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Published: June 11th 2008
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I am having a fantastic time here in Thailand, the plane ride over was excruciating though, 26 hours worth of sleepless, restlessness and boringness. Finally I arrived in Bangkok @ 2:00am local time, caught a taxi over to Koh San Road where I had booked my first nights accommodation. The taxi actually charged me the agreed rate, which in my experience traveling can become a problem, he couldn't drop me off in front of the hotel because the street was so busy. Really the street was something out of this world, even at that time of night, there were hundreds of other tourists and locals all over the place, bars, hostels and eateries fill the sides of the streets. I was only out of the taxi for maybe a minute when a couple of cute Thai girls stopped me and asked what I was up to, I had stated that I had to find where I was staying, and they offered to help, (don't look a gift horse in the face?) So after a short walk they got me right to where I needed to be, which without their help would have taken a lot longer. It was very apparent what
they had in mind, but I explained that I was really tired and was just going to bed to sleep.
The next morning I woke up to find ants all over the place, on me, the bed, the walls. Betting all the hotels would have similar problems I decided to suck it up and have stayed another two nights there. The first day I took a tuk tuk over to see some local temples and to book some more of my travels. My advice is to not take Tuk Tuk’s anywhere! They are too much a pain, and there is always hidden objective’s, like stopping at a silk shop, or going to the travel agency that gives them a cutback.
The Wats as the call them are really quite amazing and have a lot of marble and gold all over the place (I like shinny stuff). It was so hot I had to shower three times in the first day. After a nice massage, (great idea after traveling all yesterday) I went back to my place intending to only take a nap. I woke up 5 hours later at about 11:00pm.
Being fully rested and still running on
Edmonton time I headed out onto the street where everyone is partying, I met up with a guy from London named Gary, he is a reporter for the London Tabloids and he had some very amazing stories. We ended up drinking for a while at this one bar, after which we headed a couple of doors down to another, then another. Long story short at about 3:00am he mentioned that maybe it would be a good idea to stay up all night as he had a day train to Laos in the morning. Being fully awake, and possibly a "little" drunk, I seamed to think it was a great idea to keep drinking with him. After showing up late for my last day of work under similar drunken conditions I figured the only way to make the tour was to stay up. (The voice inside my head is such a YES man - he's fired). A couple of times I do try and leave only because I am falling off my chair, but Gary won't have it - he even called me a girl. So after about 6-9 margarita's (never tried one before - too easy to drink) it was
Floating Market
The first two are the ladies I met on the tour. around 5 or 6 am - I think I phoned Kerri? I headed off and went back to my hotel to shower as I had a tour booked for 7am. I shower and have one piece of toast and wait for my tour bus - no sleep.
I meet up with two girls from Canada while waiting for the tour van and explain my condition - which in reality was probably very apparent -still being rather drunk and swaying uncontrollably from side to side. I end up being put on a different bus than them, but once I start taking to the others on that bus I realize that I didn't sign up for the two day elephant trekking - so I hop off that bus and wonder onto the bus the girls where on - which was the tour I booked - except we did more than I had originally paid for. No problem. We went to the floating market, some famous trestle bridge made by POW in WW2, and a tiger sanctuary. Now at about 10am, starting to sober up and after being shuttled around a lot on buses and now floating on a boat in a
Th Mae Nam Khwae
Death Railway Bridge (over The River Kwai) river in the extreme heat - I decide to fire the YES man. The rest of the day was not as bad as one might think however it also wasn't a walk in the park. I did have fun, and the girls and I talked a lot which seemed to distract me from my headache temporarily. 10 bottled waters later I felt ok. So at about 4pm we are heading back to Bangkok and the girls and I are separated as everyone is staying in different area's - well as luck would have it the bus I am on breaks down, so we are stranded on the side of the road for what seemed like hours - I just want to go to bed. We make it back to Bangkok at 8pm, I head straight to bed and slept until this morning. So here I am.
Next I will be catching an overnight bus to Koa Tao a little island where I signed up to take a four day diving course - will post more later.
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