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While returning to Bangalore from Taipei, I had a six-hour stopover at Bangkok. I wasn’t sure if I should go explore on my own or take a guided city tour. Anyway, first things first, I’d require a visa (Thailand has on-arrival visas, btw), so I went to the visa counter. Huge line. I didn’t have the energy (or patience) to stand (I had a lot of hand baggage which I had to drag along wherever I went, and that sucked). I quit and went to the city tour counter. They said they’d help me with the visa formalities! Well, it wasn’t as if I didn’t have to wait for my turn but, heck, I didn’t have to stand in the queue.

So in a few minutes I’m in this car with a driver and a guide. The guide was old and drunk and could speak and understand English. Well, some English. Initially, I listened to everything he said and also asked him relevant questions. Later, I couldn’t tolerate the pain to understand what he was saying, so I stopped listening and kept nodding and smiling whenever I thought he ended a sentence.

So I basically took a tour that’d show me around some popular temples or something like that. So we had to take a boat to go around all the places. I saw more tourists than locals everywhere I looked. It was weird—everybody’d take out their handycams in sync, start focusing on the same shite (again in sync; well, mostly) and things like that. Imagine how you’d feel looking at all this when you don’t understand why one would film fishes eating bread in a dirty river. Oh yeah, I remember falling alseep while he (the guide) was giving some historical perspective on the river.

Anyway, after a while, we got to Wat Arun. Nice place and all that, but crazy. They actually allow visitors to smoke and drink beer in the compound. Bad shit. It’s like they’ve customized everything to suit the needs of tourists. I wonder how the natives feel about all this.

The city tour wasn’t very eventful. Maybe because I was just too tired, or the particular tour I picked sucked. Four hours is too short a time to have much fun anyway. Some pictures here.