This trip took place during out last long break, between Terms 1 and 2. One week is too long to just hang around Jakarta, and it seemed like a good chance to go see another country. So... Thailand it was! Lynsey, Nicole, Kristina, and I flew together to Bangkok on September 29th and flew back to Jakarta on the following Saturday, October 6th. We spent a day and a half in Bangkok and five in Chiang Mai in the north before returning to Bangkok.
In Bangkok we stayed at a rather cute hostel that was also a coffee shop out front. Had some trouble getting there though. After taking the express train from the airport into the city, we ended up at some intersection of roads and bridges and had trouble hailing taxis. The ones we did manage to call over all refused to turn on their meters, so we refused to get in. After several failed attempts - even with the help of a very nice lady who wrote down directions to our hostel in Thai writing, and then talked to the taxi drivers on our behalf, all while balancing a baby on her hip - we gave up on the idea of getting a taxi and pulled over one of the city's famous tuk-tuks. And so all four of us and our luggage squeezed into one tuk-tuk. And squeezed really is the right word (a bit like sardines, only cozier.) The view of Bangkok from the little motorized taxi was pretty awesome, and it seemed like the quintessential way to get to our hostel.
That first night we went to the train station to buy train tickets to Chaing Mai, our next destination, and then our tuk-tuk driver (we had given up on taxis at this point and didn't take one all week in Thailand, except at the very end of our trip to get back to the airport) took us to some boat tour company he was in league with. After bartering down a one hour trip to a more reasonable cost, we got a tour of the some of the buildings and temples along the river. It was a nice tour, but they shorted us for time. When we demanded we get the full hour tour instead of just 45 minutes, the boat driver just pulled out into the river and idled there. (Grumble, grumble, what a jerk!) After that, we wandered around the streets, taking in new surroundings and looking for the fabled Khao San Road.
Khao San Road is (to steal a line I read somewhere) a backpacker's Mecca. Instantly I knew we had wandered into some
weird twilight dimension filled with surreal characters and places. It’s hard
to explain the exact ambience, but I’ll try. One of the first people I spotted
was an wandering, heads-in-the-clouds white hippie woman (quite possibly under
the influence of drugs or simply eccentric) walking around in the middle of the
road in her earth-tone clothes, no shoes on her feet. She met up with an equally
spacey white hippie man. The characters in Khao San road are all interesting. A
mixture of races, a lot of white 20-somethings with big "Aladdin-style" pants – the
essential clothing for wanderlustful travelers on their Grand-Asian-Tours – and
big backpacks with weeks’, maybe months’, worth of gear. I saw a man with crazy
gelled hair that stood up like flames, and a man with dreadlocks down to his
knees (I kid you not.) Aladdin pants, paintings, all manner of colourful sourvenirs, and foot massages were all
for sale in the road. Once night came, the carts with the bizarre,
stomach-flipping insects came out – 30 baht for a small sample, 10 baht for a
photo. There were also locals, hawkers, and a number of families there, even families with small kids. Khao San road is the sort of place where
people watching isn't just recommended, it’s almost required, and almost
impossible to avoid.
I went home early because I was
exhausted (and, according to my friends, looked absolutely terrible.) Turns out
going on vacation is not the best way to recover from illness. (Oh yes, I had been sick the week before vacation. Almost thought I wasn't going to make it.) The next day it
was a tight schedule of temple seeing. We wandered around with the map, visited
a smaller temple first, then found out we were right across from the Grand
Palace. The Grand Palace wasn’t just, it was absolutely spectacular. After
waiting our turn with everyone else in the Foreigners queue, we came out on the
breathtaking Temple ground. To look around the place, one of the best
descriptors I can give is this: gold; lots and lots of shiny gold. Gold plated
almost every structure in one way or another. Some of the temple roofs and ornaments
seemed to be made out of solid gold plating. I have never seen such sunlit
gildedness in my life. The buildings themselves were also beautiful: grand and
imposing Thai architecture, replete with awesome mythical statues that
prompted tons of picture taking. Next, was the temple of the Reclining Buddha (aka: Wat Pho.) We took off our shoes before going inside, as you do at any temple, and Lynsey and Nicole had to don lime green robes because apparently their shorts were just too short. (And by too short, I mean anything above the knees.) The Buddha is huge (according to Wikipedia, 43 meters long, because I certainly can’t estimate things like that,) lying on his side and looking leisurely, like the name claims. The toes are spirals made of mother-of-pearl and his feet show some sort of history, also illustrated in mother-of-pearl. A very awesome sight. I was really looking forward to seeing it, so I'm glad we got there. (Also, there was a funny sign outside the temple that said: “Ladies, don’t touch the monks.” Duly noted. That will go in my collection of peculiar signs.)
The rest of the day was spent wandering and somehow we ended up back at our hostel. The sidewalks in Bangkok are actually decent enough to walk on, unlike Jakarta. After having a long, leisurely lunch at a restaurant across the street, we finished packing up and headed to the station to wait for our train. (At this point in time I was struggling to enjoy Thai food, which I really enjoy, but because of my recent illness I was eating even slower than usual because a lot of foods made me feel nauseous. It was rather tragic, but fortunately I finally felt better before the trip was done.)
We left Bangkok that night by the
night train. Again, lots of 20-something Europeans suddenly seemed everywhere.
I felt like I had something in common with those people – a common cultural
background, at least in a broad sense, and probably common knowledge of English
– but I also felt the differences between us, we being expats on a week-long
vacation, most of them on long tours, after which they would go back to France,
England, Germany, etc. Still, there’s something oddly comforting about seeing
people who look like you in a strange place. 
The sleeper cars were modest but comfortable. I slept well and enjoyed seeing the scenery the next morning as we made our way north across Thailand. The night before we made our way between rickety, questionable-looking passages between the cars to get to the dining car. It was neat to look around at all the other travelers enjoying their Singha beers and having a good time. I tried to soak up the atmosphere as much as I could. I'm very happy we took the night train; it was a good experience.More to follow. That's only the first two days! The rest of our time was spent in the northern city of Chiang Mai, which was even better than Bangkok in my opinion.
