Bangkok

Now I had planned on leaving Bangkok until I'd finished my loop around Thailand/Laos/Cambodia but I was curious to see if indeed there were any parts for the bike as I'd been assured and also to enquire about a Pakistan visa. I decided to buy a Bangkok street map before entering the city to give me a head start and I already had an address for a shop that might have some parts. While I stopped at a service station for lunch, I tried asking a few locals where this address might be on the map. About 20 minutes later, they were still 'umming' away tracing virtually every single street with their fingers despite seeming to imply they knew the area it was in. I had to give up on them despite another local outside doing exactly the same thing. Amazingly I did find the place after crawling along various sections of motorway and being sent back from a toll road as bikes aren't allowed. Anyway, my new knowledgable friends in the shop informed me that everything had to be ordered in, from either Singapore or even Japan. I was told what i wanted would take over a month an even then, he couldn't be sure. My new plan is to get an address in Bangkok and have some parts sent over from Australia which will hopefully arrive by the time I get back there in a few weeks time.

While i was still in the mood for more hassle, I decided to try and get to the UK Embassy to see if I could get a Letter of Non Objection to use for my Pakistan visa application but by the time i got there, they were closed. I sat outside the gates getting barked at by the security guards for a while and then decided to brave the frankly horrendous traffic again to find somewhere to stay and come back tomorrow. I'd been told that the backpacker places were around somewhere called Khaosan Road and commnenced a pretty awful ride through the black fumes and solid traffic with the only things seeming to move being hundreds of small mopeds squeezing through the smallest of gaps to the front of the queues. I figured I must be in the right place when I stumbled upon the most touristy street I think I've ever seen in my life. It was basically a pedestrian street filled with European, British, Australian and North American backpackers plus seemingly hundreds of thumping bars, food stalls and tour agents. "Sweet", I grumbled as I commenced riding into the middle of all this mayhem to find somewhere to stay. By total chance in one of the first allys I rode into, I found a shipping agents office so I nipped in and after asking if they'd fly the bike to Kathmandu, I grabbed their details. This street looked more or less like my idea of hell at this point in time and after deciding that there was no way I'd be leaving the bike anywhere near here, I eventually found a place a few streets away for 150Bt for a shoebox with a shared bathroom but it did have secure parking at least. As is the generaly way of these things, after a cheap dinner from the food stalls, I ended up in a bar with a couple of Dutch and American guys and spent way too much on booze in the same street that was my idea of hell only a few hours ago.

Feeling like shit the following morning, I wisely decided to take a cab back the UK Embassy but found out they'd only 'certify' a copy of my passport for 1600Bt. I walked over to the Pakistan Embassy a few streets away to check if that would suffice and eventually got to speak to the guy behind the glass screen. He took quite a lot of glee in informing me that I had a snowballs chance in hell of getting a Pakistan tourist visa there because I had to either be resident in Thailand or alternativelly I could just nip back to the UK to get it. Again, no amount of foot stamping was going to help and I extracted myself from the office to figure out my next move. Bangkok it seems is only good for certain things, none of which I was looking for. The best thing I found to do at night was to eat cheap green curry for 30Bt (50p) from the street stalls and then sit with a beer someplace and watch the people go by- tourists, locals, TW's, nerds straight out of school and people on their own like myself who were all pretending to be thoroughly enjoying the book they'd brought with them to dinner. I didn't bother bringing a book though as it was much more enjoyable people watching.

I decided that there wasn't much more I could do here and set off the next morning for Kanchanaburi where the Kwai river bridge is. But as soon as i got onto the right road out of town, I was pulled by 3 cops on bikes. One spoke a bit of English and took over the proceedings. Basically i shouldn't be on that road despite me asking the way to Kanchanaburi and him pointing in the direction I'd been riding. He flashed a ticket in Thai at me but suggested we could deal with this now for 1000Bt. I decided long ago I wasn't getting fucked about by crooked cops again and refused telling him there was no sign to say bikes weren't allowed but that I knew they wern't allowed on toll roads, which this one wasnt'. He then came down to 500Bt, a sure sign of desperation of a bent copper if ever there was one. I still refused to budge and explained I was a tourist and appologised for for my dreadful mistake. He was obviously bored by this point and waved me on so I smiled and shook his hand.

And if you don't want to know the scores, look away now:

Overlander 1 - Bent coppers 0