Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Bangkok


I’d visited Thailand before, around seven years ago with my friend Sally and her then boyfriend, now husband, Miles.  I had an absolute blast, and was thoroughly looking forward to going back.  I went just after the Tsunami, there weren’t many tourists around which could have added to the enjoyment of my experience.  I was also a lot younger, enthusiastic and more up for a party.  The local people were very friendly, the food was excellent, and we met loads of interesting people along the way. 

We had around two weeks in Thailand, and apart from two of Nev’s wonders in and around Bangkok, he left it up to me to plan what we were to do for the rest of our time there.  Our time was fairly short, and I opted for some R & R at the beach.  I fell in love with the beaches in Thailand last time I was there, Thailand has the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen, and last time I visited they were fairly quiet.  Things were to be different this time round though.

We opted to start off at Koh Tao, move on to Koh Phi Phi and finish off in Bangkok.  My original plan was to spend most of our time on the Andaman coast, but I changed my mind after I got my diving certificate and Valerie suggested Koh Tao, describing it as a Mecca for scuba enthusiasts, and a diver’s paradise.

We arrived in Bangkok late at night and had to queue for around two hours for a taxi.  When we finally got one, the driver was a total prick.  He said that his taxi wasn’t a taxi meter, and suggested a fare.  We had just been standing in a taxi meter queue for two hours, with signs everywhere noting that the queue was indeed for metered taxis.  His taxi had “taxi meter” written all over the outside of the taxi, and his taxi had a meter inside it which was highly visible, and we could see it was working!  When we insisted on using the meter, after Nev got unusually angry, the driver turned into a grumpy git, with various irritated conversational exchanges along the way.  Not a good introduction to Thaliand.

We arrived at our pre-booked guest house at around 3am.  We had to wake up a member of staff before we could gain entry.  I was shattered after travelling since 8am the previous day and got to sleep as soon my head hit the pillow. 

We initially planned to go to Koh Tao the next day, but after arriving in the middle of night and having little sleep, we decided to stay for an extra day in Bangkok and recharge our batteries.  That day we didn’t do very much, I showed Nev the chaotic backpacker district of Khao San, we booked our bus ticket for Koh Tao and went out for a few drinks in the evening.

Khao San Road

I was a bit hungover the next day and left Nev to check out The Temple of the Emerald Buddha on his own.  I’d seen it before and we were going to pay it another visit on our return to Bangkok.  I chilled in our guesthouse until it was time for our night bus to Koh Tao. 




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