February 6th, 2025
I took the train from Vang Vieng back to the capital, Vientiane,
had one night there and then was on the plane back to Bangkok for the last leg
of my four-month Southeast Asia trip. I
had spent 15 days in Laos, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was only in the north part of the country
and after speaking to some other backpackers, I was a bit jealous that I wasn’t
heading down to the south as it sounded interesting, although it would require
some long bus rides. Anyways, “Kob-chai
Laos!” (Thank you)
Just took off from Vientiane, flying to Bangkok. This is the Mekong River, which is the border between Thailand and Laos in this area. Laos on the right, Thailand on the left.
I had booked a hotel, strangely called “The Ordinary Hotel”
(why they didn’t add “Extra” to their name, I don’t know), near the second last
stop on the Airport Express Metro line from Suvarnabhumi Airport so it was easy
to get to. It was a decent little hotel
with a nice room and although it was right by some busy roads including an
overpass near my window, the soundproofing was quite good. I had decided to spend two nights in Bangkok,
even though this was my third time in the capital…I figured I’d have a chill
day and not have to be on the move right away as that would have been the third
travel day in a row.
My “chill” day wasn’t that quiet. I had half a dozen things to do…exchange some
Laotian Kip that I didn’t realize I had, buy some contact lens solution, get a
haircut, buy a Care Bear keychain for Naomi (don’t ask), find some Nepalese
prayer flags for the flight park and I also hoped to visit the Royal Thai Airforce
Museum.
As I have previously experienced while visiting Bangkok, even
though it’s a massive city of over 17 million people, everything I require
seems to be nearby. In this case, the specific
“Care Bear Café” I needed to find was in a mall that was just over a kilometre
from my hotel. En route to the mall, I after
going to a couple of currency exchange places, I found one to change my Laos
Kip to Baht, at a terrible rate, but better than not being able to exchange
them. By chance, a Nepalese store with prayer
flags was across the street from the shopping centre (although both were
difficult to find). I also found a Boots
Pharmacy in the mall. Score, score and
score!
After procuring the items on my list, I found a nearby restaurant that piqued my interest, “The Beer Republic”.
I ordered my lunch and an IPA beer, and before my food had
arrived, the waitress came by and asked if I wanted anything for last
call. What?!? It’s the middle of the afternoon! Oh yeah, I’m back in Thailand where they have
this silly law from the 1970s that alcohol cannot be served in restaurants or
bought in stores from 2-5 pm. The
original idea was supposedly to stop office staff from getting drunk in the
afternoon…which seems ridiculous. I wasn’t
planning on another beer, but what a weird law.
It caught me out a number of times when I was in Thailand at the start
of my trip. I do think that Thailand is
shooting themselves in the foot with tourists, especially Western ones, visiting
the country on their holidays. Sitting on
a beach in the late afternoon on vacation, sure they might want a drink. Many local businesses, restaurants, bars, shops,
could be making more money.
After my late lunch, I hopped on the BTS (the above ground
railway metro) to head about 20 kilometres north to the Royal Thai Airforce
Museum. It’s located on the opposite
side of the runways from the terminal building of the Don Mueang Airport. I had tried to visit this place before when I
had time to kill before my flight out of that airport to the south of Thailand
(Krabi), but by chance it was closed that day due to some past king’s birthday
(Chulalongkorn – who was
interesting as he had 4 wives, 5 consorts and 143 concubines!...the dude was busy
getting busy!).
It was over 20 stops to get to the museum, and somehow, I
got so enthralled with an email I had just received about my upcoming
accommodation in Revelstoke when I get back to Canada in February, that I missed
the stop and 4 stops later, I was at the end of the line. No biggie, I hopped on a train to go back,
and somehow, I missed the stop again, which is actually called the “Royal Thai
Air Museum” stop. The place closes at 5
and it was now approaching 4 o’clock.
Finally arriving at the museum, which is surprisingly free
to visit, I found it almost devoid of visitors.
I started in the main building which displayed some of the first
airplanes that the Thai Air Force had from about 1914 and later.
I was impressed with the number of planes that they had on display,
and it was quite well laid out, with relatively informative signs about each aircraft.
A strange looking fighter jet, it's a MIG-21.
After wandering around for about 45 minutes, I was just “plane
tired”. I walked back to the metro, got
back to my neighbourhood and still amazingly had the energy to find a barber
and get a needed haircut. It was much
hotter in Thailand than Laos (which is further north…at least where I was), and
I was about to head further south to try and do some more kitesurfing. My last haircut was almost a month prior, in
Phnom Penh.
That evening, I hopped back on the metro to head to an area
with some British pubs. You’re probably
thinking “Dave, why aren’t you having some of the local yummy Thai food now
that you’re back in the country?”. Well,
I figured I have a upcoming week, about 3 hours south of Bangkok at a small
place called Pranburi, and I’ll be getting my fill of things like Pad Thai
there. And the likelihood of a British
pub in that area will be next to none.
It was a full, but good day. In the morning, I had a bus to catch to the aforementioned town of Pranburi, which is due south from Bangkok, on the east coast, facing the Gulf of Thailand. I hope the Wind Gods are friendly to me as my hope is to get some serious kitesurfing time under my belt to get out of this beginner learning stage once and for all.
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