The very friendly doorman of the H-residence hotel managed to get us a Tuk tuk to take us to the IT-mall. This is an impressively massive mall – consisting of 6 floors with only IT (translate GEEK) related stuff. You can find anything there – from knock off I-pads to the newest I-pad 5’s. Projectors, notebooks, games, a different mouse for each mood of each day EVERYTHING that will make ANY geek more excited than the next space invasion can be found at this electronic heaven.
However there was one downside to this mall, okay maybe two. Firstly it is a freakin big and busy mall. Secondly and most importantly – it is boooooooooooring for any one that is not into IT or that does not go there to buy something specific. So Steven and I just hung around playing with gadgets waiting for the others to finish their shopping. At last after 6 hours (okay maybe 1 and a half hour) we could all try and get a Tuk tuk. The deal was that the person who finds the cheapest Tuk tuk back will be sponsored by the rest. This would be an awesome deal except if one of the gang is a Mr. Know-it-all and ends up getting you a very expensive Tuk tuk. But it was definitely worth the money for the amount of fun we had.
First of all the driver had no idea where we were supposed to go – even after a very big smile and “I know. I know” when we showed him the address card. (ALWAYS keep the address card of your hotel with you.) After about 5 minutes on our way back it started raining very lightly – a very good feeling after 2 days of 40-odd degrees. Then the rain turned into a massive downpour of the Victoria Falls and all her sisters. The poor bloke that bought the laptop had to do all sorts of tricks to keep it dry. We just figured that we will get wet anyway and just enjoyed getting soaked. After loud bursts of laughter the Tuk tuk driver somehow thought we were enjoying his driving-skills (if you can call what he did a skill…) He was swerving all over the road, driving without holding the steering wheel (look ma – no hands!), going through little dams of water and cutting in front of cars. He was right – we enjoyed it thoroughly.
Then suddenly he stopped dead in the middle of the road, jumped out and checked if his Tuk tuk’s wheel is still on – thank goodness it was. He jumped back in – soaking wet as well, gave us a massive grin – all gum and no teeth, and asked for the address card again. I handed him our address card and out of no-where he whipped a magnifying glass to read the address. So apparently teeth were not the only thing missing from our driver. But alas of we went and about 15 minutes later we were dropped off at our hotel.
In we ran, straight to the rooftop swimming pool and we enjoyed swimming while looking out over the whole of Bangkok while it was pouring buckets. After Steven and I played in the pool like little boys whose parents are not watching we ran soaking wet to our room to start packing for our departure to Hua Hin the next day.
Later that evening we met our agents in the foyer of the hotel to get our debriefing for the next day. Our one agent offered to take us out to town and explore the down town area of Bangkok. So we all hopped on the sky train. (Pop your money in the machine (10 baht – R2.50), catch our ticket, wait, wait, wait, jump on the train, count the stops, hop off – as simple as that.) Initially it sounded like a great plan to go with someone “who knows the area” to explore downtown and get good, cheap food – only problem with this was that the agent got us kind of lost and did not know how to get us to the down town area. WE almost ended up having dinner in a brothel, but luckily someone yelled a warning and we quickly turned around to the restaurant right opposite the brothel. (WHO BUILDS A FAMILY RESTAURANT RIGHT ACROSS A BROTHEL?!!). So we ended up eating expensive kao pat (fried rice) and not going down town. The agent apologized profusely for getting us lost and said we should all get on the sky train and get back to the hotel.
Well with our getting lost the previous night Steven and I knew exactly where we were, and we could give the agent directions to get back to the hotel.
(Brian and Steven = 1, Thailand = 0)
We decided not to get on the sky train and just walk back to the hotel since it was still early. One guy from the group decided to join us and Steven and I went to show him down town with all of its hustling and bustling. After playing tour-guides we went back to the hotel (after stopping at 7/11 for some beer).
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