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Published: March 4th 2007
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@ The Nightmarket
This place was filled with all kinds of great food. We bought a fair amount of souvaneers and gifts here Bus travel in Asia is surpising. Sometimes it's hell, sometimes it's good. Other times you're treated like royalty. We boarded a beautiful bus that we were to spend the next 13 hours on. They had a airline style stewardess on their who handed us free water and snacks, as well as a wet towel to clean ourselves with. The seats were oversized and comfortable. The ride for me was terrible. I didn't sleep at all that night. I don't know why, I just can't sleep on busses. Jasmine slet like a baby.
We woke up in the morning in Bangkok from Phuket, groggy and not in the best of moods. As we walked away from the bus Jasmine let out a loud gasp. We forgot everyones gifts on the bus. She was absolutley heartbroken. We did our best to talk to the people at the bus station. Surely they could call the bus driver. But they knew no English. It was hopeless. All Jasmine kept saying is that she wants to go home.
We had a busy day that day. We're exhausted fromt he long bus ride and no sleep. But we had to get our Visa's for Myanmar
(Burma). We've had bad luck getting them in the past. The embassies in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur were closed and this was our last chance. Usually they take 4 days to get settled, but knowing that Burma has one of the most corrupt governments in the world we knew we'd have a chance to pay an official a bit more to get our Visa's that day. We applied for the Visa right at 9am and went straight top our hotel, where Jasmine got some help calling bus stations trying to locate all the gifts.
We had a little 3 hour nap. I left Jasmine at the hotel to sort out the phone calls, while I took a cab to back to the embassy. Cabs are cheap here, a 1 hour ride will cost about $2.00 as long as they turn on the meter. This was the 4th of the day. I felt so bad for Jasmine, she's been so upset all day. And she'd be even more upset if for some reason Burma didn't grant us Visa's, which isn't unheard of if they think we're spies haha. I had to think of something to do nice for her. I
Our Teak hotel
Such a pleasant place to be waited in a long line up at the emabassy and thought of the perfect thing to do. I was given our Visa's which means we're ofiicially allowed into Burma in a few days!
I jumped into a cab and made my first mistake. "Take me to the mall" I said! The cab said.....oh shopping!! "I will bring you to a tailor", the cabbie said. "No! no tailors bring me to the mall" I replied. In Thailand many things are commision based so the cabbie thought he was gonna make money out of me. Then he said " I will bring you to a jeweler" and he wouldn't take no for an answer. I jumped out of the moving vehicle and hopped into another one, in which I asked to be let off on a street corner near the mall. It worked. I went inside and found what I was looking for. Swarovski Crystals. Jasmine los tthese beautiful glass crabs, that were inside of seashells. I decided to get her a crystal crab, with a note that said "When you look at me, remember all the good times on this trip " Later that night I surprised her at dinnertime
Hotel decor
The entire lobby and hotel was decked out in little things like monkeys and waterfalls that just made the place nice to be in with it. I think it made her feel a lot better. Gifts are replaceable, I'm sure we'll find others.
Now that we're officially going to Burma, we've got 4 days to waste here in Bangkok, before our 45 minute flight there. We decided to head down to Hua Hin. It's a pleasant beach resort town only 3.5 hours from Bangkok. It's a pricey little city, compared to others. It's mainly a place where Thai familes will go on vacation, and the tourists who are mostly older come to retire. You can see billboards all over the place advetizing homes for sale for 65 million bhat (1.8 million dollars). We were lucky to find a beautiful teak guesthouse for only $10.00. It's one of those places, that you only run into a couple times while travelling. it made our experience in that town so much more pleasurable. It's called Pattana Hotel if anyone goes there.
Not much to do in this town. The beach was ok. Nice water and white sand but much to windy and wavey for our liking. it was interesting to see Europeans on the beach half naked beside Thai's who swim and sunbathe full clothed
Hotel decor
The entire lobby and hotel was decked out in little things like monkeys and waterfalls that just made the place nice to be in in their jeans. There's an interesting night market where we bought some more gifts and ate some really good seafood. We had fun just talking away our last days on the beach on our trip.
After 2 days we headed back up to Bangkok, in a hot sweaty bus. I hate busses so much. During the day it's not so bad, but at night I can't sleep no matter what. I'm worried about Burma. We'll be there for just 10 days, but we have 4 rides that are 15+ hours long on terrible roads. We've never been on busses for this long. It's supposed to be one of the most amazing countries on earth but travel is tough! I'm really worried that if I can't sleep on Thailand's luxury busses, I don't know what I'll do there. Yikes!
We spent tonight in bangkok with an old friend we first met in Hanoi. We talked the night away as he gave us Burma tips. He's on the road for a year, and is off to India. We have to wake up at 3am to get our flight at 7am.
I'm writing this now to let everyone know that I won't have internet access for the next 10 days in Burma, because the military dictaorship that is in contol of the country pretty much banned it. I'll explain more in future Burma blogs about their governent problems. There is no access allowed to hotmail, gmail etc but I may ( or may not be able to get messages on this site) So in other words don't freak out if I don't answer your emails!
We're schedule to be back in Bangkok on March 14th, then spend 2 more days in bangkok, before finally flying home to Vancouver on March 16th......yay!!
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