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Published: November 22nd 2005
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Big budda
Big shiny and gold, must be thailand! To be honest i'm not actually in Bangkok - i'm also in Chang Mai where Claires writing from but we wanted to look more well travelled to everyone. First of all i'll get a few questions out the way.
the best thing for palolem is to get the sleeper train down from mumbai and then a bus to margoan. from there a bus to paloleom. once you get there it really is a case of get down on the beach and take your pick from whats on offer. we went witht the first once the rickshaw guy gave to us and luckily it was pretty good put it's well worth walking up and down and just asking to see a few rooms - dot pay anymore than 300-400 rupees per night. they will try to get you to though - weak. i'm not sure if its the style to book before hand and we dont have any numbers left anyway - the place was called flava paradise co-co huts. possibly with high season coming up yo might need to??
anyway back to business. after the craziness of india we were hoping for something a bit more down beat when
we arrived in thailand and as thats still fresh in my mind i'll go with a few lines about whats happened to us since we got here. the first thing i noticed about bangkok airport when we landed was how clean it was compared to india - espcially the last night we had in calcutta (granted we did have an excellent meal in a 9th story restaurant but while overlooking all the sprawling mess, dirt and grime below us. actually i want to add a bit more about calcutta because i really was impressed - in fairness its not clean, or pretty and doesn't really have loads of good sights but i got a really good feel to it. plus it was all capped of by the scariest taxi ride to the airport known to man - if they could somehow make a computer game that simulated driving in india it would be huge - any compyter boffins get on the case and we'll split it 50 50.)
anyway after a very very long day we got to calcutta airport (small really - smaller than its domestic cousin) about 10 pm - wrote the blogs from before and boarded the thai air flight about 2.15am. after shovelling the food drink and tea down us in the first half our it gave us the rest (2 hours) to enjoy some good sleeping and indigestion. before i realised i had fallen asleep the captain piped up again and told us we had begun our descent - very sweet.
as i said the first impression was one of cleanliness (not just saying it like in india - lots of "cleanliness is next to godliness" sign which were just hilarious and makes me think they cant be all that godly) and a much more western feel. we had got used to bee-lining for any other european people to compare the horrors of india but as soon as we got the immigration there were (literally) 3 othere plan loads in the que all from London. in a way it was nice to hear so many british voices but it also reminded me of a lot of the things we came away to get away from - i think india had made me happy with the little things in life and here we had been confronted with package holiday central.
out the front we ordered a taxi driver who was really friendly - all thai people seem to be - but was totally trying to rip us off with a four times mark up on the normal taxi fair. again our indian experiences came to the rescue and claire was ace in getting the guy down to the real price (went away very much annoyed and with his tail between his legs as we hadn't turned out to be a pushoever (incidentally re. the comment regarding spelling - it does come down to the keyboards available - the one i'm on at the moment only has about half the letters on it)).
after that we headed out lonely planet in hand to find breakfast and a room. we settled on donnas guesthouse which was definately a step up from anything in india and about the same price - 2to3 pounds for an a/c, fan and en-siute room. after that we got a very western style breakfast (bacon omlette) and headed out to see the sites. first port of call was to be helped by some genuinely nice people who told us about a 20 baht (20p) deal with a tuk tuk (rickshaw) driver who would take you to all the best places because the government subsidises toursim - very good. unfortunately in return for the genuinely good deal, you get taken to 3 stop offs at 'fasion and export' houses which is where dodgy guys try and sell you suits, dresses or huge rings. it was pretty obvious after a while what the deal was so we just huoured them go the cheap site seeing ride and faked interest in the clothes and jewllery. as soon as they realsied we had no cash they were quick to chuck us out.
that was pretty much the morning and the afternoon started at the grand palce which is definately grand without doubt - anyone not believing should search for pics on the net to see that its just gold afetr gold after gold timple with a good smattering of rubies and emeralds for good measure. we also had the good fortune to meet up with an ozzy called geoff who went around with us and we got on so well that we adopted him and are consequently now up north with him after sharing the sleeper train up.
claire in theory should have been doing the stuff after this so i'm going to sign off - i'll just mention for mum that i had a fantastic thai massage and sauna today that has began to change my mind on the old aromatherapy - although it was strange to have a thai women walk all over my back for an hour.
hope all is well with the clans coventry, leeds and anywhere else. please all be very jealous to know that we are having an amazing time and agree that thailand may well be genius bottles up and spread over a country - everything is so so cheap, pretty (the scenery i mean) and relaxed. as long as you are happy to bow to budda statues every 5 minutes it perfect.
oh and also to put your mind at rest we are knowhere near the flooding or bad news stuff in the south. if you havent heard remain ignorant and if you have - we are nowhere near it.
ace times.
marc
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Nic
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Interesting reading your stories on India as I am flying into Mumbai and heading down to Palolem. Been to Thailand and the 'friendly' Tuk Tuk drivers are the oldest scam!! it was only 5 baht for the ride when I was there though, and we were abandoned on some derelect street and had to make our own way back! Enjoy your trip.