Ok, things are starting to get mixed up from now on. As I did not have enough access to electricity on Friday (there was no power outlet in the train) I could not complete my article. So if you read this, just imagine that you read it before the last article if you want to maintain chronological order.
It has been a busy day today. After breakfast we started our Bangkok tour right away. Our guide (it is a shame but I did not really get her name) picked us up at the hotel and off we went to discover Bangkok with a variety of different transportation modes. Instead of showing you the sightseeing pictures of the tour right away, I begin with the various transportation modes we used throughout this day.
Our first ride was with the local bus which is really more a pickup truck with a roof. They are mostly red and seem to follow some route, although I just hopped on and off as our guide told us. It brought us to the pier at the river where our guide did her best to let us try all kind of different food, starting with fried bananas and sweet potatoes while waiting for the boat. It brought us near the China Town part of the city where the real sightseeing began. After a longer walk through what seemed to be myriads of little shops and the same amount of people we walked in the direction of the Indian flower market with—as the name suggests—lots of colorful flowers. After that, we took a tuk-tuk to a canal where we instantly changed to a smaller boat again. The ride cost a small few that was collected in a bit dangerous way: As you could not walk inside of the boat, a man just walked on the railing and stopped at each bank row. Our guide told us why he wore a helmet: Sometimes the bridges are that low that you cannot stand under them…
The boat brought us near the MBK shopping mall where we spent our lunch break and more or less concluded our sightseeing tour. For the transportation modes, however, it did not end there. After an hour of strolling around the never-ending mall, we where supposed to meet up again with our guide to take the BTS Skytrain back to the hotel. What seemed to be an easy task turned out to be our first “problem” at the tour as there was a misunderstanding where our meeting point was. Luckily, we found each other after half an hour of looking around and continued our tour by the skytrain. Four stops later we exited the skytrain and took a taxi back to the hotel. So in total, we used seven transportation modes on a single day in Bangkok (including the long walking parts). Pretty impressive, right?
Oh, by the way: I got a Thai sim card for my phone so that I can put it to use here. So please do not try to reach me by my German number right now.