The good, bad and the trouble with visas

Falco sang that, "one night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble". I think I understand what he meant! It's a odd town. My orginal plan had been to not even stay in Bangkok, but instead to head striaght to Veitiane, Loas, and stay there while I waited on getting a visa for Vietnam (more on the visa in a minute). This plan was dashed when I could not find a hotel that wasn't full for the day I was planning on arriving. Granted, my search was limited to places online with email booking, and I could have likely just braved it and found a place. But the fact that the 1/2 dozen places I tried were full (it is the high season here) gave me visions of going from place to place in a place with little ability to communicate and no idea where I'm going. That's a little too much adventure even for me! So I decided to play it safe and simply stay in Bangkok where I could confirm a room at a place that speaks English. That hotel turned out to be a nice one too, with airport pickup and a free 'american' breakfast! (the breakfast was 1 fried egg, toast, tea, and deep fried hotdogs- exactly my normal breakfast!). So anyway, I found myself in Bangkok with some time to kill. So far I have been resisting the urge to hide out in my hotel room, although that is the much easier thing to do, it sort of defeats the whole point of being here. So as bit of a compromise, and to ease into the whole thing, I've been sticking to fairly touristy places. Yesterday was a good day, I headed down to the royal palace, visited a set of wats (temples - they are EVERYWHERE) rode in a tuk-tuk, and got scamed at least 3 different times! I had pretty low expectations of Bangkok, and so far it's lived up to them! There are some pretty amazing things here, but there are a good deal of not so pretty things too. There are a LOT of foriegns here. Lots of asians from japan, korea, china, as well as a lot of white folks. I've learned that I really can't pick an American out of a crowd. Everytime I think I've got one pegged, they open their mouths with very broken English. The problem with there being a lot foriegners is that they easy targets, which means there are a lot of con folks looking to seperate the tourist from their money. They call these folks touts. So far basically every person you meet is looking to convience you to take some thing you don't want! most cab drives offer to take me 'shopping' or on a tour of the city. 'Helpful' people on the street who see you reading a map and ask where you are going, are quickly trying to guide me to their uncle's hotel (which is always better then the hotel I'm staying in!), or personally guide me to my destination (for a tip of course). It gets old quickly! It also makes you more then a bit distrustful of everyone! So far I've manage to stay out of most of it, but I ended up at a resurant last night that, while good, was VERY overpriced. The other odd phenomenom is that NONE of the taxi drives know where they are going! I know that getting 'lost' is an old trip to jack up the fair, but I moved to a new hotel to day (close to town, my old one was almost an hour from the city), and it took a dozen taxi drives to find one who knew where I wanted to go. And I had the addresss AND map! It turned out the place was 3 blocks away! Yesterday a tuk-tuk driver took almost an hour to go about a mile, he kept going back and forth. Fortuniately it's a fixed price for the ride! To try and avoid some of these issues, I picked a new hotel near the subway, so I can to and from places on my own! Anyway, on to the visa. Today was a less good day. First thing in the morning I set off fo the vietnam embassy (it's monday here) in order to secure a visa. Turns out it, as well as most everything officail, is closed for the new year. In fact they are closed until Friday! I was worred about this. So with the help of a actually semi helpful local, he pointed me to the TAT, which is basically a travel agency, and will do the leg work for getting a visa for you. It's actually a pretty good deal because for 15 bucks they will wait in line and deal with all the red tape for you! That's where the good news ends! The deal is that because the embassy is closed, they can't do anything until friday, and because there will be a lot of pent up demand on Friday, they won't guarnentee they can get me the visa before Moday. That's a week away. I of course have to leave my passport with them (the visa is attached to the passport at the embasy), which means I really can't travel far while I wait, which means another week in Bangkok. I've only been here 2 days, and I can tell you, I couldn't make it another 7 days! The other big issue with the visa is that it is SUPER restrictive. You have to state ahead of time where and when you come and go, and I'm just not 100% about that yet, which is tricky. So after some reading and thinking, I've decided that vietnam isn't going to happen on this trip, it simply makes things too complicated. So my new plan is to spend more time in Cambodia and Loas, with my friends in Chiang mia and maybe even hit the beach for a while. I think in hind sight, I will see this as the better idea, Vietnam I think is best saved for another trip where I can focus on it alone. The good news is that I can leave Bangkok first thing in the morning!! I will be off to Siem Reap in Cambodia. It's near angkor wat, as well as several other interseting places. It's a 14 hour bus trip and crazy boarder crossing- so wish me luck! I've got a nice place lined up when I get there, it's run by Norwedgends!