My So-Called Blog

I arrived Friday night in Bangkok, where I’ll be spending the next 10 weeks or so. It’s still much as I remember it — hot, humid, and alive in a way I’ve seen nowhere else.

One thing that was quite different about my landing this time — as opposed to my two previous visits — was the reception I received at the airport, which was quite personal and enthusiastic, thanks very much.

Following his side trip to Singapore, my co-worker Morgan arrived Saturday. We originally had reserved rooms at the Gold Orchid Hotel on Vibhaphavadi Rangsit Road, not far from the Chatuchak Weekend Market, but we soon discovered that the WiFi was not only not free, but was also hideously expensive (about 10 times more than what would be considered reasonable back in Oz) and wasn’t very reliable. After a couple of calls to our travel agent and a fortuitous chance meeting with a Thai limo driver who got us in to see the right people at the right apartment-rental office, we decided to bug out, and today moved to The Bedrooms on Sukhumvit 77, not far from On Nut Station. (Don’t let their website fool you, it looks like a good place if you’re looking for somewhere to stay in Bangkok for longer than just a couple of days. Most important for us, the WiFi here is gratis and appears to work quite well.)

Between dealing with the accomodation situation and trying to get a bit of work done despite being stuck offline, I’ve not had a lot of time for getting out and adventuring just yet, but Morgan and I did have some fun whilst wandering about in search of a better place to stay. In fact, if this photo’s any indicator, I think that he might even be considering a career change… ;)

I’ll get out and take in some major sites soon, but for now I’d best turn my thoughts back to more mundane matters — such as slogging through the 500+ emails I’ve just downloaded, and figuring out where I’m going to do laundry, which needs to happen Real Soon Now®.