Arcane Candy

Monday, June 29, 2015
Bangkok, Thailand

The exterior of the Lithai Guesthouse in Phitsanulok, Thailand.

I wanted to stay a few extra days in Phitsanulok to do some more exploring, but, unfortunately, my Thailand visa was set to expire on July 3, so I had to hightail it back to Bangkok to take care of some important errands before I headed over to Cambodia. At bus station number one, I was surprised to find only two or three windows selling tickets to Bangkok. Maybe station number two has more? Anyway, I bought my ticket and had about an hour to kill, so I ate lunch at a little hole in the wall eatery just across the street.

A tuk-tuk driver in Phitsanulok, Thailand.

As I sat back down in front of my gate, the nice lady who sold me my ticket walked out of her booth and told me the bus had just arrived at another gate, which possibly saved me from missing it. Since they insisted that I stow my backpack in the luggage compartment down below, I wrapped it up in my PacSafe metal net and locked it to a post down there so no one could take off with it. The bus was one of those deluxe double deckers in which I reserved a seat right up front on the top level for a bird’s eye view of the road splayed out ahead.

Bus station number one in Phitsanulok, Thailand.

Once again, no one sat next to me, which made it even more comfortable and easy to catch up on my journal with my laptop. I felt like a giant pterodactyl soaring over the highways of Thailand as we made our way down to the megalopolis of Bangkok. On the way, I saw the most impressively giant, ornate dragon that snaked its way around the front and both sides of a Buddhist temple. It seemed to stretch out forever. I wish I could have got some photos of that. Not long after, I spotted the most gigantic billboard I’ve ever seen in my life. This thing was at least three or four times bigger than any other billboard I’ve ever seen in my whole life. It was insanely wide, like way beyond wide screen format. The crazy thing is one side of it was dilapidated and devoid of any advertising, while the other side sported a slick new ad for a truck.

The view from the shotgun seat on a double decker bus in Phitsanulok, Thailand.

Arriving in Bangkok at around 5:30 pm, I was surprised the journey only took five hours, as I was expecting it to take seven. After I got dropped off at the Mo Chit bus station, I hired a motorcycle taxi to drive me the two kilometers over to the SkyTrain. Employing a game of charades, I asked him to go slow, which he did, luckily for me. Once I disembarked from the SkyTrain at Siam, I had to wait for a whole hour for bus number 15 to show up. I must have just missed one. I was surprised it took that long so early in the evening.

A sardine-packed bus number 15 at rush hour in Bangkok, Thailand.

Since it was rush hour, the bus was completely packed to the gills. I had to stand and try to hold up my backpack with my messenger bag with one hand and hold on to the railing for dear life with my other as I got jostled around. About halfway through the ride, a nice foreigner girl let me take a seat that just opened up. After I checked into the Nat 2 Guesthouse, I headed over to May Kaidee’s for a bowl of Panang Curry and some rice. It was amazing how much better May’s food tastes than all of the grub I had in other parts of Thailand for the past couple of weeks. If you’re ever in Bangkok, definitely give one of her curry dishes a try!

Words and photos ©2015 Arcane Candy.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2015 at 9:22 pm and is filed under Tropical Storm Tour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.