Bangkok

I've made it as far as Bangkok, where I'm resting up in a guesthouse before continuing my journey to the islands. I'm feeling rather weary, not only because of the late night before I departed and a late night arrival here, but because of an amusing (in hindsight) mix-up with my departure time. I checked in to the guesthouse around 2:30am and the guy on reception made a note that I would need a taxi to the airport at 6.30pm this evening. A few hours later I was rudely awoken by the phone in my room ringing, and a female voice on the other end saying urgently, "Your taxi here! Is 6.30 already!". She hung up before I was fully awake, and I stumbled around the room for a couple of minutes in confusion... SURELY I hadn't slept for 16 hours?!? I flung open the curtain to look outside but the louvres were frosted glass, so I looked out the peephole... it didn't look like evening, but it's hard to tell through a peephole. I rang the number listed for roomservice to double check the time, and it turned out to be the same woman I had just spoken to. I felt a bit silly saying, "I just wanted to check the time... is it 6:30... in the morning??" But we soon cleared up the confusion and I crawled back into bed.

My one outing from the guesthouse before heading back to the airport in the evening was to a nearby market, to purchase a watch!