Day 1
11 July 2002 Thursday
Melody’s mother sent us to the airport. I had to take a cab to her house first. I had a short chat with the taxi driver, there is quite alot of interesting stuff that you could learn from strangers. The Chinese taxi driver who doesn’t speak proper English, a man of his 40s is a fan of English songs. He used to study in a school called Mahatma Gandhi high school, a private school. The school was situated opposite the old Turf club and was filled with Indian students. He was telling me how he and his friends rush to the Turf club to gamble everyday. He was once a businessman but it failed due to the 1986 economic crisis. He ended up driving a taxi cab and years after that he bought couple of them and starts renting it to others. And now he owns a bakery business. Driving a taxi now is just to kill time for him.
We arrived at KLIA 2 hours before departure. Had a drink while waiting. The price drinks at KLIA are outrageous. A bloody fresh squeezed orange juice cost RM8.90! I spoke to a dark and distinguish middle aged Thai man. He was complaining about the service of the caf�. I started with
“Where are you from?”
“Bangkok, and you?”
“KL, I’m going to Bangkok later. Anything good to eat?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“mmm, beef and grasshoppers?
“well, beef is nice! The grasshoppers are easily available infront of shopping centres. They sell them as snacks”
He kept on talking. I wanted to leave and tried excusing myself but he just couldn’t stop talking. The last line went “Where are you staying in Bangkok?”
“I’m staying in First Hotel”
He ended with “Horrible place”
The flight was a bumpy one. The food provided by Thai airways was not bad compared to other airlines (probably tasted good cause we were hungry). However, their stewardesses aren’t that pretty but they sound really cute when they speak Thai. It took about an hour and 45 minutes.
Bangkok city is nothing special. Same scenery, super highways, traffic jams but with loads of huge billboards (Biggest I’ve ever seen!) and loads of 7-11s (I MEAN LOADS! There is one in almost every street!)
We stayed at First hotel. It might be called the First hotel because it’s one of the first hotels in Bangkok. The authority? Run down and poorly maintained! The shower is horrible. One minute it’s too hot and the next minute it’s too cold. The place is spooky.
Our tour guide, Wawa is a Thai. He talks a lot of crap but yet entertaining and friendly. Every time a girl passes by, he’ll go like oh that’s my ex girlfriend! He gave us the Thai names for young girls (okk okk), old girls (Ekk Ekk) and transvestites (Akk Akk) There was once he spoke about his background. He used to stay in Bangkok’s Chinatown but was forced to move out because of the economic recession.
“This hotel, 5 star, owned by Chinese. They control Bangkok’s business trade”, said Wawa while pointing towards a huge hotel.
Wawa is our tour guide of the 6 person group, 2 couples (including me and melody) and 2 other guys. Initially everyone was shy to talk to each other. But later on, we started to talk. The couple, William and Natalie are from KL. Natalie loves to shop and she would dump her boyfriend somewhere to shop.
– 11:59PM
I’m back from Bangkok! Details of the trip..coming up soon!
– 2:41PM