April 11
We get up early today to depart Vietnam and return to our
wonderfully familiar Bangkok and our friends on Khaosan Road. We leave
our guesthouse by taxi and arrive at the airport around 8:00am for our
flight. We have a little issue with our
bags, but it is quickly resolved when we pay to check in one more bag because
of weight. They are real sticklers about
the weight of the bags here so we try to anticipate that eventuality when we
pack our check-in versus our carry on bags.
We attempt to go through customs, but each line we queue up in either
gets closed, there is an issue/hold-up or we are waved off. I am beginning to get a bit of a complex
about being an American here and tell Paulie that I want to get some passport
covers for future travels. Finally, we
get through to the security check point and out the other side. Our flight is uneventful and we arrive in
Bangkok by 11:00am. Funny that we spent
a week leaving Thailand and 1 ½ hours returning. We are planning to try our hand at the rail
link from the airport and find our way down to the metro stop. We, along with about a million other people,
cram into the cars and we are off. We
arrive at the end of the line and depart in search of a taxi to take us the
rest of the way. We soon spot one that
will agree to take 5 people along with our large luggage to our Khaosan Park
Resort hotel. Our taxi driver is funny
and clearly has a strong affinity for Hudson.
He purchase some fried bananas from a street vendor while we are stopped
in traffic and he shares with all of us.
We get to our destination shortly and barely recognize the place. You can see that the decorations are already
in place for the upcoming Songkran Festival (Water Festival celebrating New
Year). There are banners strung up
across the street and it make things a bit disorienting to see our familiar
haunts. We finally get to the hotel and
are happy to see the smiling faces that greet us. Our room is ready and we unload our bags
before getting a bite to eat from our favorite kebab vendor just outside our
door. People have their huge waterguns
for sale on the side of the road and every other vendor has them as well. We are preparing to lock down for the next
few days while the festivities are underway and the anticipation is mounting
for a huge street party. We wander about
for a while and then rest up in our room before searching out an Indian restaurant
for dinner. Afterward, we enjoy a movie
from our newly acquired collection in Vietnam and call it a night.
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