Taxi Drivers, Traffic, and Fresh Fruit

Friday, 18 February 2005

Caught the subway and a taxi to meet and greet Cathy, Tess, and Erin, who were arriving from Seattle at about midnight this morning. They all got here safely, looking like the typical backpackers with their big packs, tired and worn out from the long journey overseas. We hopped into a taxi to take us to where we were staying, but the dumbass old taxi driver tried to get our baht by taking us in the wrong direction, even though I showed him on the map and told him in Thai that I knew where I was going. We found ourselves stuck in traffic at 1:30 am (typical, Bangkok has traffic at all hours!!), and after the taxi driver took us in a circle, we finally demanded to get out and walk. He tried to swindle me by asking for triple the amount of money, but I know my numbers in Thai and I can add, so he didn't get away with it (although the bastard didn't have 1 baht change for me!). We walked a few miles along Silom Road, a popular road filled with street vendors, people getting out of bars, and many many taxi drivers. Got to our place after 3 am, and we all crashed, but woke up in a few hours to start our day.

We spent the day walking around the morning markets and visiting many 7-11's to get stamps for postcards, but our greatest find by far was the fruit stand vendor who was pushing his cart down a busy 4 lane street in the middle of downtown. We had been walking for blocks looking for fresh fruit, as we really had nothing to eat since they flew in. All of a sudden we see this guy pushing a cart down this "highway" (the way people drive in Thailand, you'd think you were on a highway!), and we flag him down to buy some green mango and pineapple for 25 cents a bag. It was the girls' first introduction to buying fruit from a street vendor off the side of the road, eating green mango, using wooden skewers to poke at their fruit bites, and dipping their fruit into the delicious chili pepper/sugar combination.

We headed on the very efficient and convenient BTS skytrain (subway) to the river taxi, where we caught the taxi to Khao San Road, the farang backpacker haven. We walked down, had lunch at a movie guesthouse, then headed to see Wat Phra Kaew, the Grand Palace, and Wat Po (The Temple of the Reclining Buddha), my favorite!

After a lot of walking in the heat, we headed back to pick up our stuff and catch the bus to my town. A bit stressed, as we sat in traffic for over 2 hours on a Friday afternoon, we made it to Nakhon Pathom by 8 pm. We had just enough time to pick up dinner in plastic bags, ice cream, go to the bathroom, and Aw, Tik, and Christy (who were dining on Soi Sawng) made sure we got on motorcycle taxis quickly to get to the nearby train station. It was their first introduction to riding moto taxis. Since, we were pushing it to the minute, I had to hurry everyone on, so with our backpacks and plastic bags of food in hand, I told everyone we'd have to hop on these taxis, two to one moto (three if you include the driver). As if we didn't already have enough eyes staring at us with our obvious farang looks (not many backpackers come through our town!)...This mass of people followed us as we clumsily got on motos with all of our gear, food, and ice cream in hand and got to the train station.......Only to sit there for the next 6 hours!!!