{"id":57,"date":"2008-06-01T13:04:08","date_gmt":"2008-06-01T13:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/?p=57"},"modified":"2008-06-01T13:04:08","modified_gmt":"2008-06-01T13:04:08","slug":"tuesday-26th-may-thursday-29th-may-bangkok-and-the-train-north","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/?p=57","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday 26th May &#8211; Thursday 29th May.  Bangkok and the train North"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I finally had my last fitting and got all of my clothes, which are amazing by the way.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve tried to stop plugging things but the place where I wet was &quot;Oscar&quot; tailors and they did a fantastic job.\u00a0 I spent some time by the hoptel pool, read my book and had a lovely swimn.\u00a0 As it was supposed to be my last day in Bangkok Sanjay wanted to take me for a drink.\u00a0 Amongst the places we went to was a bar called Gazebo which is a very relaxed, funky spot with good live music.\u00a0 There was also a pool table and I played some excellent games prior to returning to form and disgracing myself on the black &#8211; following four shots which can only be described as pure genius.<\/p>\n<p>The following day I managed to not leave Bangkok again and nursed a somewhat sore head with fruit juice and sweets.\u00a0 I pottered about, probably looking truly rough, checked my email and finally updated some more of this thang.\u00a0 That evening I had some relatively quieter drinks with Sanjay.<\/p>\n<p>On the Thursday I dropped one top back to the tailors to be altered again and posted a parcel home.\u00a0 I also finally managed to buy my ticket to leave Bangkok.<\/p>\n<p>When I got to the sleeper train I was relieved that firstly, it actually appeared to resemble a train and secondly, that the beds looked okay.\u00a0 I was somewhat less excited about the fact that you didn&#8217;t appear to be able to smoke anywhere.\u00a0 One guard said that I could smoke in the area between the carriages but when I got a cigarette out a guard on the platform looked at me angrily and shook his head.\u00a0 Signs everywhere said there was a 2000 Baht fine (around 35 quid) so I put the cigarette away.\u00a0 Later, after the train had left Bangkok station, I asked another guard who told me that I could smoke in the toilet.\u00a0 Part of me was like, Erm, yes well I&#8217;m sure I &quot;can&quot; smoke in the toilet, in the same way you &quot;can&quot; smoke in the toilets on English trains or you &quot;can&quot; jack-up in the toilets on English trains, but that doesn&#8217;t mean it&#8217;s technically allowed or particularly legal.\u00a0 I decided against the idea until my urges got the better of me.\u00a0 So, I&#8217;m stood there like a naughty schoolgirl puffing out of the window of the toilet thinking, &quot;wow, my fellow passengers are going to think I&#8217;ve got a severe case of the&#8230;.&quot; when the train only pulls into a station!\u00a0 So I&#8217;m stood there looking at all these people (including quite a few guards might I add) thinking, &quot;Hmmm, impeccable timing as ever Zelma!&quot;.\u00a0 So I promptly put the fag out, throw about five pieces of chewing gum in my mouth and walk out to confront my fellow passengers who give me looks like they&#8217;ll be giving the toilet a wide berth for some time.<\/p>\n<p>Later that night I was feeling peckish so took a wander down the train.\u00a0 When I got to the dining car I wasn&#8217;t sure at first if it was a staff room as there were only staff and they were drinking, smoking and dancing to Thai music.\u00a0 I was welcomed with smiles as I caught people&#8217;s eyes so went in.\u00a0 I spent a happy few hours sipping coke, smoking cigarettes, without bricking it each time I took a drag, watching the women dancing to Thai music and wondering why the hell I didn&#8217;t find this place sooner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I finally had my last fitting and got all of my clothes, which are amazing by the way.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve tried to stop plugging things but the place where I wet was &quot;Oscar&quot; tailors and they did a fantastic job.\u00a0 I spent some time by the hoptel pool, read my book and had a lovely swimn.\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}