After loading our bikes into the baggage car, just behind the engine, we had to walk through about 10 cars of sleeping or just waking passengers in first and second class. This part of the train looked fairly comfortable.

The conductor conducted us all the way back to third class where he roused a couple of people who were sleeping sprawled across the benches. They sat up and we sat down in the space they left.

The windows were wide open on one side of the train and the clackety-clack train noise was loud. But almost no one spoke. Everyone was either trying to sleep or staring at us. Actually the other passengers looked like young, sophisticated Bangkok city slickers.

People constantly walked up and down the aisles trying to sell overpriced drinks, chips, homemade meals in a styrofoam boxes, and lots of other stuff I couldn't identify. Business didn't seem too good at dawn in third class but they kept trying. I sat on the aisle and for some reason, the guy across the aisle refused to sit in his seat. Instead he sat on the armrest, his knees far into the aisle. So every time someone walked through selling stuff, they had to lean over me and brush my shoulder to get by him.

Like all traffic, the train came to a standstill when we reached Bangkok. Even the trains must stop at long traffic lights. People live and work along the tracks in the city. I saw food stalls, little grocery shops, a Chinese guy selling lottery tickets, and a juke box all within spitting distance. When we stopped for long periods, people walked through the train to cross the tracks.

We loaded the bikes on the platform then practically had to part the Red Sea to get through the crowds to the exit. Even with the bikes a few taxi drivers insisted they give us a ride. We managed to refuse.

At first we thought Bangkok traffic wasn't going to be as awful as we feared. The roads seemed amazingly empty. Then we realized we weren't getting anywhere. In order to actually get somewhere, you have to take one of the busy streets. We had to scamper around one traffic circle like deer on the freeway at rush hour. Otherwise we had remarkably little trouble getting to Banglampu, the backpacker ghetto with cheap hotels. We ended up with an AC room in a place called New Joe's for 380 Baht a night, or a little under US$10. It featured a big screen movie in the lobby, and three movies a night. Every night a bunch of kids gathered to watch. It was like being at a movie marathon in college except the movies were pretty bad.

The next day we tried out the Bangkok bus system. We had to go to the Philippine embassy to get a visa so we studied our map of bus routes. They have a pretty good system. Some routes are all air-con buses while others are all non air-con. It cost us eight Baht (about 20 cents) for an air-con bus, and about half of that for non- air-con. On the way to the embassy the bus was great. We didn't wait long, we got seats, it was cool and traffic was slow but steady.

To collect fares, a woman walks around with a metal cylinder about two feet long and three inches around. The cylinder is hinged so it splits in half the long way. Inside she keeps coins, cash and transfers. When you walk in the bus she finds you and you hear the jingle of change as she shakes it so it sounds a little like a maraca. Then when you pay your fare, she gives you a stamp-sized receipt, which she cuts halfway at several different angles, by placing half of it over the open cylinder, snapping the cylinder shut and then pulling at the exposed part of the receipt. She can make three or four slits in your receipt in about two seconds, making a marvelous rhythmic noise the whole time. You have to see it to understand. Her art is up there with Japanese Benihana chefs. The fare takers (all women) decorate their cylinders with stickers of pink hearts and things like that.

The Philippine embassy wanted a copy of our exit ticket before we could apply for a visa. So we found a travel agent and bought tickets right away, but had to cool our heels for four hours while we waited for them to get the tickets. So we hit the mall.

Bangkok's malls are some of the best in Southeast Asia. They are spacious, uncrowded and have places to sit down. Also Bangkok has several very good English language bookstores. We got maps and guide books to take us all the way to Nepal. We spent a couple hours just looking at books we knew we couldn't buy because we didn't want to carry them. (Joan: for the record, this mall run increased our already heavy bookmobile collection to NINE books, including four of those really heavy Lonely Planet guides).

After getting our tickets we applied for our visa and caught the No. 11 bus home. This time it took twice as long, and we had to stand. And the AC wasn't enough to cool the crowd on board.

The next day we tried Bangkok by bicycle. We had addresses for three good bike shops from our Lonely Planet guidebook. We found none of them.

Riding a bicycle in Bangkok is awful. It isn't as perilous as say, Medan or Surabaya, but it feels hotter, it smells awful and traffic flows slower than sap from a tree. Also we had to navigate around a lot of construction. Crossing the street was a major ordeal, with mounds of rubble in the middle of the road where they are building an elevated light rail system.

I think they've been working on their elevated railroad since concrete was invented. When it finally opens the stations will probably be as worn and dirty as NYC subway stations.

We failed to find the first two bikes stores. We were getting further and further away from our hotel and the traffic and construction were getting worse. The third store was supposed to be at Sukumvhit and Soi 62. Sois are like alleys and used like addresses-even-numbered sois are on one side, odd on the other. We found Soi 61 fairly quickly because it is near the Philippine embassy. Then we crossed the street and looked for Soi 62. A taxi driver said it was a long way away. We figured he was just trying to bamboozle us into riding in his taxi.

But he was right. We kept going, riding down the wrong side of the street, using half-bombed out sidewalks. We went a couple miles like this until the road seemed to turn into a giant pipe. It entered this industrial area that looked like hell. We had only reached Soi 46 or so. Why Soi 62 is miles from Soi 61 I don't understand. Like our friend Kris said, it's like they fired their city planner in 1930 and forgot to hire another.

We stopped by the Philippine embassy and they had our visas ready. Then we went to Siam Square and asked at a fancy hotel for an English-language phonebook. After awhile we found the actual address of a good bike store and I even called them. The store is called Pro-Bike. If you're biking through Bangkok go there. They are near the VW dealership near Brown Sugar restaurant on Sarasin Road, on the north border of Lumpini Park, near Siam Square. You can see the Pro-Bike sign from the VW dealership.

It wasn't even that far away. They had a couple people who speak English. We told them to replace the crank, chain, freewheel, both hubs and all the spokes on Joan's bike. And we asked them to tune up my bike. (Joan: total cost: US$170. And they did a great job. A total deal).

After dinner in Siam Square we rode a bus home in the rain.

Next: more Bangkok

Thailand Main Page     World Trip