Bangkok: Royal city of touts...

Another early-ish morning (7:30am), and we were up to get to the airport, for our flight from Siem Reap to Bangkok. Got guilted by the tuk tuk driver into agreeing to pay him(before the ride) $5 instead of the $3 it should have been(he said it was a 40 minute ride, but it was really only 20 minutes). Grr. Went in, all the airport workers on the way asking where we were flying too, then directing us towards what seemed to be the only departures area. Not sure what we should have said to be directed somewhere better! My grumpiness at the tuktuk driver abated when we saw that they were checking in for the 9:30 Bangkok flight(we were supposed to fly at 11am), and when I asked they said we could take the earlier flight instead. Grumpiness returned when we went over to the passenger service line after check-in and saw that the departure fee was $25US!!! I had resigned myself to the $15 the guide book said, but $25?? Highway robbery. To help make the airport pretty, said the poster on the wall beside the booth... I tell you, I don't mind ugly airports that much! (and seriously, for $25 per person, it could look a whole lot better). Grumpiness gone again when I realized that I had 10000 riel just burning a hole in my pocket, and there was a beautiful pain au chocolat waiting for me that only cost 6000! Happy again, we walked right onto the plane for the 35 minute flight to Bangkok. Yup, 35 minutes(45 minutes gate to gate). Painless. We had our luggage and were trying to find the train in Bangkok before our original flight had been scheduled to leave! Happy days. To the train station, where we paid 10baht(~30cents) for a train in(instead of 200-300 in a cab). Bought our tickets to and from Chiang Mai (we're going to the Elephant Nature Park tomorrow for 2 days, check it out here: http://www .elephantnaturepark.org/), checked our big bags into left luggage at the train station, and headed into the city. Went walking to the river, where we caught the water taxi, up to our stop, and found a hotel no problem. Little cells, they are, with fans(no AC) and shared bathroom, but hey. Didn't expect much more in the big city. Walked out to Khaosan Road to see what the hype is all about. A really strange place to walk around after Vietnam and Cambodia. Foreigners as far as you can see. Crazy amounts of stuff to buy. Any kind of food/drink you could possibly imagine. Western restaurants. We poked around a bit, had some street Pad Thai, some street mango and came back to have an early night...

March 21st: It's really strange to be back in the more developed world. We were thinking about it, and we hadn't seen a Western fastfood restaurant since leaving Korea(except 1 KFC in Saigon). At the train station yesterday, there was a KFC, Burger King, and Dunking Donuts. McDonalds is prolific, and we even saw Pizza Hut. It was amazing even from the air, flying out of Cambodia, everything looked brown, very dry and dusty. The houses all blended into the land. Flying into Bangkok we saw paved roads, lots of traffic and apartment buildings. It's amazing how much of a difference a 35 minute flight can make in your surroundings. No cooler here though. (at 1:30 it's 34 feels like 46) A whirlwind morning this morning--up earlyish(the ridiculous noisy chickens outside the building helped with that!!), and out to see the Grand Palace and Wat Pho(reclining Buddha). Lots of tuktuks, and touts outside, but we found just walking away is the best way to handle it. They only follow you down the street a half block or so :) It's really nice to have a direction--it's hard for them to argue with you if you know where you're going, and know that it's not a far walk... After we ran around those sights, back to the hotel to check out by noon, had some lunch, and we're going to go back out to the river to ride the river boat(kind of like a bus service--except that it goes from stop to stop down the river) down to catch the skytrain, which is recommended to see. Then to the train station for our overnight train to Chiang Mai and the elephants!