Leaving Bangkok

After one week Bangkok was starting to feel like home. We'd explored the streets, sampled the food and spoken to some locals. There was plenty of city to be explored still, but we'd gotten a hang of the rhythm and were whistling, perhaps dancing, to the beat. Eating one more time at a street vendor's stall we decided it was time to move on, though we didn't really like to leave. With all its good and bad, Bangkok had charmed us.

We bid farewell to the very helpful staff at Suksawad Hotel, took a taxi to Southern Bus Terminal (Sai Tai) and bought a ticket to Cha-Am for 150 baht (less than 4 euros). Southern Bus Terminal was a big building complex that was mostly a store that just happened to house a few ticket booths for busses. The story was different near the platforms on the outside, though, where the vast parking places for busses spread out in all directions.

I found a pair of brown Binsin sneakers at the bus terminal for 290 baht. The trip had been rough on my West Coast shoes and my feet. A blister had formed on my left heel and the West Coast shoes were falling apart a little from all the walking - there was a visible hole in the cracked insole and I had to replace it with the one I had brought from Finland for the new sneakers. The new shoes would have to do with their original insoles.

The bus was moving fast through the vast suburbs of Bangkok. It was surprising to see how far the suburbs spread. 100 km to the south of Bangkok and there were still constant buildings by the road, with small stalls where locals were selling fruit and drinks. The amount of people living in the area must be staggering.

150 km to the south and the suburbs were still going. It was probably just roadside housing, I thought. Then a theme park, Santorini Park, came to view. An actual theme park in the middle of nowhere? The bus made stops in what I assume are towns, but from the road you couldn't really tell them apart. Phetchaburi came and went. A nap after we arrived at our destination, a little fishing village, I had thought, of Cha-Am, about 160 km southwest of Bangkok.