Laos, Thailand

Southeast Asia Report 3: Railway from Bangkok to Vientian

by Ippei Tsuruga Views: 152

November 10, 2007 “Change my plan” Bangkok (Thailand)

At the Bangkok station
At the Bangkok station

At 3 am, I finally got to Bangkok, but one of my Thai friends didn’t turn up. I decided to stay over the night in the airport, before going into the city at 7 am by bus. After exchanging 50 US$ for 1600Bahts (1$ = 31B), I took a shuttle bus for 150B, which was a bit expensive for me. In the bus, I saw an Italian man with a big blue backpack. He was going to Pakse in Laos.

Actually, I had nothing to do in Bangkok without my friend. I wanted to leave for poorer areas as soon as possible, because Bangkok has a number of huge buildings and everything is similar to the big city in Japan. There were no big differences from Tokyo or Osaka in my opinion.

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Author: Ippei TsurugaIppei Tsuruga is Social Protection Programme Manager for Indonesia at International Labour Organization. He has been managing programmes and providing technical contributions to social security reforms at the country level in Indonesia, Viet Nam and Myanmar, and also contributing to research and knowledge management at the ASEAN regional and global levels. He has been involved in various policy discussions and research activities on unemployment benefit, old-age, invalidity and survivors’ benefits, maternity benefit, sickness benefit, and the extension of social protection to workers in the informal economy. He has worked at the ILO Country Office for Indonesia and Timor-Leste, the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific and the Social Protection Department; and JICA Washington D.C. Office, Research Department, Country Office for Kenya, and Africa Department for Kenya, Nigeria and Somalia.

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