Drinking whiskey and a work's night out

Day 11. Not many photos from the last couple of days and none of them worth posting really. I might peruse them again and post one or two soon but I'm too lazy to do that at the moment.

Spent Thursday travelling into Bangkok, poking around, getting the bus up to meet Kriang at work and finished the day off drinking cheap Thai whiskey at Kriang's house. Although my linguistic skills still leave a huge amount to be desired I am starting to be able to get the message across through a mixture of Thai, English and impromptu sign language. I managed to explain to Kriang's gardener that I wanted a bike taxi to the local train station. As it happened I missed the train I needed anyway so I got another taxi, although this time it was nearly twice as expensive as the last one. I've noticed that often nothing is the same twice here. The first taxi avoided the highways and therefore the tolls and cost about 150 baht (about 2 quid) and the second one went through the tolls and cost 280 baht in total (I had to pay the tolls.) The difference being that the gardener spoke to the first taxi driver for me and must have told him to go the cheap way I think. I suspect that because the bike taxi's I've caught to the train station have cost me 20 baht each and the gardener checked after the first one to make sure that that was what I was charged. Yesterday when I went to the train station he was even more helpful: he called a bike taxi from his mobile and had it pick me up from Kriang's house. Door to door service and it still only cost 20 baht. Other things that have varied: I went for another "foot" massage which was actually a full body massage this time, including all of my legs, back, head, and hands which weren't included the first time, still only 3 quid though. I got the number 29 bus again and it cost me 8 baht instead of 7, had no fans and took two hours instead of one to do the same journey...

The Thais are quite strict and conservative in some ways and relaxed and liberal in others, like all countries, but in a way that I've not quite been able to put my finger on a coherent picture yet.

The train into town yesterday was an interesting experience too. Similar in age to the buses I've been on, there are only 3rd class trains running from the nearest station so there was no AC. Not very comfortable until someone got off and I was able to get a seat next to the window. There were also some pretty harsh sights on the way in. I've seen levels of poverty I've not witnessed in the UK but quite a few of the views from the train really highlight the issue. One was a woman's house, made of corrugated iron and old signs which opened right onto the building site of a massive overhead expressway. The back door was literally about 4 metres away from a 10 metre pillar which would support the road when finished. There was no fence or anything to separate the two and on top of this the train track was only another 6 or 8 metres away. There was a 4 metre hole for the foundations (after it'd been partly filled with concrete) which was completely open. The construction site was completely open and all along it there were school kids walking home and people taking shortcuts on bike taxis. There also more shanty-type towns (I don't know if they were technically shanty towns occupying land illegally, but they were shanty town style) than I realised and they are often crammed right next to very wealthy areas. I saw a small collection of shanty houses next to a Tescos and a large (not large by Bolivia's El Alto shanty town for example but by Thai standards large) shanty town sheltering under a massive, glass-clad high rise building. The contrast is heavy.

And speaking of contrast, last night I went to Kriang's work's night out which consisted of dinner at a local restaurant, with a fairly large array of different dishes that were all tasty, and some worryingly salty orange juice. Afterwards we went to a posh hotel for karaoke. Not my bag usually but when in Rome eh? The hotel had karaoke studios which is something I've not come across before. There were twelve rooms, available for private hire with a projector and karaoke system (with the usual cheese-taster tune selection, including plenty of Thai pop) and drinks served to the room. I did actually sing along to one or two songs and the first one I sang along to properly was in Thai. Apparently I speak/sing Thai better than Kriang but that was no doubt meant to be more taking the piss out of Kriang than complementing my Thai skills. Still, it was quite good fun and a couple of Kriang's colleagues were actually really good singers. Kriang got straight in there too and sang a couple. I left the camera in the car unfortunately so no photos of the people that came but they were all a lovely bunch, hopefully I'll get the chance to meet them again.

OK, I'm going to break from tradition and not post any pictures of booze before signing off. i have got a couple of pictures, but I'm going to grab a shower and some breakfast before heading into town again. Yoink.