A bus trip from Pattaya to Bangkok

May 4, 2007 – Friday

Pattaya to Bangkok

Left Pattaya bus station after dropping a few things off with a friend and turning my keys back into the manager of Rainbow Lodge on Soi 2. Decent enough place and fairly reasonable at 8,500 Baht for what you get, but unless you are a Go-Go Bar kind of guy, it gets old after a week or two.

It slammed poured last night and continued to rain today. Has ben this way for at least the last 3 days now all around the 1^stfull moon of the month. The countryside from my many motorbike rides is lush and green, a truly wonderful site to behold. Cant wait to be along the Mekong and the northern rice fields and the amazing greens that they always have.

Interesting to note how much the Pattaya Bus Station has been renovated and upgraded with new windows with new routes to the Southern Bus Station in Bangkok and Aranyaprathet/Poipeton the border with Cambodia. Even a new building housing transportation to the new Bangkok airport Suvarnabhumi. (As strange as this might sound, the word in English is pronounced nothing like it looks in English. It is pronounced "sue wha na poom" which means in Thai and Khymer, 'Land of Gold'.

The bus trip into Bangkok’s Ekamai was for the 1^st time in a very long time not full and I actually had a seat next to me that was empty. A welcomed event as with my now bulging backpack with me on the bus, it allowed to spread out a bit a read the newspaper with a bit more comfort. The trip into Bangkok was also faster than most trips hitting the Bangpopong Power Plant and river about an hour and 10 minutes out into the trip and finally getting off at On Nut on Sukhumvit to catch the BTS to Asok after only 2 hours.

Unfortunately however the travel agency I have used over many years had just closed (Overland Travel) for lunch at noon so I had to lug my gear down Sukhumvit to Nana to check my mail. A friend was suppose to meet me at 1PM at Morning Night so I would have to head back to Overland Travel to get my train ticket and book my flight back to Germany a bit later.

I had asked him to bring his Panasonic camera as my new Nikon S7 was toast due to getting sprayed with water during Pattaya’s days of Songkran festivities. A bit more camera than I really needed of wanted at the moment and as I really prefer compact, the SLR design does not leave any doubt you are carrying a camera…..but it does have an amazing optical zoom of 12 times which combined with the digital zoom feature can expand that out to 48 times. Also has 8 megapixels and more bells and whistles than I will every learn to use but at 15,000 Baht, one hell of deal. I bought it. What the hell.

19:30 Hua Lumpong Train Station

After playing a few games of pool with a friend, I hopped on the subway and made a very easy and cheap ride (26 Baht) to the train station from Asok. Bangkok sure has gotten far easier over the years to get from point A to point B and combined with the incredibly low costs, how could one ever complain?