Bangkok pt.2 - Day 2

Today Tobs arrived in Bangkok. My brother from another mother. I had reserved a seat in a minivan to the airport for a hundred Baht. I was told to come to the shop five minutes prior to departure. So I left the hotel at 5:50 and even got there early, but nobody was there. I waited for ten, fifteen minutes, but nobody ever came to pick me up. Screw it, I thouoght, and took a taxi. Three hundred Bath plus a hundred for the minivan adds up to four hundred Baht, which is eight portions of Path Thai, or three t-shirts.

I arrived alright and was just walking through the doors on the fourth floor when my phone rang. It was Tobs who had arrived on time. He told me where he was and we finally met. So good to see him. We went to a small diner kind of restaurant and grabbed some club sandwiches with fries before we took another taxi to get to the Thai Wake Park in Lumlukka, Patham Thani. It's quite far away and to be honest I'm not even sure it's a proper part of Bangkok.

We drove on highways and over bridges, we drove into the city and out of it, we drove till we arrived at the corner of Lamlukka Road and Lieab Klong. And when we turned left the place left us in absolute awe, because what we saw after we turned around the corner was a whole different thing. Except for the well asphalted street there was nothing that reminded us of being in a super modern metropolis with eighteen million breathing souls.

To the left there was a river running along the road, with endless fields of green on the other side. Along the riverside there were palm trees and other species of fantastic flora. Every once in a while there were wooden bridges that looked like they could barely hold a man, there were houses as old as time itself, little shops with old people selling old stuff advertised by old signs. Dogs were protecting properties, a teenage guy escorting a girl on the back of his motorcycle, little kids laughing and jumping in peace.

A few more minutes and we arrived at the park. Hidden in a super suburban spot, the middle of Thai nowhere, an hour away from the Bangkok that I recently got to know, there's the biggest and most famous wakeboard facility in the world. Visitors and well-known pro boarders from all over the globe come here to spend weeks and months riding their boards, improving their skills, enjoying life on the water surface.

In the evening Tobs felt tired from the flight and the not sleeping all the time and stayed home while I went to Sukhumvit to meet up with my friend Cartoon at the Siam Center. We took the BTS to Phaya Thai and went to a Mexican restaurant with real tasty food. After a short while Miss Ploy and her quiet friend Tha joined us and we had coffee and a fruity sweet pie. We chatted a lot, laughed a lot and promised to meet again soon.