2/7 - Waiting on the Lao Visa
We're still in Bangkok, and it looks like we won't be leaving until the 10th. Originally the plan was to stay here for two nights, and in that time get a Lao visa and a train ticket to the border at Nong Khai. Unfortunately since we didn't get to the hotel until 1 a.m. the first night, we couldn't resist the urge to sleep in on the 5th, and as we wandered around trying to figure out how to get to Laos at various travel agents, we realized that we weren't going to be able to get out on the 6th as planned. So we rushed to find another hotel to stay in, but even the place near us that charged 800 Baht a night (about $20) had rock-like beds and didn't seem quite worth that, so we went online and found a place for the same price, the Bangkok City Inn, which is actually pretty nice, and booked it for two additonal nights.
We also decided that the sleeper train was going to be a bit too expensive, and because a bus would actually take us across the border, as well as the 25km over to Vientiane, the capital, that sounded like a better plan. You see, we've come to find that in Southeast Asia, every connection between modes of transport is a potential nightmare, not to mention a huge undertaking involving heat, heavy bags, and people yelling prices in your ear. Interesting at first maybe, and it does make you feel like a real backpacker, but it's not really worth the discomfort of it in general.
The problem here in Bangkok is that the Lao embassy, which we had planned to visit to get our visa, is far out of town. Also, there are conflicting reports all over the place of how much the visa actually costs. Our books say it should be around $27 for a 30-day visa at the embassy, or $30 at the border for a 15-day, and that at agents in town it should be only a couple of hundred baht more (a few dollars). We went into a T.A.T. (Tourism Authority Thailand) place on the first day and asked about the visa, and the woman told us that if we got a visa on arrival at the border (this is not ideal for us because we may want to stay longer than 15 days) it would cost over $100, and that she could arrange a 30-day one in advance for us at the bargain price of about $75. Clearly this was highly inflated. The woman felt a little slimy to us (yes, when I touched her arm strings of slime came off of it onto my hand) so we found out about the bus they had to Vientiane (950 Baht, about $25) and then left to research more. This morning we set off to go to the embassy itself, hoping that this would allow us to get the price in the guidebook, but after a few of the hotel staff told us that "the Lao embassy has most likely moved" and a cab driver told us that he would charge us 300 Baht just for the one-way trip there, it became clear that even if we found the embassy and got there in time, we would end up spending $75 just going back and forth, or close enough. Luckily, we found a travel agent down the street who would do the visa for about $50 per person, which is actually worth it considering that pays for them to fill everything out, and for a messenger to take our passports over there and wait for the visa to be issued and then bring them back. Only problem is we can't get the visas until the 9th, and she indicated that we shouldn't plan to leave until the 10th, which meant adding another two nights here. The woman at the Bangkok City Inn said they're full until the 13th, so we've gone back online and tried to book an additional two nights through the same site, and we're waiting for the confirmation now. I'm hoping they allot some rooms to these agents/sites and that they'll have a room for us even when the hotel itself doesn't. If not it'll mean rushing to find another hotel tomorrow, which will be a huge hassle. In any case, we went back to that T.A.T. place and booked the bus for the 10th, through a much less slimy girl, who incidentally gave us a price that was 100 Baht less. The bus leaves Bangkok in the evening and arrives in Vientiane in the morning, taking about 14 hours.
I had a Som Tam last night (Spicy Papaya Salad) and as I was feeling adventurous, I chose to have "salt crab" added to it. These were small black crabs which were put in whole and crushed. It was prepared for me by a ladyboy. And if you've never been hit on by a ladyboy while they prepared a papaya salad for you, you've been missing out. As he crushed up the stuff, he asked where I was from, and laughed exageratedly at my answer, then said "Som Tam" a number of times, trying to get me to repeat it, gesturing flamboyantly all the while. Imagine a very large, very effeminate man with long hair making eyes at you as he crushes crabs and chillis and you'll pretty much have it. Unfortunately, though the salad was quite good, I could only eat about a quarter of it because I felt like my mouth had caught fire after a few bites. This was compounded by the fact that Aubrie had rejected her dish because it was too spicy, so I was trying to eat that as well, and it was littered with chilli seeds stuck to every piece of rice, chicken and vegetables on the plate. The unfortunate thing was that it all tasted good, but I could only stand so much pain, so I worked on it slowly, trying to get used to it. By the time I gave up my nose was running and I was sweating and jittery. Is this the standard thing here? Could food really be that spicy and be treated as normal? Could someone get used to that?
Speaking of food, I think taro is one of the greatest things on earth. I don't even really know what it is. Perhaps a root? I've been having it in dessert form here mostly. Inside of a fish-shaped pancake thing for 5 Baht, or as little cubes in a bowl of coconut cream, etc. Incredible. Also, mangosteens--I'd always seen them and heard about them, but last night we decided to buy some and cut them open, and they're great. To start, they're purple with little green stalks sitcking out of the top, and the stalks sometimes have a bright, lime-green goo that sits inside, and which sticks to your finger very tenaciously if you attempt to take it out. I felt like I was playing with a Nickelodeon product. Inside, the fruit is very small and white, arranged kind of like a citrus fruit but tasting not much like one. The flavor is sweet but odd and somehow delicious. It also stained my knife purple. The fruit situation in general here is quite good, as it tends to be in Southeast Asia. We went to the Tesco near the end of the Skytrain tracks and it was this cavernous, massive place, kind of like a Wal-Mart but less depressing. There we boughtpre-cut dragonfruit, guava, and mango. The latter two came with a pack of sugary-chili--at least that's what it tasted like--presumably to put on the fruit. I was disappointed by the dragonfruit. It tasted quite a bit like nothing. It all came to under a dollar.
Bangkok feels cheaper than any place we've been. I'm not sure if this is actually the case, but it seems to me you could eat three meals a day here for under $3, which is better than previous cities. It's as congested and polluted a city as people portray it to be, and actually it can be quite unmanageable and overwhelming at times. Walking by the side of main roads you have to yell to talk to anyone, and you start looking for a place where you can buy a mask to save your lungs with. It's also a sprawling, huge mess in general. But there's something I like about it. KL was pure chaos and made me want to get out of it, but in Bangkok the chaos feels good somehow. We haven't actually had a chance to get to the older part of the city yet because we've been running around trying to sort out the Laos stuff. Hopefully tomorrow we'll venture out there.
They do a thing at the beginning of movies here where everyone stands up and they play a song (national anthem?) while showing odd photos of the King walking around with a camera around his neck. It's pretty strange. Honestly I would have expected better production value though. The rain effect is somewhat lacking.
I'll leave you this time with some quotations from the notice on our door at the hotel:
"Do not take all kind of weapon and ammunition in, please keep it at the reception desk."
"Smoking in bed is not advisable."
"Do not expose clothes on the air-conditioner. Do not repair it."
We also decided that the sleeper train was going to be a bit too expensive, and because a bus would actually take us across the border, as well as the 25km over to Vientiane, the capital, that sounded like a better plan. You see, we've come to find that in Southeast Asia, every connection between modes of transport is a potential nightmare, not to mention a huge undertaking involving heat, heavy bags, and people yelling prices in your ear. Interesting at first maybe, and it does make you feel like a real backpacker, but it's not really worth the discomfort of it in general.
The problem here in Bangkok is that the Lao embassy, which we had planned to visit to get our visa, is far out of town. Also, there are conflicting reports all over the place of how much the visa actually costs. Our books say it should be around $27 for a 30-day visa at the embassy, or $30 at the border for a 15-day, and that at agents in town it should be only a couple of hundred baht more (a few dollars). We went into a T.A.T. (Tourism Authority Thailand) place on the first day and asked about the visa, and the woman told us that if we got a visa on arrival at the border (this is not ideal for us because we may want to stay longer than 15 days) it would cost over $100, and that she could arrange a 30-day one in advance for us at the bargain price of about $75. Clearly this was highly inflated. The woman felt a little slimy to us (yes, when I touched her arm strings of slime came off of it onto my hand) so we found out about the bus they had to Vientiane (950 Baht, about $25) and then left to research more. This morning we set off to go to the embassy itself, hoping that this would allow us to get the price in the guidebook, but after a few of the hotel staff told us that "the Lao embassy has most likely moved" and a cab driver told us that he would charge us 300 Baht just for the one-way trip there, it became clear that even if we found the embassy and got there in time, we would end up spending $75 just going back and forth, or close enough. Luckily, we found a travel agent down the street who would do the visa for about $50 per person, which is actually worth it considering that pays for them to fill everything out, and for a messenger to take our passports over there and wait for the visa to be issued and then bring them back. Only problem is we can't get the visas until the 9th, and she indicated that we shouldn't plan to leave until the 10th, which meant adding another two nights here. The woman at the Bangkok City Inn said they're full until the 13th, so we've gone back online and tried to book an additional two nights through the same site, and we're waiting for the confirmation now. I'm hoping they allot some rooms to these agents/sites and that they'll have a room for us even when the hotel itself doesn't. If not it'll mean rushing to find another hotel tomorrow, which will be a huge hassle. In any case, we went back to that T.A.T. place and booked the bus for the 10th, through a much less slimy girl, who incidentally gave us a price that was 100 Baht less. The bus leaves Bangkok in the evening and arrives in Vientiane in the morning, taking about 14 hours.
I had a Som Tam last night (Spicy Papaya Salad) and as I was feeling adventurous, I chose to have "salt crab" added to it. These were small black crabs which were put in whole and crushed. It was prepared for me by a ladyboy. And if you've never been hit on by a ladyboy while they prepared a papaya salad for you, you've been missing out. As he crushed up the stuff, he asked where I was from, and laughed exageratedly at my answer, then said "Som Tam" a number of times, trying to get me to repeat it, gesturing flamboyantly all the while. Imagine a very large, very effeminate man with long hair making eyes at you as he crushes crabs and chillis and you'll pretty much have it. Unfortunately, though the salad was quite good, I could only eat about a quarter of it because I felt like my mouth had caught fire after a few bites. This was compounded by the fact that Aubrie had rejected her dish because it was too spicy, so I was trying to eat that as well, and it was littered with chilli seeds stuck to every piece of rice, chicken and vegetables on the plate. The unfortunate thing was that it all tasted good, but I could only stand so much pain, so I worked on it slowly, trying to get used to it. By the time I gave up my nose was running and I was sweating and jittery. Is this the standard thing here? Could food really be that spicy and be treated as normal? Could someone get used to that?
Speaking of food, I think taro is one of the greatest things on earth. I don't even really know what it is. Perhaps a root? I've been having it in dessert form here mostly. Inside of a fish-shaped pancake thing for 5 Baht, or as little cubes in a bowl of coconut cream, etc. Incredible. Also, mangosteens--I'd always seen them and heard about them, but last night we decided to buy some and cut them open, and they're great. To start, they're purple with little green stalks sitcking out of the top, and the stalks sometimes have a bright, lime-green goo that sits inside, and which sticks to your finger very tenaciously if you attempt to take it out. I felt like I was playing with a Nickelodeon product. Inside, the fruit is very small and white, arranged kind of like a citrus fruit but tasting not much like one. The flavor is sweet but odd and somehow delicious. It also stained my knife purple. The fruit situation in general here is quite good, as it tends to be in Southeast Asia. We went to the Tesco near the end of the Skytrain tracks and it was this cavernous, massive place, kind of like a Wal-Mart but less depressing. There we boughtpre-cut dragonfruit, guava, and mango. The latter two came with a pack of sugary-chili--at least that's what it tasted like--presumably to put on the fruit. I was disappointed by the dragonfruit. It tasted quite a bit like nothing. It all came to under a dollar.
Bangkok feels cheaper than any place we've been. I'm not sure if this is actually the case, but it seems to me you could eat three meals a day here for under $3, which is better than previous cities. It's as congested and polluted a city as people portray it to be, and actually it can be quite unmanageable and overwhelming at times. Walking by the side of main roads you have to yell to talk to anyone, and you start looking for a place where you can buy a mask to save your lungs with. It's also a sprawling, huge mess in general. But there's something I like about it. KL was pure chaos and made me want to get out of it, but in Bangkok the chaos feels good somehow. We haven't actually had a chance to get to the older part of the city yet because we've been running around trying to sort out the Laos stuff. Hopefully tomorrow we'll venture out there.
They do a thing at the beginning of movies here where everyone stands up and they play a song (national anthem?) while showing odd photos of the King walking around with a camera around his neck. It's pretty strange. Honestly I would have expected better production value though. The rain effect is somewhat lacking.
I'll leave you this time with some quotations from the notice on our door at the hotel:
"Do not take all kind of weapon and ammunition in, please keep it at the reception desk."
"Smoking in bed is not advisable."
"Do not expose clothes on the air-conditioner. Do not repair it."
posted by Gabriel Leigh at 4:40 PM
3 Comments:
Looks like you're on the road to Lao(s) visas at the right price. No impuissance in evidence there! Sounds like Joe would love those mangosteens. Maybe your tongue was so scorched by the Som Tam that you couldn't detect the flavor of the dragonfruit. I wonder if Michelle's hyper-attuned palette could discern a spectrum of delight in those nothing fruits. Bangkok. Does the city know what the city's got? R.L.K.
Great take on all things Thai. I'm frankly amazed at how calm you sound. Suspect that the writing of the trip combined with the living of it generates a kind of detached wisdom. Just don't go getting too wise! Of course, we cannot guess what might be going on behind the scenes. Are you keeping count of the number of arguments you two have?
I'm especially interested in your run-in with a ladyboy. Not that I have ever checked out any of the 13, 547 internet sites devoted to this strange phenomenon.
By any chance, we're you holding Aubrie's bag at the time?
Now that Laos has arrived, please recall my warning about land mines.
Love to you both.........
booyaka from brooklyn
bloodclot! bloodclot!
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