Vik Around The World: Staying close to 'home'

The 10 days following the Chiang Mai trip passed rather fast and uneventful. There were tons of classes to catch up on with assignments and homework. Ooooh, the excitement.
The week was also filled with lots of issues from banking to insurance on all the other stuff so I spent many hours completing and sending around paperwork. Thanks god for e-mail, otherwise that would have been an utter nightmare.
The more exciting part were all the going out and partying that I managed to cram into these busy days. Afer all you need a good balance between work and play, right? There were several nights out drinking in Silom Area, the famous Patpong nightmarket with its pubs and the gay street Soi 4 that serves the cheapest buckets of cocktails South of Khao San (as far as I know).
We had a nice 'family' dinner at Indus, an Indian restaurant in Klongtoey to welcome Markus, Laura's boyfriend. Indian food is quite a change to the ubiquitous Thai fare and they served all my favorites there. And of course the company was great.
Some people from our university rented out the Penthouse on the 24th floor and held a huge party open for all students. 400 B with all you can drink. Not a bad deal if the alcohol would have been better. But if you only live a few floors below you can always byob. The party somehow went on until they switched the music off and the lights on, it was a nice way to spend a Saturday Night.
Tough luck we had to rise early on Sunday morning for a compulsory cooking class, as part of our Thai Language course. It is cruel to schedule that on a Sunday morning but at least the outcome was delicious. Apart from Pad Thai we did some other dishes that we did not get the chance to cook in Chiang Mai so it wasn't a total loss. The Tom Yam Kum we did was delectably spicy and I got to try Tub Tim Krop, a dessert, which I would have never ordered otherwise since it doesn't look that appealing if you don't know what it is. But I recommend everyone to try it at least once. I started to like it a lot.
Monday and Tuesday I mainly spent with getting my non-functioning Laptop repaired. While waiting around and talking a walk to pass the time I managed to stumble upon 'Soi Goethe' where a german language center is located. They even have a separate dictionary for swear words Thai-German. A good buy if you spend longer here. There's also german fairy tales translated into Thai, never expected to see that. Just a stone throw away I discovered the Austrian Embassy. Leave it to my countrymates to manage a building in the middle of Bangkok adjacent to a wild jungle looking like empty plot of land. Nature calls!
After all the frustrations what better to brighten your mood then... YES... more party nights in Silom! What exactly we saw and experienced I won't detail here, but you can imagine we made the most out of the night, and yes Bangkok's got crazy shit on offer. 4 am half-suicidal Tuk Tuk rides through half of Bangkok are just minor experiences in the grand scheme of Patpong (don't take your kids, it's definitely R-rated).
I also managed to cram some Cambodia trip planning into the busy week and we'd be off Friday morning.
So I spent the Thursday evening with some lovely Finnish people (surpriseee) and packing for the trip.
Next update is from Cambodiaaaaaaa!