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32: Dead Man Walkin

Wednesday, December 21st, 2005

It seems like Jetlag has caught up with me (despite Melatonex).
I was ok yesterday but then I did not get up until late morning. Today I tried to get up at 8am and whilst I managed to do so I did not get much done today. I felt like a dead man walkin.. I was completely knackered and only made it as far as Benjasiri Park.

Plan was to read up on touristy things to do in Bangkok, then deciding what to do with the rest of the day… Whilst I did just that (I walked around the park a bit before grabbing a bank to sit on and read) I soon became more and more tired. I seriously tried to fight it off but soon had to followed the locals examle and stretched out on the bench to get more “comfortable”! Needless to say I closed my eyes on more than on occasion 😉

Well I kept hanging out there until around 1pm. I didn’t feel much better and was struggling to get my energy back. Eventually I picked myself up with best intentions to go to Chinatown. Quickly pop back into the hotel room to get myself ready… well.. the bed weas too tempting and thus I let chinatown be for another day.

I only made it back out for Dinner around 6pm and then wandered around the area to look at all the street stalls before heading back to get some more rest.

One wasted day.. but then.. I guess I’m not in a hurry so what the heck, sleeping sounds just fine 😀

30: Tai Chi, Hymns and Elephants

Monday, December 19th, 2005

After I arrived in Bangkok I was pretty knackered and I took my ime in the hotel to unpack a few things, have a shower and read a bit.

Eventually I went out for a walk, it was about 17:00 by then. As I was walking along Sukhumvit Road (the main road near the hotel) I noticed a park called Benjasiri Park. I decided to go in because there was a group of people practising Tai Chi near the entrance. At least I think it was Tai Chi. Some (dare I say chinese) music played and an istructor whoed the moves. It was quite nice to watch and rather relaxing so I sat down on a bench nearby and watched for a while.

Whilst looking around I noticed plenty of people excersising in the park. In particlar a lot of people running (jogging).

As I was sitting there watching the Tai Chi something strange happened.
A bell sounded and an everybody froze right away. The Tai Chi people stopped doing what they were doing, the joggers stopped right where they were at the time, folks that sat on benched stood up. The whole park looked like someone stopped time, nobody moved! Then some music was broadcast and I figured that this must be the national hymn. I decided I better stand up as well and felt rather silly standing there… The whole thing was very curious! I wonder if this happens
every evening (I will soon find out).

Well after everybody started moving again I left the park and kept walking. After a while I decided to look for a place to eat. I found a popular street restaurant in a little side road and decided to sit down. Easy enough to order since the menu had englisch translations and also pictures.
I didn’t want anything fancy so I ordered some Fried Rice with Prawns and some steamed vegetable with Oyster Sauce. The vegetables were called Morning Glory and looked interesting on the picture (thin dark green leafy veg). The rice was tasty but had more than prawns in it.. looked more like a fried rice with prawns, crabmeat and chicken. The veg were great hough the oyster sauce was not what I expected. It was rather hot (spicy) and the veg had lots of little whole red chilis mixed in. Of course plenty of garlic.. decided to leave the whole gloves on the plate 😉

Including drinks I paid 135 baht (maybe 2 pounds, 3 euros).

As I just about finished my meal an Elephant walked by my table. Seriously! It actually stopped and had a snack. Some guy was going around selling little bags of food to people so they could feed theElephant. A little girl did have fun doing this right in front of my table (no it was not smelly and did not put me off my meal 🙂

Not bad a few hours in Thailand 🙂

29: Thailand (Getting there…)

Monday, December 19th, 2005
Made it to Thailand. I flew from frankfurt to Bangkok (BKK) with Thai Airways. I left at 20:45 GMT+1 (German Local Time) after 40 mins delay and arrived at 12:45 lunch time (BKK local time) which makes it about 5:30 GMT. Flight was ... [Continue reading this entry]