Friday night I was woke up again by earache. It had been OK all during the day, but I was afraid that somerhow it would act up again in the evening, and it did; but, after a half hour the pain stopped, and I was able to sleep again.
Got up early Saturday morning to get everything packed and ready for a quick exit to Dum Dum Airport. Around 9:30 the hotel boy who'd been arranging the packing for the box of my excess clothes came by, and we left for the General Post Office. The GPO was only partly open, but we were able to get most of the work done, and walked back to the Esplanade P.O. to finish it, where we ran into a hitch. They wanted a document proving that I was a tourist and had permission to mail valuable packages. The document could only be gotten from the Tourist Office, on the other side of the downtown area. Time was running short, and I protested that it was silly, and that I was obviously a tourist, but no success, so we had to catch a taxi there and back to get the form.
I made it to the airport on time after all, riding through some very funky areas of Calcutta to get there, got on the plane and fled India. The rats in my hotel room were really beginning to bug me.
Very nice flight on Thai Int'l, easy ride through customs, and into an air-conditioned mini bus into the city, which dropped me at the Reno Hotel. The next day was Sunday, with no possibility of getting any business done. Lounged around the pool and took a "canal tour" in the afternoon. They hauled me and a bunch of chubby and aging W'n tourists around on a barge, drinking our fill of liquor and eating fruit, pretty oblivious to the supposed subject of the tour. Walked around the corner Sunday night to see "Island of Dr. Moreau".
Bangkok seems to be a boom town a lot like Tehran. Streets chock full of new Japanese cars, stores full of all sorts of imported goodies. Almost all of the hotels seem to be left-overs from the days of R&R excursions from Viet Nam; all fairly straightforward American-style, air-conditioned with swimming pool and bar and restaurant, and names like Florida, Reno, Atlanta, Malaysia and First Hotel. Some people really bewail the passing of the good old days when all the GIs used to come over. It seems Bangkok changed very much very fast.
Monday morning I spent roaming around checking on ticket prices at different travel agents. Bangkok is famous for cheap airline tickets, and I've been hearing all along the road, and from Tom Davis, that I could get a 1-way ticket to the U.S. for $300.00. I went to around five different small and large travel agents, all advertising maximum discount tickets, and found out that the best I could do for getting down to Bali and back to the U.S. was around $900.00. Had to forgo all thought of going anywhere in the S. Pacific to get it down that cheap.
American Express' travel agent offered tiockets as cheap as anyone's, and would let me use the credit card, so I bought a round trip ticket to Bali from them.
A real good Asian cloudburst fell on us that afternoon, and when I went out in the evening to see a movie all of the streets were flooded and jammed with traffic. Boom town. Taxi took me to the wrong theater, so I didn't see any movie.
Bangkok seems a good bit harder to get around in, because of the language and alphabet, and because the city is spread out over a huge area. Impossible to walk a lot of places.
Tuesday morning back out on the streets for business. Went to the Indonesian Embassy to try and get a visa, but they wouldn't accept my passport to begin the work until I had both my tickets and photographs. I was out of photos, and couldn't get any more until Wednesday morning, which was also when I'd be able to pick up the ticket, so I had to put the visa off for another day. Tuesday night I saw "Rooster Cogburn" at a theater, and had dinner afterwards at the hotel. They have Margaritas here, the first retail Margaritas I've seen since I was at the Bretagne in Athens. I indulged.
Wednesday morning I picked up my photos and ticket to Bali, and dropped them off with my passport at the Indonesian Embassy. Saw "The Aggression" and had dinner afterwards.
Yesterday afternoon I picked up a new pair of clear-lensed glasses I'd arranged for Tuesday, at a shop across from the Embassy, picked up my passport with the visa stamped in it, and returned to the travel agent at American Express to negotiate a ticket through to Seattle from Bangkok. I'd decided that once I left Bali, I'd want to just get home ASAP, certainly no layovers in Bangkok to buy a ticket, and also none in Hong Kong to fool around sight-seeing. Already I'm spending a lot of time thinking about Seattle, my friends and parents. Also, since the Thais might be sticky about a visa coming back to Bangkok, and I'll certainly be below the $300 limit, it seems best to have a ticket to wave at customs officers if need be.
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And while I was at Amexco, I discovered that the ticket I thought was for Saturday with a 2-day layover in Singapore had been for that morning, and that the layover was unnecessary. I could fly straight through to Bali from here. So I had that ticket re-done, along with getting the new ticket, and now I'm saving some money and my finances are much more definite, since I have a ticket home in hand.
Today the only business to do was to pick up my re-worked Bali ticket and my ticket to Seattle. Other than that my time was spent as most days here, sitting reading, either in my hotel room or at the pool. Last night I saw "Sicilian Cross" and thus exhausted the list of palatable western films in town. Nothing to do tonight. Farted a mighty fart as I was finishing dinner tonight, and drove a mass of wet shit up the back of my pants, sitting right there at the table. Escaped to my room and dropped the pants and my shirt into the bathtub to soak.
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