Cruisin aroud Bangkok

While hanging around, waiting for my flight to Kathmandu this Saturday I have been cruising through Bangkok courtesy of the public transport system.
Not far from my hotel is a wharf for the ferries plying the Chao Praya and for 50 cents you can go from one side of Bangkok to the other. When I did get off the boat and started on a walk through China town it took me only a few minutes to get lost though. Should have stuck with the boat.
Never mind there is always a tuktuk to get you back home again.

Today I hope to get on the monorail and look at the city from above. So maybe some more pictures tomorrow.

Bangkok again

Well I am back in Bangkok after a trip hat actually went smoother then I had anticipated. A combination of share taxi and minibus saw me back in the Rambuttri village inn just after six in the evening.
I expect to spendt the remainder of my time in Thailand in and around the city before flying to Kathmandu next Saturday.

Agni Air

Just hearing that an Agni Air flight between Lukla and Kathmandu had crashed. Agni Air is the company I had my flight from hell with a few years ago.

Four Seasons

AUTUMN
After spending almost two weeks in Siem Reap the urge to move struck me again.
It was still dark when I woke up and a light drizzle came down while I waited for the bus to take me to the boat landing at Tonle Sap.

WINTER
The choises on the boat to Battambang are simple sit inside and loose your hearing from the noise of an unshielded diesel engine and loose your lungs to the diesel fumes or sit outside, that is on the cabin roof, and take your changes with the elements. I climbed on the roof.
The drizzle steadily turned into rain and the number of people on the roof dwindled until there were just two of us left braving the weather. Although I had my raincoat on I still got wetter and colder by the minute. My watch has a thermometer and it revealed that the temperature had dropped to 25 degrees. I felt hypothermia was close.

SPRING
We left the lake for the river leading to Battambang, the rain slowed down to a drizzle and occaisionally the sun came peaking out from behind the clouds. A few not so hardy souls started to venture out from the cabin and return to the roof suitably amazed that two of us had stuck it out there the whole morning.

SUMMER
Finally the rain stopped and the clouds disappeared. The roof top got busier all the time and people started breaking out the sun screen. An English couple went from pasty white to lobster red in about an hour and I dried out and warmed up again. The mercury rose to forty degrees and after twelve hours of travel I was happy to arrive in Battambang.

More ruins and a bike ride.

After a days rest I got back on the bike, and feeling a lot better then during my first ride tackled the "Grand Circuit" a trip that takes in most of Angkor's main temples. It turned out to be quite a day. In the end I cycled almost fifty kilometers over highways and byways visiting numerous temples and feeling yet again like death warmed up at the end of it. What is nice about being out on a bike though is the ability to go where you please and stop where you want. I've seen monkeys and birds, and people working in the rice paddies where all those in a tuktuk just raised by. I seem to get a better reception from the locals as well, who of course all travel by bike as well.