Thailand to Japan

I’m about to say au revoir to Thailand (I don’t know how to say it in Thai, so I’ll with French, not because of any French tradition in Thailand, but because I’ll be seeing this country again in a couple months).

When I return from Japan, I plan to stay at least a little while in Bangkok because I saw nothing of the city while I was there. People seem to either love the place or loathe it, but I really don’t know it enough to tell you either way. I also figure that having spent this amount of time in Thailand, I should have at least a few photos of its capital city. As it stands, I didn’t take a single shot while I was here.

Yesterday, I spent the entire day relaxing after my bus journey from Chiang Mai. I wound up in a hostel that had a TV in the room for the first time in a long time and the bulk of my day was spent with a steady stream of movies.

You can’t blame me for relaxing a bit because my trip to Bangkok was a little bit stressful. I had been expecting to take a bus from Chiang Mai on the 17th in the morning. I would wake early and 12 hours later, I would arrive in Bangkok in the evening. The day before, I looked at my ticket and something told me to double check the time.

I hopped over to the guesthouse where I originally bought the ticket and made my query. The woman who sold me the ticket replied with shock. ‘Oh no! We don’t have buses in the morning!’ To which I responded, ‘Huh?’ It said 5:30 am right on the receipt. But apparently, while writing, accuracy of any kind was not on her agenda. She should have been writing 6:30 pm.

So, the bus for which I was now booked was departing at 6:30 pm and would arrive in Bangkok at 6:30 am. My flight is at 8:25 so I would be cutting it far too close. Frazzled, I enquired about my options and with a previously unknown efficiency, the woman called up the bus company and managed to get me a seat on the next bus that evening. (Thank you to whoever it was that cancelled! Much appreciated!)

I hurriedly packed and got myself some dinner before I was whisked off to the bus leaving an audible ‘Whew!’ in my wake.

Now, I’m freezing in this terminal’s overzealous air conditioning and trying to prepare for the even worse cold I’m told awaits me in Japan. Spring is arriving late this year. On the plus side, that means the cherry blossoms should not quite have bloomed yet in Iwate. And since the sakura are just about the most beautiful thing in the world (or so the Japanese would have you believe), I’m in luck. Last year, through irritating scheduling coincidences, I missed their full force. This year, I should be fortunate enough to stroll through their flowery midst.

Though by no means is this what I’m most anticipating in Japan. Seeing my friends there again is going to be great. I’m giddy at the excitement of gathering up as many people as possible and heading to karaoke (though my voice is a little shot after the mirthful yelling of Songkran). I may already have a karaoke date scheduled this Friday, so I better rest up the old pipes. I’m just thrilled I’ll get the chance to see these good friends again in the place where our friendships grew.

And for those following along, get ready for a deluge of photos. While travelling, I haven’t had the chance to upload much new material, but for the next couple months, the bulk of my time will be spent preparing images for my site and my agencies. First up will be photos from Songkran because I met so many people there who want to see my photos. But after that, I’m flexible. If you have any requests from any of the places I’ve been, drop me a line and I’ll throw it towards the top of the queue.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 18th, 2006 at 12:00 am. It is filed under Blog, Japan, Thailand, Travel and tagged with japan, thailand, Travel, travel log. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.