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Published: February 8th 2007
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We both arrived in Thailand feeling less than 100% - a late night taxi to Bombay airport, a 2.30AM check-in and a 5.30AM flight had taken its toll. On top of that I had managed to poison myself somewhere along the line and my stomach was not happy.
On a brighter note, many other travelers we had met said that we would find travelling in Thailand a breeze after India and it became apparent that they were right as we arrived in Bangkok and were efficiently directed to the right bus and sent whizzing into town, reclining in a clean, air-conditioned coach. The level of Thai efficiency was somewhat questionable in the ladies airport toilets, where Lexa got a photo of the cleaners fast asleep propped up on their loo rolls!
We had decided to head for the infamous Kho San Road, a heaven or hell for back-packers depending on your viewpoint. It’s basically a 500 meter stretch of 24/7 activity; music, singing, sleeping, dancing, touting, eating, drinking and of course shopping - particularly anything fake, from a pair of Nike shorts to a University degree. A constant sea of people ply up and down the road, coming
to experience what is an entirely new phenomenon generated solely by the back-packer scene expanding dramatically over the last few decades and having absolutely nothing to do with Thai culture.
Seeping through the mix is the ever present sound of carved wooden frogs that vendors in wacky Thai hats are trying to flog to the throngs of tourists. These they stroke with a stick producing a sound that is somewhat melodic and quite endearing for the first half an hour, but believe me, 4 days on and someone was about to need a frog-ectomy.
Given that we weren’t really in the market for very many of the activities that were on offer, in fact none apart from getting a fake rucksack and a bit of cheap jewelry, it possibly wasn’t the best location for us to stay… Unfortunately my state of health meant that I wasn’t in a fit state to move that far and kept us around the area for much longer than we would otherwise have wished, being ‘lulled’ to sleep by the kicking bass lines and neon lights of the bars.
Having said that, it was entertaining watching the life-form that is the Kho
San Road for a few days. Families taking a morning stroll with their kids, people having breakfast next to tables of people still drinking from the night before and of course a continuous stream of fresh back-packers arriving to pay homage to this traveler’s must-do destination. One morning we looked out at about 8AM to see a tiny Thai waiter being lifted off the ground and placed back onto a seat opposite a tattooed English guy who, together with his mates was still drinking and arm wrestling everybody he could ‘persuade’! I have to add that it all seemed very amicable and we didn’t see any trouble, although I guess we were in bed by 9PM most nights though!
As my tummy troubles subsided we began to venture further afield, out into the ‘real’ world… well actually Lexa might argue that point. Forced by the need for more storage space due to the ever increasing numbers of digital photos, we headed to a place called Pantip Plaza in search of an external hard drive. I guess on that note half of you will have already switched off and half of you are going…hmmm I wonder how much that sort
of stuff is out there??? Anyway, this delightful place that we renamed ‘Nerd World’ is basically a huge shopping mall devoted entirely to PC’s, IT gadgets, electronics and software (anything for a quid a pop) and where we spent a ‘happy’ 10 hours or so….
To cut a long story short, things got a little out of hand and we left the building that evening with very little will to live, but with something no self-respecting traveler should be without these days - a laptop computer... Now, I know a significant part of the travelling experience is about escaping those horrible machines that pervade our lives these days and maybe you might think a laptop is a little excessive considering we are backpacking (whenever I am struggling around with the straps of my rucksack cutting into my shoulders I would tend to agree with you). However, the advantages of blog-writing in privacy (and for free), reviewing, altering and deleting photos and preparing emails before getting to an Internet café have proved enormously useful. Whilst on the topic of Internet cafés - that is such an inappropriately grand term for most of the down-a-back-alley, shoebox sized hovels, with shoulder to
shoulder computers with keys missing and mice with a mind of their own.
It was Lexa’s birthday whilst we were in Bangkok and she enjoyed herself shopping for some new clothes on the KS Road and we managed to get out for a nice meal in the evening. Not the most exciting, but she was just pleased she didn’t have to go back to the IT plaza…
Bangkok traffic is notoriously bad, but one way to avoid this is by using the water taxis that scream down the otherwise empty waterways in the city, with plastic sheets pulled up the sides to stop everyone getting sprayed by the somewhat questionable water. Getting on and off is exciting as they only stop for about 20 seconds in which time there is a mass crossover of passengers. Luckily we avoided rush hour where apparently the time comes down to more like 10 seconds! The crew have the fun job of climbing along the sides collecting fares, wearing crash helmets just in case they get it wrong...
Concerned about malaria and having failed to get the appropriate prophylactic in India, we decided to see a doctor in Bangkok and find out
what we needed. After a sweaty struggle through the streets we eventually ended up at the spotlessly clean Phyathai private hospital and felt better immediately because it had amazing air-conditioning and very comfortable seats! We were treated like Royalty - after the full registration procedure including height, weight and blood pressure, we were given plastic ID cards to use if we came back again and assigned an English speaking ‘guide’ to tell us what to do and where to go.
You can imagine that having arrived fit and well, we were beginning to feel a little sick about how much this might cost. We enquired about the cost of a consultation, but they could only say that the ‘doctor would decide on the fee’. There must have been 50 patients milling around, but after only a few minutes as we were just getting ourselves comfortable for the usual wait of an hour or more, we were taken to see the doc - so this is what private hospitals are like! Despite all the advice to the contrary given by the UK health organizations, the doc was adamant that we didn’t need any anti-malarials for where we were travelling and
after a bit of reluctance we were convinced by his knowledge and quite happy not to be buying or taking any more drugs than we needed. To finish what had already been a surprisingly pleasant experience, the doc then said he wouldn’t charge us and we left with best wishes from the other staff and comments like ‘come back if you need anything else!’
Still reeling from the sights and strains of India we decided to head south to the beaches and islands, missing out Chang Mai, the elephants and jungly regions to the north. We had a spending spree, booking a 4 day live-a-board dive trip in the Similan Islands on the west coast for a week’s time and a train/boat combo ticket to Kho Tao island on the east coast to get us down that way.
So after about 5 days in Bangkok we found ourselves at the train station waiting for the sleeper train south. The Thai’s are incredibly patriotic and dissing the Royal family is a big no-no. They have pictures of the King everywhere - you can see some in the background of the shot of the kid shouting. The degree of this
respect was highlighted to us at 6PM in that huge, busy railway station when it came to a standstill, everyone stood up (including a lot of bewildered tourists) and all the Thai’s sang the national anthem! Amazing and unimaginable in the UK.
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