Unfortunately today we had to check out of the Diamond City Hotel and stop pretending that we’re here for a fortnight.
In between sightseeing yesterday we had scoped out a couple of hotels in the Kao San Road area which is quite pleasant by day but turns into a little bit of Benidorm at night – by which I mean of course, there are 100s of British people making a complete prick out of themselves on half a whiskey bucket, abusing the locals and generally justifying the idea for an aptitude-based passport application system.
That was for later though. Two quid each got us a lunch of sweet and sour chicken with basil and scented rice washed down with an ice cold San Miguel.
The hotel we checked into wasn’t great – a little bit moldey, cold shower and only a mosquito screen to keep the noise of the Kao San Road nightlife out but it was just for the one night and I’m used to staying up through the night on Indian sleeper trains. Just more of the same really.
It’s hot hot hot at the moment so we mooched about for the rest of the day having the occasional beer and a coconut ice-cream pancake. Late in the afternoon we watched an awful piece of faux-historical bullshit called Copying Beethoven on a pub screen. It really is terrible. I’ve just spent 5 minutes thinking about how to explain how bad it is and why before realising it’s not even worth the effort. Basically Beethoven’s a bit moody, it’s set in Vienna and there’s all the research you need to wrap a run-of-the-mill, unoriginal and lazily characterised love story around.
Throughout the day we’ve been idly playing “Spot The Sex-Tourist”. Male single traveller (1 point), shaved head and/or baseball cap (1/2 point), George Best stubble (1/2 point), 40-something and with a beer belly (1 point), long greasy hair (1/2) point, nervous disposition (1 point). Reach three points and you have a confirmed grudge against women and a score.
Tomorrow we are off on a bus to Kanchanaburi to see the bridge over the River Kwai and we have decided to stay over a couple of days so we can take a side trip to do a spot of waterfall swimming. And why not.
