One Night in Bangkok

The next day was our final full day as a group. It started with us getting up early and jumping on a bus out of Siem Reap to the border town in which we were crossing from Cambodia into Thailand. I don’t recall the name of the border town, but it looked like pretty much every other border town as far as I could tell, with some casinos on the Cambodia side, just like when we entered Cambodia from Vietnam.

The crossing seemed to be a little more hectic than usual, especially on the Cambodian side, but after all this time, I’ve seen worse so it didn’t bother me too much. After getting through, we hopped onto a different private bus for the four-or-so hour drive to Bangkok. At least in this second bus, we had a DVD player and a television. To celebrate, I whipped out the Big Bang Theory DVDs that I had purchased in Phnom Penh and we were treated to a Sheldon Marathon for the entire length of the trip. I was even able to learn about Thai culture while watching one of the episodes. Is there any problem that a sitcom can’t solve?

By the time we arrived in Bangkok, it was starting to get late, or at least dark. We threw our things down and went out to get some dinner. On the menu at our restaurant, there was fried ostrich on the menu. I hadn’t had ostrich since my local Fuddruckers stopped selling it, so I indulged. It was good, but nothing special. (By the way, I have no more relevant pictures of the evening, so I'm just starting to post random photos from my first day in Thailand.)

After dinner, everybody went out for drinks since it was our final night together. Unfortunately, somebody decided that we should go to an Irish pub. I don’t particularly like Irish pubs. I stayed around for a beer, but then went Darkman and escaped back to the hotel.

I was able to go to sleep pretty quickly but not long as I woke up for some reason around 1:00 am. Shortly afterwards, my roommate showed up rather intoxicated. Okay, he was very fucking drunk. He wasn’t sure how he had gotten back to the hotel. A few minutes after he arrived, he said he had to spew and walked to the closet. Fortunately for everyone, once he opened the closet door, he realized it wasn’t the bathroom and asked for directions to the proper spewing room. I pointed him in the right direction and about five minutes later he was back in bed, passed out and snoring like the proverbial rusty chain saw. Good times, good times.

The next morning, I was feeling pretty good. Obviously, that wasn’t the case with all of the revelers, so I got up early and started walking around the part of Bangkok in which our hotel was located. It was near the river and wasn’t the most interesting part of town, but there was a little restaurant that was a few doors down from the hotel that served an American breakfast. (Breakfast being the one meal of the day in which I usually go western. Usually.)

The high point of the breakfast was the bacon. Now, everywhere in the world that I’ve travelled generally has something that they call “bacon.” Almost always, it’s some form or cut of ham that no self-respecting American would ever call bacon. The bacon in this restaurant, however, was the real deal. I decided, as soon as I took my first bite, that I was going to enjoy Bangkok.