Back in Bangkok

So after the Docs at Bangkok Hospital, Phuket gave me the alr clear I found myself on a plane for the first time since early June, and back in Bangkok. Well, I didnt think a 12 hour bus would be the best thing for me just now.
Bangkok always surprises me, one minute your marveling at the construction of the new sky train and the amazing shopping centers (and that's coming from a shopping hater) and the next your route is cut off by a passing elephant. It has a reputation for truly awful traffic, but its easy enough to avoid the worst by using the river ferries, canal boats, Metro and Skytrain, which are all fun and pretty stress free ways of getting around.

I based myself in backpacker based banglampu, mainly as I reckoned it would be the handiest place to get my Nam visa. I'm staying in a nice little family house off of soi Rambutri, which is just far enough away from the neon lights of Kao San. I had to wait around for a few days, which, given my delicate nature at present, wasn't a bad thing.
Apart from gorging on thai food, I managed to get out a bit and do some cultural things, like checking out the house of Jim Thompson, which was pretty cool and colonial, as well as the super modern siam square area. I also paid a visit to one of the more visited "cultural" attractions, the infamous patpong - something I'd not done before, and, quite frankly, probably won't bother again. I guess it's the sort of thing you need to see once, but there's only so many times, despite the obvious skill involved, that popping baloons with a dart gets you excited. To complete this part of my tourism extravaganza, I visited the soi Cowboy strip in Sukhumvit, which was a little lower key but more of the same really.

On another note, I just found out that a pic I took of a bridge in Verona was used on the cover of a magazine, so that was pretty cool.
My passport with Visa finally arrived back today, so I'm all set for the Nam flight tomorrow.