Beasties in Bangkok

Beasties!

Our last full day in Bangkok meant shopping again, but this time for Joanne's camera and a laptop for me. We hoped to get a mini-laptop (or webbook, I think they are also called), which we had seen lots of people with, so that some of my blogging time could be in nicer locations than internet cafes. Joanne copied me and got a Panasonic DMC, but she went for the previous model, the TZ4, just to save a wee bit of money. Some serious haggling secured the camera, the 16GB memory card, a spare battery (we can share), and a case for 10200 Baht. I got an Asus Eee PC from a shop where they would not haggle at all, but told me that I could reclaim the VAT when I left the country. I'm not sure why this does not apply to the cameras. One of the shops told me it's because it's a special VAT-free shopping centre, but I worry it might be because the shops in that centre simply haven't registered for VAT. We were getting a bit sick of Bangkok, so decided to leave the following day and do whatever touristy things we still wanted to do here when we returned to get our Indian visa and flight. On the way home that night, we passed a stall selling insects and other beasties to eat. I remembered the stall from last time and had regretted not having tried any before so, although I really didn't feel like it when I saw them, I did what needed done and ordered a small bag of wormy things and just one grasshopper. I couldn't face the cicadas. I was quite disappointed. I thought they would be served with chilli and made into some interesting dish, but they were just deep fried and salted. Soy sauce was optional. They just tasted like ready salted crisps. Nothing special at all, just grease and salt. The worst bit about it was that a piece of the grasshopper's body got stuck between two teeth and caused me quite a lot of pain before I found a toothpick to remove it. While we were standing there I discovered that Thais don't eat them for the taste or nutrition at all: they eat them for “power”, which is a (South East?) Asian euphemism for potency or virility. I'd be surprised if there is any medical evidence to support this belief, but why would anyone bother now that they could get Viagra instead now?

Last touristy feat accomplished, we were ready to leave the next day. All we had to do was get to “Sai Tai Mai” or the Southern Bus Station. The only problem was almost all the information we could find about it goes on at length about the “new” Southern Bus Station and warns about accidentally going to the “old” Southern bus Station. Wikitravel, however, includes the extra bit of information that the bus station has moved twice in quick succession, so make sure you are taken to the new new bus station, rather than the old new bus station. The second move was in November last year, and all the other information does indeed date from before that. Our second problem was that we wanted to take the bus, but Wikitravel did not say which bus to take from Khaosan Road. Bus information isn't easy to get, but I did eventually find a bus map for sale, which allowed me to devise a route taking two buses, to where I thought the bus station was. It wasn't marked on the map, and neither was the street it was located on, so there was a degree of guesswork involved I wasn't particularly happy about. However we did have all day. We just knew that we did not want to get a bus from Khaosan, which is what any “tourist information” shop told us we should do (their own bus tickets of course). These South-travelling buses from Khaosan Road are absolutely notorious for theft. We had read news stories about people being left at the side of the road after all their money and valuables had been taken, and we had met several people how had been stolen from on these buses, always leaving from Khaosan heading South. Apparently they employ professional lock-pickers who stow themselves in with the luggage, and go through everyone's bags, locked or not. We were standing waiting on the main road just down from Democracy Monument, near Khaosan, for the first bus of two that I hoped would take us to Sai Tai Mai, and a bus went past us, a 556, with “Southern Bus Station” written on the side. Amazing luck! We crossed the road, so that we were heading in that direction instead of the airport and were quickly taken to the enormous air-conditioned mall that is the Southern Bus Station, where we bought nice cheap tickets for an overnight bus and waited for it to leave. I noticed that one of the two internet cafes in the bus station had plenty of spare electrical points, so we paid for a couple of hours online and sat at the back where we were able to plug in and fully charge everything that needed it. Just as well because getting the overnight bus meant we were definitely not staying overnight in Ranong and this might be the last electricity we would see for a few days.

Finally Joanne gets one too

written by  The Happy Couple on April 25, 2009 from Bangkok, Thailand
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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