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Published: April 13th 2009
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We left Koh Smelly on the morning of the 30th March and arrived back in Surat Thani on the mainland in the early afternoon to be greeted by a crowd of touts trying to sell us bus tickets to various places. We have been warned about various scams that people lure you into in Thailand and many of them are to do with bus tickets offered by touts so we grabbed our bags off the coach and went in search of a travel agents instead. After shopping around for a while in the blistering heat we found a place that offered an overnight coach for 350 baht (about 7 pounds) each. Travelling overnight is far preferable to travelling during the day, especially if it is a long trip because you can sleep as soon as you get on and simply wake up in your destination rather than staring out of the window for 8 hours. Also, you don't have to pay for accomodation that night as the bus is your home! The downside is that they are rarely comfortable enough to sleep properly. Also, as we had arrived in Surat Thani in the early afternoon we had to kill half a
day wandering through town and making a fruit shake last as long as possible in a cafe.
Although it left an hour late the coach trip wasn't too bad. We were asleep within an hour or two of getting on and, as it wasn't too crowded we had a double seat each to stretch out. About 6am we woke up to see the outskirts of Bangkok passing by our windows. When we arrived in the centre we got a cab to a yellow bible recommended hotel in Khoa San Road called Khao San Palace Inn. It wasn't quite palatial but it was clean and the room had air conditioning, satellite tv (albeit Thai satellite tv which is even worse than British), a hot shower and comfortable beds which is more than can be said about most of the accomodation we've stayed in so far. It was slightly pricey at 800 bach (16 pounds) a night but we desperately needed somewhere nice for a quick nap and a shower after a long journey.
When we woke up around 11am we had a shower and ventured out to explore our surroundings. Khoa San Road is legendary in backpacker lore and
we were excited to see what all the fuss was about as it had seemed fairly quiet when we arrived in the small hours of the morning. Unfortunately, when we got to reception we looked outside to find that it was absolutely tipping down. Rainstorms in this part of the world are far more fun than back home. For an hour or two it will hammer down so hard it hurts your head and soaks you through in seconds then the clouds will clear and it will be 32 degrees again. Anyone watching the Malaysian Grand Prix will have seen a glimpse of the crazy weather here. However, today we didn't fancy being soaked so we retreated back to the room to wait the rain out. When it cleared later in the afternoon we finally got to see Khoa San Road.
Khoa San Road is small road in the Banglamphu area of Bangkok that has been stuffed to bursting with bars, cheap accomodation, stalls selling food, clothing, tourist tat, fake IDs (including university degrees!) and anything else you can possibly imagine. It's also popular with young locals who come to mingle with all of the tourists that jam the
streets every night of the week. It is the Thai equivalent of Leicester Square but far, far more fun. We spent a couple of hours just wandering up and down the road, taking it all in and trying not to get ripped off by any of the hundreds of touts offering a variety of deals that are simply too good to be true. Some of them are actually fairly cunning and if we hadn't been warned beforehand by the yellow bible and other travellers we might have fallen foul of some of them. One of the ones we'd heard about was guys posing as helpful locals telling you that whatever monument/museum/temple you want to visit is closed and that they can take you somewhere else more interesting. Then on the way they suggest a shop that you should visit (which is usually run by a friend or family member) and once inside the doors are locked until you buy something you don't want at an inflated price. The guy of course gets commission from the shop for bringing you there.
After wandering up and down Khoa San Road for a bit we decided to head to the tourist information
office which was only a short walk away where we picked up a load of free maps, leaflets and a really useful advice brochure which was brilliantly candid and essential said "Thais will rip you off, trust nobody". Although we'd heard about most of the scams it detailed it was good to have them written down on an offical leaflet that we could show to people when they try to convince you that the gems they are selling are genuine and will land you a small fortune when you sell them back home in the UK for 10 times the price you bought them at. After chatting to a helpful lady in the information office we headed back to Khoa San Road for some dinner.
There are always dozens of food stalls set up along the road and most of them sell the Thai national dish, Pad Thai. It consists of fried noodles, chicken, tofu or prawns, fish sauce, sugar, fried egg, tamarind sauce and is garnished with dried chilli, lime juice, more sugar, dried shrimps, and crushed peanuts. We were told that it is so popular because it has such a wide variety of flavours and sensations, with
sweet, spicy, salty, sour, crunchy and just damn tasty vying for your attention. We ordered two and started munching while walking back down the road. Having been fed we settled into a decent looking pub with some good music and whiled away the night with a couple of beers. On the way back to the hotel we walked past a food stall selling fried bugs. There were enormous crickets, grubs, larvaes, beetles and even some scorpions. Naturally, I wanted to try some so I got a bag with a few grubs and a handful of beetles. They were actually very tasty and Amy even tried a couple (after some coaxing!) but unfortunately the photos we took weren't great (might have had something to do with the beers) so we'll have to eat some more to get some better pictures. Darn it.
By the way, for anybody reading this who is worried about us being in Bangkok with all the protests going on, don't panic, we've actually left Bangkok and are currently chilling in calm and trouble free Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. I'm just a little behind with the blog! I'll try and catch up over the
next couple of days so keep your eyes out for some increased blog action...
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Jealous!
Oh you guys! I am so so JEALOUS. I did that bus trip albiet in reverse from Bangkok to Surat Thani. It was hell! On the way back we took the more comfortable but much more dangerous (at the time) overnight train. Koh San Road is the best - I have spent much time there and always always loved the vibe. You didnt mention a Thai pancake stall that sells the best pancakes with banana and choc syrup...so I really hope that you found it. Thanks for bringing back all the memories and I am really glad that you are not actually there at the moment. xxx