Ah Thailand!

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Hello again,
So as most of you know by now, I am in New Zealand at the moment, but how did I get here you may ask? Well, with a lovely (and FREE too) 17 days layover in Thailand. The cheapest flight to Auckland from Seoul had a stopover in Bangkok so I had to go there no matter what, why not enjoy a little bit of summer then. You may not have noticed but I went from winter in Korea to incoming winter in New Zealand so I am actually skipping summer this year. I'm a winter person so I should be fine but the heat and the sun of Thailand were still very welcome.
After very sad goodbyes to Kathy and Ben, I happily left Pusan, South Korea, for an exciting adventure. My bags were overweight and I had to pay a penalty so it all started well but at least I bargained and had to pay much less than I should have. That and the way I placed my bag on the scale so that a lot of one bag was touching the ground, phew! Would have been expensive! The flight was quite short, about 5,5 hours and we got fed thai food, awsome! Three non-English speaking Korean girls sittng beside me ordered the thai meal as well, instead of the Korean one and didn't touch any of the lovely chicken curry, man they are so close minded! No idea what they ended up eating during their trip. I arrived in Bangkok and was overwhelmed by the amount of foreigners, I hadn't seen that many since leaving Canada. And I was only at the airport. More bag/money troubles plagued me as I had to put most of my stuff in storage (2 bags) at the airport. 4$/day/bag...Are you kidding me? That's more expensive than most hostels! No way I'm paying this much so I managed to stuff my one giant bag even more and fill my travelling backpack too. Lovely, now I have to carry my laptop around for over 2 weeks. Oh well.
I spent a couple of days in the capital to observe the main sights. The architecture and colours were very impressive by the way! The pictures will give you a better idea. I then had a flight scheduled for Koh Samui, an island in the Gulf of Thailand where I was gonna stay for a few days of diving before heading to do a cleanse on Koh Phangan, a smaller island, a boat ride away from Koh Samui. Of course I almost missed my flight: I was waiting in line for ever in the Thai Airways line and was starting to worry as I finally got to the counter and was told I wasn't registered on the flight! What? Oh.... it's with Bangkok Air, oups, thanks! That's what happens when I wake up at 4am. Anyways, I made it to this tiny open-air airport and decided to keep going to Koh Phangan.
The Sanctuary is a resort accessible only by a two-hour hike or with a small taxi-boat from the main town on the island. The taxi-boats try to fill-up with people before they go so I had to wait for a few hours in Had Rin (one of the 2 main towns on the small island) before getting dropped off. I was scheduled to endure a 5-day fruit cleanse . Why, you may ask? Uhm, not too sure, it was recommended to me and I thought it may be a good idea after all the GMOs and pollution of Korea. One has to prepare for a cleanse by eating only veggies and fruits for a couple of days and drinking lots of water. I already thought I was going to starve to death through that part so you can imagine that I didn't last too long. Plus, there was a Muay Thai camp just 2 minutes away from the Sanctuary and I tried to train on an empty stomach and had to stop early because I got dizzy. Muay Thai vs not eating? Which one would you choose? I lived in the dorm room above the bar for 4$ a night, sleeping on a hard wood floor beside an ecclectic and worldly bunch. I spent 6 days there, relaxing, swimming, reading, training and yes, eating lovely thai food. It was a very relaxing time. I met some interesting people and some odd ones but it was fun.
Every month, at the full moon, a crazy party happens in Had Rin which draws thousands of people from all over the world. Oh my! Imagine all your clubbing experiences, in you whole life, and put them all together in one night on one very long beach! Chaos! Being secluded in my sanctuary, I wasn't really too keen on going, but I met a few cool chicks and ended up joining them. We staying up all night, mostly people watching and laughing. Hilarious! We watched the sun rise (the party is on Sunrise beach) and then headed back in a water taxi. Went to bed at 9am...
After a while, I got antsy and had to leave my side of the island. I headed to Had Rin to use the internet and also book a tour of the island including elephant trekking. So much fun! Loved the elephant ride, a bit short though. We also went snorkelling and I got the worst sunburn I have ever hadm, on my bum!!!! Yes, you read correctly, it was horrible, I couldn't sit for days and it blistered and peeled for weeks. Sorry, no pictures of that. I tried but it's hard to take a picture of your own ass! I also met a couple of Quebecois and we went out for dinner at the end of the day, so good to speak some French. When I was in town, I also saw this guy and totally recognised him and couldn't place him. I didn't talk to him but regretted it as I couldn't figure out where I knew hom from. Then, randomly the next day, I stopped for lunch at a little place and hewas sitting in that restaurant too. I had to ask! Where are you from? South Africa. Even been to Canada or Korea? No. Uhm, where do I know him from???? I run a hostel in Croatia! What? Yes, what a small world, I stayed at his hostel in Korcula, Croatia last summer. How weird is that?
I wanted to do some diving while I was in Thailand and I heard that Koh Tao (a smaller island further north than Koh Samui and Koh Phangan?)) was one of the top spots so I decided to head there. An English/Cyprusian? hairdresser who was staying in the dorm with me was headed there too so we went together and hoped to save on accomodation by sharing. Koh Tao is a beautiful island but it is overloaded with dive schools. Most places were booked so it took us a while to find a place to stay and it ended up being pretty far out of town in the jungle almost. But really cheap and the dive school which provided it to us was great and full of professional and fun divemasters. I logged in 6 dives, which was great practice as it had been a while but I wasn't impressed by the sights at all. The coral was tern and there were giant schools of fish but I had seen all of them before. You also couldn't look anywhere without catching a glimpse of someone's fin or air bubbles. The business took away from the experience, for sure. If you want a cheap and wonderful place to do your diving course, go to Honduras. I also rented a scooter to explore the island on a day off from diving and attended Muay Thai classes everyday at a new school right by our bunglaow.
From Koh Tao, one can either take the ferry back to Koh Samui and then flight to Bangkok for a few hours worth of travelling but a lot of money. Or one can take a ferry to the mainland and a bus all the way to Bangkok. A very cheap alternative albeit a 10-12 hours one. I'm cheap so I went for that one. It ended up being okay as the bus was comfortable and they played countless movies. I got dropped off close to Koh San Road, the main tourist area which had been bombed the day before. I didn't even know about it until I got there, oups! I had to check many places before finding a cheap and available room. My last couple of days in Bangkok were filled with shopping, cheap beauty treatments (oh, I forgot to mention the worst haircut I ever had in Had Rin....note to self, do not get your hair cut by a stranger who speaks a different language than you do! Luckily, Costas is a hairdresser so he tried to limit the damages but it still looks bad 5 weeks later), last minute touristy things and eating as much food as my body could take! So yummy. I went on another day tour, this one to the Floating Markets, an ugly random bridge and the Tiger Temple. The markets were a nice tourist trap but fun but the Tiger temple was awsome! It's a place where Buddist Monks started taking care of orphan tigers and they raise money by having people coming in and taking pictures with them. There were also many other animals on the grounds of that sanctuary and I had a blast. I got carried away though and manage to make everyone wait for me back at the little tour bus. Oups again.
The time to leave this beautiful country was fast approaching but I didn't really mind as I was headed to another cool adventure. To summarize my thoughts abour Thailand, the food is amazing, the architecture is impressive, it is a very easy country to travel (everything is tourist-orientated) but with that goes the immense crowds everywhere, all the time. I must go to bed now, sorry about the novel! I will add some pictures to this post shortly.
Adios, Marie-Eve

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Photos

Bangkok
Me, posing on a taxi bike while the driver took the picture. SCARY! We weaved through traffic at quite high speeds and at some point, my knees brushed against the sides or the two cars we were driving between.

Bangkok
A cute little building.

Bangkok
A luck-inducing albino turtle, poor thing.

Thailand
Bangkok, a big and busy metropolis

Bangkok
A statue in honour of the King. They are on most street corners and most people wear yellow shirts and/or yellow bracelets to show their support to the King.

Bangkok
Some of the architecture around the Grand Palace grounds

Bangkok
Some of the architecture around the Grand Palace grounds.

Bangkok
Being all stylish as I visit the Grand Palace area. Women cannot wear tanktops or short skirts and men cannot show their legs so they lend people articles of clothing.

Bangkok
Some of the architecture on the grounds of the Grand Palace.

Bangkok
Cool sign at the entrance to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. It's tiny by the way. I don't think I have a decent picture of it.

Bangkok
Grand Palace

Bangkok
How do those guards stay so serious all the time? I sure couldn't do it.

Bangkok
A nice garden still on the grounds of the Grand Palace.

Bangkok
The famous Temple of Dawn.

Bangkok
The biggest lying down Buddha in the World.

Bangkok
A Tuk-tuk from the inside, good way to wander the streets cheaply and a little bit more safely than with a taxi-bike.

Comments

[stiz]

wow
wow and keep up those adventures.