Bangkok

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Well where did I leave off?! Ah yes-I was leaving the fabulous island of Koh Phangan! The ride to Bangkok was long, but not too awful, although I almost didn’t make it for departure. Martin, the owner of the Rainbow Bungalows, lost track of the time, and instead of leaving 45min before departure we left 10min prior. Luckily we made it, a little hectic and unorganized, but all good in the end. The ferry was a speed ferry and their way of making the time pass was to play movies. Throughout the entire trip to Bangkok I think I saw a total of 5 ½ movies-mostly stupid ones, but it helped I guess. Once I arrived in Bangkok I decided to taxi my way to the hostel to avoid the hassle of public transit. I arrived at the hostel about 1:30am, checked in, washed up, and crashed! The next day I came to realize, though I was in fact in a mixed dorm, I was the only female in the room. Ah well, it was all good. My roomies were two British guys:Nik and Cirian, a guy from Croatia:Marko, and an American guy from New York:James. So my first day there I knew I needed to get my Vietnam Visa taken care of so I got up, got ready, headed out the door, and grabbed my first tuk tuk ride to the Vietnam Embassy. The goal of most of these guys is to basically take you around everywhere for a day, so the entire way there they are constantly asking what you are going to do after this and after that. The driver I had, ‘A’ was his name, though I don’t know how to spell it, ended up being quite helpful because the Vietnam Embassy was closed so he suggested one of the travel agencies. I ended up paying for my visa(one day processing), a day trip to Ayutthaya, a bus to Chiang Mai, and 4 nights stay in Chiang Mai. Bravo-my next week was planned(though I later regretted it a bit). That night my roomies and I all decided a trip to Khao San Road was in order for my first night in Bangkok, so we packed into a cab-all 5 of us-for the ride of our lives. The cabbie was a crazy man-and was perhaps too energetic. I was sitting on one of Marko’s legs and one of Cirian’s being tossed about due to the constant weaving and swerving. Though many of you won’t like to hear this, I’m going to tell it like it was. You see James was sitting in the front with this crazy man, chatting and drinking his bottle of Chang beer. Before we knew it the cabbie was taking the beer from James and drinking a swig. We all just looked at each other a little worried and a little entertained. The guy was a real jokester, said he was from the USA and “Go Obama”-then he popped in some upbeat dance music and started jumping all over the place. I think it turned out to be one of the longest trips to Khao San possible and one of the most entertaining/scary rides of my life! So there we were at Khao San Road-the tourist trap of Bangkok-and we were looking to grab some drinks to wet our whistles…I think we all were in need of a drink after that ride! We found a little place out on the street that sold buckets. It was basically a little stall set up on the street with a cd player and a whole bunch of little plastic stools. We gathered around our stool/table and ordered ourselves some whisky buckets. It was a fun little place but technically they aren’t allowed to have their “bars” go into the street, so every time the police came driving through the street, they had to have everyone shift toward the sidewalk. The Thai girl that was serving us came around after a while with a bunch of neckties saying “It’s a tie(Thai) party!” We all sat around chatting for a bit until the place started to die down a little bit-and then we headed to an Irish pub just up the street. Inside they had live music-a Thai band-singing, or trying to sing, English songs. I played one of the best games of pool of my life, danced around a bit, took a roll of the toilet paper they had sitting out in a bin(very random, but if you were travelling around here, you’d understand why), and eventually, very very early in the morning, we made our way back ‘home’. The next day I was meeting my friend Anne, from Koh Phangan, for lunch. It just so happened to start pouring down rain about 15min prior to our meeting time, so I had a lovely stroll in the rain(luckily I was gifted an umbrella my first night staying in Seoul from a traveler who was heading home). It was nice to see a familiar face. One of her coworkers, she, and I all had a nice Italian lunch, and she and I made plans to try to have a drink the next evening. After we parted I spent time looking around at all the little booths, and doing a little more shopping for some gifts. Friday night was very low key-we all decided to take it a little easy after our crazy time on Khao San the previous night. Saturday I decided to try and actually see some of the temples and all that tourist stuff, as well as send off all the gifts so I wouldn’t have to pack them around with me. Again I was taking a tuk tuk, and in order to get from point A to point B to point C for an even cheaper price I agreed to stop at the sponsor’s shop and “just look” so the driver could get his 5 liters of gasoline. I had no intention of buying a suit, but I went in anyway. The salesmen are good at talking, but I managed to make it out without purchasing a custom tailored suit or blouse! I made it to the Palace just in time for the rain. It started to pour as I was in line for my ticket. I almost turned around to leave, but knew this was my last day to look around and decided the Palace was probably a place I should check out. I watched as the palace grounds turned into a lake, and tried my best to stay under the shelter of the walkways. In all honesty I was a bit disappointed with the palace-I didn’t really get to go into any of the buildings, so I basically walked around looking at the outside of all of them. Afterwards I left to go see the reclining Buddha and began negotiations with another tuk tuk driver. He wanted 200baht to go to the Buddha-which I found out was only like a block away! I told him no way, and then another guy came up and said he will take you to the big Buddha, then such and such temple, then the reclining Buddha for 40 baht. I climbed in and then the driver started saying we would go to the Buddha then stop to “look” so he could get gas, and then continue along-ARGH! I didn’t want to look around at suits again, so we sat there and argued a little. I kept saying I don’t want to look at suits, and he kept saying why? Why not? I kind of was short with him and said look either you take me like you said or I will find another tuk tuk. I did feel bad about it though-because he started to sulk a bit. After the Buddha I said ok I’ll have a look so you can get your gasoline. Sooo this time it was a jewelry store. I was almost convinced to buy a ruby(for my mom), but decided it was probably not the best idea. Afterward I made it to the reclining Buddha, walked around for a bit, and ended up grabbing a taxi to the hostel, if I’d stop to “have a look” only 20baht-ok ok last time I figured. The place was a suit shop again, and they knew that everyone was just having a look, so it wasn’t bad ,only about 2min of listening to them and then I was on my way. The taxi guy was very friendly and we chatted about life. He was raising his daughter alone because his wife passed away, and said he worked long hours now, but in 4 years, after she graduated, she would work and take care of him. It’s a little different than the America! When I arrived at the hostel the guys invited me to go to Banyan Tree to have a drink and take in the view before heading to a sports pub for the football game. Banyan Tree is a flashy rooftop restaurant/bar, with a dress code and all. I only had flip flops, but figured I’d attempt it anyway. When we arrived we were informed that no alcohol was being served, due to elections taking place the next day. They said we were still welcome to go up and have a non-alcoholic beverage, so we piled into the elevator and went up to the top! Once we arrived to the entrance to the restaurant we were greeted and informed of the dress code-luckily they had some shoes for me to slip into-even though they didn’t go with the outfit. So we went up and the view was fantastic. The restaurant was very classy and open air, so we all sat down to enjoy some virgin drinks. We stayed for about 45min I’d guess, and decided it was time to move on to the pub-hoping that they would serve alcohol for the game. We arrived at the pub and they were in fact serving alcohol on the DL. We stayed for a short bit drinking Black Label from a teapot(another part of keeping it on the DL), and playing some bar games(shuffle board, foosball, pool). After a while I decided I wanted to go to Khao San to meet up with Anne, she was there and said that the Rooftop Bar was serving alcohol. James and Marko were ready to leave as well, so off to Khao San we went. The place was so different without the alcohol on the streets. No buckets, and a bunch of blank stare sober people. Not the Khao San we knew. We did find a place serving alcohol-the busiest on the street. So we settled in and grabbed a few drinks. Eventually the rest of the crew showed up, as well as Anne and her friend. We spent the night playing “Never Have I Ever”. The next day I had to get up early to go on my day tour of Ayutthaya, which I found a little difficult after a late night. I slept during most of the bus ride there. The tour was ok-nothing too spectacular-but the ruins were very neat to look at, and fun to photograph. The trip back to Bangkok was by boat with a buffet lunch included. I spent part of the trip back enjoying the view, and another part sleeping. After arriving back in Bangkok I had to quickly gather my things and make my way to my bus for Chiang Mai.

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