I get downstairs for breakfast at about 9:20. Breakfast is over at 9:30 and it looks it. The buffet is very limited. No eggs, just some rice and veggies, and toast and coffee. Well, I have the toast and coffee. I resolve to get down here earlier tomorrow. There are lots of Thai people in the restaurant. They are part of a large group, and at about 9:45 a large bus comes and they all get on. After eating I get my bag of laundry and walk down the street. After a few minutes I find a laundry. The lady tells me she would not have it ready until Sunday. I ask her if there is another one, and she motions further down the street. I walk less than a half-block and find the next laundry. Yes, they can have it for me tomorrow morning, price 99B. OK!
I walk back to the hotel. I notice there are several large internet cafes. I will have to try one later. I have put my journal onto a CD and I hope I can load it onto my webpage from the internet café computer. I get back to the room where I work on this journal and finally get caught up! I then walk down to the internet cafes, but learn that the computers do not have a CD-Rom drive. I must put the files onto a floppy disk instead. Well, I do not have one, and so I buy one from a compuer shop next to the hotel for 15B. I then load the files onto the floppy and put it into my shirt pocket.
My cellphone is almost out of time, and so I decide to go back to The Mall and get another recharge card. After having lunch in the hotel café (I am the only customer), I walk down to the riverboat dock, see as I cross the bridge that a boat is coming, run to the dock and hop on the boat. About 7 minutes and 7B later I am dropped off at the dock near The Mall. I walk over to the mall, find the stationery section and buy a 500B card. I then wander around the mall. There are two sections, one on each side of Ramkamheng Road, connected by an over-the-road walkway. On the ground floor on each side are supermarkets with a good selection of products.
After wandering around for a while I go into one of the many internet cafes. For the next 3 hours I am uploading new text to my webpage. The connection is OK, but not as fast as what I had in Hong Kong. Even after 3 hours I am not completely done, but I am tired and hungry and so call it quits for the day. I then walk around some more and find a restaurant in the mall for dinner. I order fried rice with veggies and shrimp. The cost of only 65B, but the portion size is quite small, so after finishing it I order a plate of Pad Thai noodles and shrimp for 55B. The portion is actually a bit larger than the first dish, and together are quite enough. Along with a Pepsi the total cost was 142B.
It is now about 8:00PM and so I take a taxi back to the hotel (41B). Later I make some phone calls back to the states, say hello to Mom, and watch one of my new DVD's on the computer. I notice that my calls back to the states quickly used up most of the value on my SIM card that I added earlier in the day. Oh well, I will get another recharge tomorrow.
In wandering around I walk past a bar with a couple bar girls sitting at an outside table. They say hello and invite me to join them. I do, and order a coke. One of them gets up to get it, and soon comes back with the Coke, and a cool damp hand towel which she uses to wipe off my hands, my face, and my forehead. Wow, what nice service! It is very pleasant to sit there, in the shade of the umbrella, with a light breeze, sipping a cold Coke, and getting my forehead and temples massaged. She asks me if I would like a massage. I think about the 3 hours that I spent yesterday hunched over a compuiter keyboard at the internet café and the way my upper back and shoulders ached, and ask her how much. She gives me the prices for several different regular massages--foot, Thai, oil, etc. These are the same massages, and same prices, that are offered at the hotel. I guess my will power was weakened by the cool towel and the fact that the girl was really cute, but I said OK, lets have a massage. She took me to a massage booth upstairs of the bar (3 massage mats with separating curtains), and gave me a full hour professional quality massage, similar to what would have cost me $60US or more back home, for about $8. Ahhhh, what a relief.
Yes, being a bar girl, she also offered other services, which I did not want and did not get the prices of. To me it was rather interesting. Here was a woman that had some real skill in massage, and also had some natural intelligence (her English was reasonable even though she had been here in BK only about 6 months). She said she didn't really like working at the bar, but it was a job, something not available in her home city.
Soon I tire of Nana and take the Skytrain to XXX stop, where I slowly walk thru the various street market stalls until I get to the river boat dock. Amazingly it is about 5:30 PM already. I am meeting T for dinner at Bangkapi Mall, which is several boat stops past the hotel along the river. I get on the next boat and sit in the front. This is the starting station for boats going either east or west. I tell the ticket seller I want to go to "Bangkapi Mall", and he sells me a 15B ticket. The ride is rather slow. It is rush hour, and nearly every stop has many people getting on the boat. And, this driver seems a bit more patient than others. So, the ride takes about an hour. At one point we pass a Muslim mosque, and I can hear the loudspeaker giving the call to prayer, and many Muslims are walking towards the mosque. I finally get off at Bangkapi, and walk about4 blocks to the Mall. Later I learn that the prior stop was the Mall itself. Oh well, communication is a wonderful thing.
T meets me in front of the Mall and we then have dinner in the food court. I have fried noodles with shrimp and veggies with a gravy sauce. The fried noodles are crisp, almost like a chinese fried noodles, but thinner. Soon the noodles are a bit soggy with the gravy. But the meal is tasty and a little different than what I have been having. We talke about our trip to Chiang Mai tomorrow, and agree that she will take a taxi to my hotel at about 7:00 AM, pick me up, and then we will go to the train station. I want to get to the station before 8:00 AM for our 8:30 AM train, just to make sure that we have time to take care of any difficulties that may arise.
We then get into a taxi, which drops her off first and then takes me to my hotel. I finish getting packed-up, and then watch one of my DVD movies.
I get up at 8:30 thinking that I will get downstairs for breakfast a little earlier, but for some reason I am slow and I still don't get to the café until 9:15. For some reason today there is no toast, I have some rice and spicy veggies, watermelon, and coffee. I then gather up two pairs of pants that need to be pressed, and then walk down to the laundry. Yes, they can press my pants while I wait. I watch the woman work--I have never had my pants so carefully ironed! She charges me only 6B each, but I give her 20B anyway. We talk some, and I learn that her name is Nan and she is from near Chiang Mai. This is her shop, which she has had for 3 years. Good for her! While waiting for the pants I also notice a csllphone store across the street. I walk over and ask if they can sell me a recharge. Yes, they have 300B recharge cards, and so I get one and add the value to my SIM card. After getting my laundry and pants from Nan I walk back to the hotel where I continue getting my packing organized for my trip tomorrow.
Later I meet an internet friend, P, for lunch. She lives in XXX, and is visiting her sister here in BK. We agree to meet at about 1:00 PM at Sukhumvit and Soi 22. I take a taxi, arrive at the appointed corner, call her, and a few minutes she arrives on a motor scooter taxi. Here in BK there are lots of motor scooter taxis, which will take you, a single passenger, to nearby places for a small fee. All of the motor scooter taxi drivers wear orange vests, and they also wear helmets. However, they do not have helmets for the passenger.
P and I say hello and start walking east along Sukhumvit to find a place to eat. Sukhumvit is one of the main drags in BK. Some parts of it are notorious for erotic nite life, while others are famous for shopping, or cheap hotels. We are in a shopping area, and walk past The Emporium, an upscale mall with designer shops. We soon turn right onto a small side street (a soi) and find a small café. I order my usual noodles and veggies, this time with pork. P gets something similar, only hotter. P normally works with children either in a nursery, or as a live-in domestic. This afternoon after we eat she is checking in with the agency here in BK that places her. Unfortunately P's english is quite limited. On the internet she could take her time to craft an email, but holding a conversation is very difficult for her. After lunch we say goodbye, and I decide to see a bit more of Sukhumvit before going back to the hotel.
I take the Skytrain to Nana station (two stations west). Nana is supposed to be nitelife area, but of course at 3:00 PM it is a bit early. But in walking around I can see that there are several places that appear to cater to men seeking companionship. In addition there are lots of tailor shops. Maybe I should get a suit made while I am here in BK?
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