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Asia 2006 Thailand

Cooling out in กรุงเทพ ๆ (Bangkok)

Well…I decided to stay in กรุงเทพ ๆ (Bangkok) today rather than head to Ayutthaya. I was really exhausted last night and ended up sleeping till 10:30am. I was awoken by someone from the guest house knocking on my door telling me that I had to change rooms! I told him I was checking out that day and he left me be. I tried to go back to sleep, as I was still quite tired, but I had no success.

Given how late I got out as well as the fact that I really didn’t feel up for it, I decided to stay here for the day. However, I wanted to move to a different place though. Khao San Rd is located in the old part of town, which isn’t accessible via รถไฟฟั้ (literally, train sky–Sky Train). I much prefer to stay in the newer part of town, in Sky Train land. It’s also where all the malls are and I think there is far more to do there than there is in the old part of town.

I took one of the two most convenient ways between the different sides of town…the Chao Phraya River express boat way down to the one point where the Sky Train hits the river, at the end of one of the lines (and much further south than I was going) and then took that line to the other end to the National Stadium station, which is within walking distance from the big central Siam station and is the station serving my all-time favorite place, MBK. I had a little trouble finding a vacant room again, despite the fact that it was like 12:30pm (damn tourist high season!) but I did succeed in finding one for 400 baht with a shared bathroom.

I’d also decided that all I wanted to do today was to veg out and go to a movie. I’d yet to see a movie in a Thai cinema, so I settled on seeing Eragon at the movie theaters at the Siam Paragon mall. Movie theaters here are quite cheap…100 baht (just under US$3) for a basic ticket. However, there are different classes of seats. For more (500-600 baht) you can get VIP seats that are huge recliners with foot rests, your own private lobby, and I believe butler service as well! My cheap-o seat was quite nice though…more comfy than their U.S. equivalents. They also had assigned seating…fortunately I got to pick my seat when I booked my ticket. The movie was preceded by a whopping 30 minutes of previews and commercials, culminating with the Royal anthem, which I do believe was composed by the King himself, and was quite pretty. You’re expected to stand for the duration of it. The movie itself was pretty good, though it was certainly no Lord of the Rings. Pretty much all the English films that made it to หัว หิน (Hua Hin) were dubbed in Thai, but here the film was in English with Thai subtitles.

After the film I came over to MBK (of course) for dinner and to use the super cheap internet (0.50 baht per minute). Tomorrow, ๑๗ ธันวคม ๒๕๔๙ (17 Tanwhakhom 2549–17 December 2006) my parents as well as my grandmother will be arriving. I’ll be meeting them at the airport which is really exciting! I’m sure they’ll be totally beat from the trip and won’t want to do much tomorrow, as they’ll have been travelling for something in the vicinity of 24 hours or so, not to mention the 15 hour time difference! They arrive at 11am too, which means they’ll have to stay up till night time! Should be interesting though!

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By Aaron

Hey there! I'm Aaron and this is my travel site, where I document my adventures to all corners of the world. My love for travel started at the ripe old age of four, when a midlife crisis uprooted my family to Ecuador for five years. Since then, I've been to countries on 4 different continents. When I'm not blissfully on the road, I reside in New York City, where I become the ultimate travel junkie and spend my days dreaming up my next great adventure! Read More...

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