I got up early and packed. First thing after my shower I called Emirates and found out that they're going to let me change my ticket - for a fee, but not a lot. Arranged a flight to Siem Reap with a friend of the guesthouse's manager. Then I checked email and had breakfast. Stacy and I wandered down to pick up the film we'd dropped off yesterday. The photos from our Canyon dive were a little bit disappointing, but there are a couple from the fish bowl that I really like. The other roll I got developed was mostly from Malawi with a couple from the pyramids in Egypt. I walked down to the cheaper phone place that I used yesterday to call home only to find it closed for some reason. I hike back to the lodge and ended up calling Amy from the internet cafe next door. It was nice to talk to her as it's been a couple weeks. At about one my Cambodia ticket was finally delivered and Stacy I headed out of Bangkok.
We walked down the street trying to find a taxi, but none of them would take us to the bus station. I didn't think they were understanding us so we walked back to the lodge and got them to write the name of the bus station in Thai. That worked and we were soon at the bus station. The timing was perfect, we walked in to the bus station bought our tickets, climbed on the bus and as we were sitting down the bus was pulling away (though they short changed us 12 Bhat - about 30¢). The bus was actually very comfortable much to my surprise there was tons of leg room. The hour ride had some tantalizing glimpses of jungle, but most of the way it was developed. At Nakhon Pathom we had some trouble finding the hotel - Lonely Planet's directions don't seem to reflect reality. When we found the hotel we dropped our gear and headed for Phra Pathom Chedi before it closed. Phra Pathom Chedi is the site of the largest Buddhist Pagoda in the world (125 meters / 406 feet) which was built on the site of the oldest Buddhist temple in Thailand. There is a large standing Buddha image on one side of the Pagoda is specifically sign posted as being named Phra Ruan Rojanariddhi Sri Indradhit Dharmopas Maha Vajiravuth Raj Pujaniyaborpit (say that ten times fast).
We wandered around some of the neighboring streets looking for a drink and just generally absorbing the evening atmosphere. We had dinner at the night market - lots of weird things, but I settled for a simple, and delicious, dish of friend chicken and chilies on rice. The best thing about dinner was that we didn't see any other foreigners and we definitely cause a stir - especially among the kids. Even just an hour out of Bangkok it felt good to be out of the crowd. Only difficulty came when it was time to go to bed - there was an outdoor cinema set up at the night market, just across the road. And the volume was set to eleven... I don't know how many movies were shown but they didn't stop until nearly two!
