Bangkok

Nov. 18
I arrived in Bangkok at midnight. I had 3 flights from Toronto to Chicago to Tokyo to Bangkok. I must say all 3 were very smooth with minimal turbulence. I got to my hotel, New Siam II at 1am. My room was very nice with attatched bath, TV and even a safe and strangely enough a scale too. I watched a bit of TV before crashing. It had been about 45 hours (including time change of 12 hours) since I left Niagara Falls.

Nov. 19.
My only task today was to secure a visa for Myanmar. I kept waking up and telling myself the next time I get up, I will eat and get a visa. Well, this didn't happen till almost 1pm. I asked around at a few travel agents and it seems things have changed. Instead of the travel agents getting the visa for you, I would have to go to the Myanmar embassy and apply in person. A travel also told me that the embassy closed at 1pm so I was out of luck for today. I ate a delicious breakfast of yogurt, muesli and fruit for $2. There is only a 9% difference in currency between Canadian and American right now so any prices I mention will be in Canadian. The exchange rate is $1 Can = 30 Thai baht. With nothing else to do today I went back to my room to watch TV and sleep more. I went out for a very tasty evening meal of spicy green curry vegetables and rice. Behind my hotel is a pedestrian street full of restaurants, guesthouses, vendors and more. It is similar to the backpacker ghetto of Khao San Rd. about a 10 minute walk away. There are tons of foreigners here. I have easily seen more foreigners here than I did on my whole last trip to East Africa and that's no exaggeration. I stayed up late watching movies. I'm still very jet lagged.

Nov. 20.
I was up at 7.30 today and watched a bit of TV before eating a tasty breakfast in the hotel restaurant. My goal today was to get a visa for Myanmar. To get to the embassy I first had to get to the pier, which was a 5 minute walk away. The traffic can be hectic in Bangkok and for where I had to get to, taking a public boat was the best option. The ticket was 50 cents and I rode to boat to Central pier which took about half an hour. The boat was very efficient at docking and dropping off/picking up passengers in minutes. From the central pier I took a mototaxi to the embassy. It was a bit unnerving on the moto as the driver weaved through Bangkok's traffic. Surprisingly though, they gave me a helmet to wear. At the embassy I filled out the detailed forms for a tourist visa. They wanted to know everything, eye color, hair color, complexion,my father's full name, hotel I'll be staying in, why I wanted to go there and my last 3 jobs! I also had to paste in 2 passport photos which I had brought with me from home. They told me to come back to collect my visa on tuesday and this was friday! I did not want to wait that long in Bangkok or travel anywhere in the meantime so I asked about an express visa. They told me if I paid $15 more I could have the visa today, so I went with that option, considering it would cost me a lot more to hang around for another 4 days.
Visa application done, I went back to my hotel to rest and eat lunch. I got back to the embassy right at 3pm when they told me to come back to collect my visa. The place was jam packed! Thankfully they opened up another queue for visa express applicants. I only waited 10 minutes in this line before getting my visa. Now I had to get a flight to Myanmar as there are no overland options into the country. I went to the travel agency at my hotel and they told me that all flights into Myanmar were booked until monday! This was terrible news so I went to another agency to confirm it and they told me the same thing. So I went back to my hotel agency to buy a ticket for monday. As they searched, a seat became available for tomorrow, saturday. This was the news I wanted and I promptly paid for my ticket.
Myanmar was turning out to be more popular than I had thought. The travel agent told me that the high season is beginning now and that anytime last month I could have gotten a seat anyday for a flight. I relaxed in my room and then went out to eat dinner. Back in my room I had planned on watching a movie but 20 minutes in I began to fall asleep. It was only 8.30, but I decided not to fight it and crashed.


Nov. 21
I was up at 7.30 and watched a movie before eating breakfast. My flight is at 6pm and checkout time is 11am. I didn't want to hang out in cafes for 5 hours till I had to leave for the airport so I paid for half a day in my room. My next post will be from Myanmar.