After I left you yesterday, I joined back up with Ashlee and we went on a snack-hunting expedition for our train ride – we remembered the food that the train serves is both over-priced and definitely not worth it. Anyways, we stumbled into a small supermarket called “Ocean Mart” and we were blown away. The place was packed with a fresh bakery (we went a little crazy and got coconut rolls, a banana muffin, a loaf of brown bread, a couple of baguettes, and an apple roll), loads of salty snacks (jalapeno kettle chips!), a complete liquor aisle, and a lot more. I now what you’re thinking – it sounds like a well-stocked 7/11 in America, right? – but to us, a couple of PCVs from the Mongolian countryside, it was amazing. It’s funny, even though we’ve been in Thailand for two weeks now stuff like this still surprises us.
After piling up on some snacks, we caught the bus back to Krabi Town. These buses – the pick-ups with plank seating in the back – have a specific name, but like many other Thai words we have come across, it is difficult to spell, pronounce, and remember. We eventually made our way back to our hotel just in time to get picked up by the busy agency at 4pm. It was a pretty sophisticated operation. The bus station sent out a fleet of small minibuses to pick up all pre-booked passengers from their respective hotels and brought them to the station itself, which is a little ways from the town center.
Most of our fellow travelers seemed to be people we left on PP – they all looked a little bedraggled from spending a couple of weeks on the beach. I’m sure there was a fair share of hangovers in the bunch, too. Our bus left on time and it was a two-hour drive to Surat Thani, which is the nearest railway station to Krabi.
We pulled up to Surat Thani around 8:20pm and we had an hour to kill before boarding our train. Once we got settled on the platform, Ashlee decided to go exploring. All the exploring I needed to do was right in front of me: a small kiosk with a large cooler of cold beers. Since the station is in an out-of-the-way place, and not in a tourist trap like PP, I was able to get two beers for cheaper than the price of one back on the beach. Only after making the purchase did I realize that each bottle was 650mL – hm, a liter and a half of beer right before bed? I paused for a second and then thought, “What the heck, it’ll help me sleep.”
It was actually a pretty great moment for me sitting there on that busy train platform on a warm night and sipping on a cold bottle of Chang. It’s the simple things in life, huh?
The train arrived as scheduled and we jumped aboard into our first class cabin – the beds were even already turned down for us! Even as the train was pulling away from the station we were already snug in our beds. The beer (and the delicious salami sandwiches we put together using the ingredients we picked up from Ocean Mart) did the trick and I slept like a baby the whole night.
A quick side note – not everyone in our section of the train seemed impressed with their first class digs. I saw a Frenchmen leaving the bathroom shaking his head. He looked at me and said, “Disgusting. First class my ass.” Alright, I admit it: the bathrooms were a bit sketchy.
We pulled into the Bangkok train station a little after 9am. This time instead of staying in Old Bangkok, Ashlee booked us a place in New Bangkok – the part of the city dominated by skyscrapers, megamalls, skytrains, and subways. We hopped onto the subway right from the train station. It was really nice and clean – in fact, I think we were the dirtiest things on the whole train.
The subway spit us right out into the heart of New Bangkok. We’re staying in an area called the Sukhumvit District, a place popular with expats, tourists, and young middle-class Thais. As usual, it was a challenge to get our bearings in a new place and navigate our way to the hotel, but Ashlee eagerly led the way and she managed to get us there relatively easily.
While it was too early to fully check-in, the hotel did let us stow our bags so we could tackle the city unencumbered. We didn’t really have much of a plan other than to explore some of Bangkok’s famed megamalls.
The street our hotel is on is right at a sky train stop. Relatively new, the sky train is a subway in the sky and it seems to be surprisingly efficient in getting you around New Bangkok. Ashlee was really excited to ride it – she loves this sort of public transportation. Again, the stations and the trains themselves are really clean and well maintained. They are also wonderfully cool with air-conditioning.
Our first stop of the day was the MBK Center, one of the main megamalls. I don’t think either of us were prepared for it – I mean I already told you that we were floored by the friggen’ Ocean Mart in Ao Nang. With it’s very own sky train stop and security checkpoint, the MBK Center totally blows UB’s State Department Store out of the water and it even overshadows South Coast Plaza. The place is absolutely huge – something like seven floors of shops, restaurants, and food courts complete with a movie theater, bowling alley, and souvenir market. This is what I meant earlier when I said we were in a city within a city within a city – MBK, New Bangkok, Bangkok.
MBK holds tons of stores – which made Ashlee happy – and twice as many places to eat – which made me happy. The place has Thai food courts, international food courts, up-scale restaurants, and staple American fastfood joints like Burger King, McDonald’s, KFC, and Pizza Hut. There’s even a Sizzler!
The movie theater is on the top floor. Just for the heck of it and to soak in the theater experience, we bought a couple of tickets to see the new Tron movie. The theater even has a tiered ticket system. Just because we were curious, we shelled out 350B ($10) for a “premium couch.” We’ll let you know how it goes.
Anyways, the place had us in such a tizzy that we couldn’t even make a joint decision on where to eat lunch, so we split up. Ashlee is doing some shopping and I came here to Pizza Hut. I know, I know – it’s not really the best pizza and Thai food is so amazing (and cheaper), but I’m just really craving the American pizza experience. I got a medium pan pizza with extra pepperoni. Here it comes!
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