Returning to Bangkok

Friday, Aug. 27, 2010--Korat

The Internet service at the hotel went off about 16:30 yesterday and didn't return until 16:00 today. It was frustrating not being able to get online. I spent the morning sitting in the open-air lobby of the hotel reading. I walked to the nearby morning market and bought some pastries for my breakfast.

Since I couldn't use the computer and needed to check information about traveling tomorrow, I decided to take the computer to the hotel where I stayed before. Their wifi passward was inside the computer already. That's when I discovered that the problem with the service was city-wide and not just in the neighborhood of my apartment complex. The cyber cafes along the way were closed, and the computer could not connect when I turned it on next door to the former hotel. Due to that, I decided to walk to the train station to check on their schedules. Although the trains are slow, the station in Bangkok is a better location to arrive than the bus station. Unfortunately, there were only two trains scheduled. The one around 8:30 is a third-class only train with no seat reservations making it uncertain whether I could sit or not. The one at 10:30 is the "express" train" which still takes over 4 hours to get to Bangkok while costing almost twice the price of bus service. I decided that a bus would be the best way to go due to the fact that the time involved would be shorter than any of the trains (about half the time of the third-class train) and its cost would be cheaper in relation to the express train.

While eating Phad Thai at a street stall, I accidentally got a dried red pepper flake in my right eye. Wow, did it burn!! I couldn't get the flake out of my eye, so I just had to continue eating with the eye watering until the flake lost its power. I was sharing a small table with a local man who seemed pleased to see me add the pepper to the dish, since most Thai people believe that westerners do not appreciate the fact that their food should normally be spicy.

Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010--Korat to Bangkok

I've been going to bed early and getting up early lately. This morning, I was up by 6:15. That further supported my decision I had made to take the bus rather than the train. I bathed, packed, and walked to the bus station where I got a VIP bus (hot chocolate, water, and breakfast buns) that departed at 7:40.

The main reason that the train station is more convenient than the bus station is Bangkok is that an underground metro station is located at the train station. With the bus station, both the underground metro and the sky train have services, but they are one major road away. It was necessary to climb an overhead crosswalk with the luggage and go over and down again. Then I had to walk on the edge of the street until I could cross under an expressway that blocked the route. Finally, I had to go through two parts of a park. Once there, however, the Sky Train took me to the street where my hotel is located. I just had to walk the equivalent of about six blocks to get to it.

The Sawasdee Lang Suan is a new hotel for me. It is in a good location. The shops and restaurants near it are quite elegant. There are many embassies in the area; the US Embassy is nearby on the next major street going eastward. The room is fine, although I've always disliked dark brownish-red carpeting which it has; it just seems to be an effort to cover up dirtiness. The bed is good, and the location is quiet. There is a built-in glass desk for me to use the computer with the free wifi. I miss the Mandarin where I have stayed before and the personnel, but this hotel has more TV channels and the wifi for about half the price of the Mandarin. I'll miss the good breakfast at the Mandarin, since I have none here, but getting breakfast and doing without wifi is not worth the extra $20 per night.

I am closer to the shopping district of Bangkok at this hotel than I was at the Mandarin, but I am just as far from the PART of the shopping district that I prefer. I walked to there to search for something to eat and to buy some things to keep in the room. Unfortunately, it was about 16:00 and the street stalls that had been up for the daytime were closing and the ones for the evening were not yet opening. I ended up having a McSpicy chicken sandwich and fries at McDonald's.

I was surprised to see Central Plaza Mall on this end of the shopping district completely destroyed. When I was here before, I saw that the Siam Discovery Center had been damaged and was being rebuilt. But seeing Central Plaza Mall indicates that the problems with the demonstrations and riots this spring was worse than the publicity indicated. It's possible to see the caved-in roof, bullet holes in the glass, etc. This was the second largest shopping mall in Asia and was bigger than Mall of the Americas. News coverage that I saw did not make the damages to the city seem as bad as it was. Maybe that is because the government here is military-backed and was censoring what could go out.

I stopped at a supermarket after going to McDonald's and bought some supplies for the room--muesli and milk for my breakfasts and cookies and chips for a snack on rainy days. Then I stayed inside in the evening.