I went shopping; had my phone fixed finally after dropping it in Vietnam almost three months earlier. I went to the cinema. I watched Wimbledon.
Luke was meeting up with his girlfriend in a couple days and our time traveling together was coming to an end so we decided to go check out the tallest building in Thailand - the 84 storey Baiyoke Sky Tower.
The quickest way to get there was from a BTS skytrain stop and walking along the abandoned railway tracks, which are surrounded by small slum-like sheds that people lived in.
We got to the base of the building and it was packed out - all of a sudden there were near on 100 Asian tourists. We paid our 400 baht entry fee and ascended to the 75th floor observation area. We just missed sunset.
Our ticket to the top included a free cocktail in the 76th floor bar - not too shabby!
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After Luke had pissed off I had a few days left before my flight to Sabah, Malaysian-Borneo. I wasn't feeling all that motivated to travel to a new city for a few days so decided to check back in to one of the first hostels in Thailand I stayed in - Bodega Bangkok.
I rocked up and quickly recognised the bearded face of one of the brother-owners. "How's your travels?" he asked. Shocked, he remembered my stay there from way back in early March.
I spent the next three nights back at what would have to be one of my favourite hostels in Thailand. The social atmosphere made it easy to quickly make new friends with those staying there.
I managed to convince a few of the guys from the hostel - two London blokes, another pommie bird and an American dude from San Fran - to join me on the only thing left in Bangkok I wanted to see... the infamous Ghost Tower.
The Sathorn Unique Tower is a skyscraper that began construction in 1990 ... and to this date was never finished. A financial crisis in 1997 halted construction at about the 80% mark and the building has not been sold, demolished or completed ever since.
As it is still owned by someone, security are paid to watch the building around the clock. 500 baht however, will make them look the other way.
Entering off a dodgy little alley way, a Thai guard opens a cutout in the fence and lets us in. Speaking to the man in charge, we each hand over 500 baht and they show us to the staircase and tell us to be back in two hours.
We arrived just after dark - not ideal but still very cool; no one else was in the stairwell or on any of the floors.
The stairwell is lit by a hanging fluro every few floors, but most of the light is from flashlight. Previous adventurers had graffiti-ed eerie slogans on a few of the floors...
Others went for the more arty approach...
As you ascend, you can see the level of development on the floors diminish. Lower down the tower there are bathroom fittings and balcony's ... the higher up you get more sacks of concrete and raw building materials.
Eventually we reached the top of the building, 50 floors up. Walking out what looks like a crypt we emerge out into the open air roof of the building...
The walls on the roof are littered with more graffiti - people making their mark on this surreal structure.
I bought up a backpack with a couple beers, to sit and relax after the long sweaty hike to the top and take in the sights of Bangkok.
On the way down we explored more of the building. One room was filled with bathtubs that were never fitted...
Others simply more graffiti...
And others a little more disturbing...
From what I am told the building gets it nickname Ghost Tower from the fact that a tourist hung himself here a few years back.
All aside, it was an awesome adventure hiking to the top of a derelict building in Bangkok!
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