karen tried to catch up on some z's. We had yet to find a sleeping rhythm and in fact would never really figure out how to avoid waking up at 5 AM. After lunch we retired to our room and watched Miracle on Star Movies. USA! USA!

Around 7 PM we traveled to the train station and prepared to board our overnight train. Due to a booking mishap (as we would later learn) we were given the upper bunk rather than the lower. It's a worse lot for a few reasons. For one, they leave the fluorescent lights on all night for safety and in the top bunk you're basically face to face with it's sleep depriving glare. Jun made the poor waitress hand me my dinner 18 times until he could get the proper shot at which point she thought we were nuts and my chicken and cashews were cold!