october282001

Hello again from Bangkok,

Since our last entry we have travelled north to the bustling city of Bangkok. It is our unofficial home away from home while we are on this adventure. It is the hub of the region, and since we have a year open roundtrip ticket in and out of here, it is where we travel to prepare for our next destination. We took the over night VIP bus from Krabi to Bangkok. It arrived at 5am. Who thought it would actually arrive on time? But it did. It is a bit unerving to be awoken from a dead sleep with cries of "Bangkok, Bangkok!!!" and five minutes later find yourself on the street, with your backpack, and no clue where you are; but then the ever comforting site of the taxi/tuk-tuk driver wide awake and asking "where you go?, where you go?". With our wits not at all about us, we jumped into a taxi and told him to take us to the Atlanta. We were hoping they would have a room available. He gave us some outragous price, said it was 10km and when Brad said, turn on the meter he said with a sly smile (it is said Thai people have seven different smiles ranging from happy to revenge) "no, no". Brad talked him down in price, and miraculously we arrived sound and safe at the Atlanta...in ten minutes. Definitely not a 10km ride. You can not put a price on being safe. Walking into the Atlanta, this is where we stayed in September, the desk lady asked if we had a reseveration, we said no, and she said with a smile, "sorry, no rooms". We have learned that the Atlanta is a hotel of a different breed; thank god. They fancy themselves to be an upstanding establishment who operates within a sea of the sex trade industry. They do not accept off the street backpackers who may be here for the usual seedy flavors of Thailand. Signs are posted that warn the customer that this type of behavior is not accepted nor tolerated. We are glad to have found this place! Knowing this, Brad struck up a conversation with a British chap, who seemed to be interested in our arrival, about our left luggage and how much we enjoyed our last visit to the Atlanta. He winked to the receptionist and directed us to some seats and said he would take care of us. We got into the Atanta the last time by calling from the airport and making a reservation. This step alone must indicate you are not the average traveller. The good news, we had breakfast in the wonderful restaruant and were in a room by 9am! Roger, the British chap, came here a year ago, liked it so much that he found a job teaching at a university, and now runs the reservation at the Atlanta....we had a feeling this was the case. Roger has since told us he will give us his email so we can notify him of our next arrival and he will see what he can do. Home away from home.

We came to Bangkok to organize our next adventure. Remember the notion of Austraila? Our plans have changed again. As we looked into flights we were left feeling we had not seen enough of SE Asia. Austraila, although exciting, felt too similar. We are eager for a bit more exotic locale. So we are now back to our original plan of going to Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Northern Thailand. We have met a couple from Canada, Lance and Karen, and they have travelled extensively and helped put our mind at ease about these locales. It would truly be a shame to have been here and missed these places. We are going to travel over land in a big loop connecting all of these countries. In Cambodia we are going to visit Ankgor Wat. It is an ancient ruin which is said to be a true wonder of the world. This is located near Seam Reap. From there we go to Phnom Phen. For a recent history lesson rent the movie "The Killing Fields". Then we book a bus to Saigon, Vietnam. We hope to travel the train along the coast from Saigon to Hanoi which is the largest city in the north. We will then back track a bit and enter Laos. Once across the border we will work our way to the capital city of Vientienne. Then north towards the China border. Laos is very primative and ancient. This will be our opportunity to leave the tourism behind and possibly do a short trek to visit a hill tribe. We will then cross over into Thailand. Here we hope to do an elephant trek. This loop should take about 3 months. Then we will return to our home away from home and plan the next adventure.

It has taken about 10 days to organize our visas. We learned how not to go about this process at first. We arrived on Saturday morning, we thought it was Friday morning, and thus had to wait until Monday to get started. With a lazy start on Monday (it is our honeymoon!) we first went to the U.S. embassy to register. This is so they know we are here, and can reach us if needed. It was sure interesting to witness the increased security around the complex. Brad caused the guards to jump when he walked right by like he owned the place. After explaining our business, they let us pass. Now that it was about 11am, it was off to find the Cambodian Embassy. Surely it is just a short walk around the corner. We have learned that it is really cheap just to take the darn taxi. We arrived at the Cambodian Embassy at 11:30 only to find out the business hours are 9am to 11am. Can you say call ahead? No problem, we will come back tomorrow. News flash to Brad and Jen, tomorrow is a Thailand Holiday, all government buildings closed. It takes 5 days to get a visa to Vietnam alone, so we have now pushed our Bangkok stay into the next week. Feelilng rather dejected on Tuesday afternoon, we decided to check with the tour office at the hotel, and of course she can handle the whole thing. If we would have done this Monday maybe would have had 7 days instead of nearly 14 days here. We have made the best of it. Actually, we enjoy being here much more now that we are more comfortable with the city.

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