Bangkok and the journey to Koh Tao (photos to follow)

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Good day everyone, Sam here. I hope you’re all well. I write of our time in Bangkok, which involved 3 nights in a very plush serviced apartment, an underwhelming encounter with Khao San Road, and some more Wats...

Right then, first off, our hotel was amazing. What was planned as a birthday treat for Sam, which was in fact cheaper than the dorm in Moscow, turned out to be an absolute gem. The room was enormous, as was the TV, and we had a gym and a pool. It was the perfect escape from the chaos outside.

The majority of people heading to Asia arrive in Bangkok, thus it provides an introduction to this astonishing part of the world. For us, having spent over 2 months in Asia already, the chaos and confusion was something that we had been contending with for a long time. I do not wish to suggest that we didn’t find Bangkok fun and exciting, quite the contrary, but I think that some of its magic was lost on us.

Upon arrival we headed across town via the Sky Train, then up river via the ferry, and visited the Khao San Road area of Bangkok. We must confess that we were somewhat underwhelmed by this famous road, but we did come back when it was dark to try and give it a second chance. Certainly the chaos and buzz was more impressive at night, but the Khao San wannabes still irritated. Khao San has so heavily influenced all backpacker destinations that we had seen many a take on Khao San already, some of which have more charm and better value for money, and some of which contain more madness and bustle. I think, however, that for a backpacker arriving in Bangkok unsure of their next move, it would prove to be an unrivalled attraction. Once Kao San-ed out, we attempted to walk back across the city via Chinatown to try and get a sense of the real Bangkok.

Chinatown was fascinating, and enormous. Hundreds of alleys branched off the roads, all lined with food stalls, which in turn were loaded with entire families having their evening meals together. It felt like a Chinatown from the movies - a misty fog sitting heavy in the air with faded neon signs displaying Mandarin characters. Somewhere down an alley is a shop selling a little cuddly creature called Gizmo, and next door is a Kung Fu master, and next door to that lies Sherlock Holmes with an opium pipe, perhaps. So yes, we went to Chinatown to see the real Bangkok...

We did some proper sightseeing the next day and explored the Royal Palace and the National Museum. The Royal Palace was very impressive, and the accompanying Wat was as gold as can be. We have seen many a Wat in the past few months and our interest in them has steadily declined, but we were awed by the scale of what we saw, and it had been beautifully preserved. The Palace itself is pretty much out of bounds, so we headed off to the National Museum. The museum turned out to be an enormous disappointment. I don’t know exactly where the funds generated by the entrance fee go, but it certainly isn’t towards the toilets. The toilets obviously were a side issue; the main problem was the lack of information given, and the somewhat disorganised displays of exhibits. We encountered a fantastic jumble sale of a museum in Chiang Mai, but that had an unquantifiable amount of charm that the Bangkok museum desperately lacked. There are only so many spears you can look at before becoming bored, so we cut our losses, admitted defeat in the Bangkok culture stakes, and resorted to swimming in the pool and using the gym in the hotel. In the evening we headed for a magnificent meal at a restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms, disturbingly recommended to us by Mama and Papa Lister. A brief explanation is clearly needed... This restaurant was set up as a way of boosting awareness of HIV, for the need for birth control, STDs, and prostitution in Thailand. The worthy cause was matched by the food. I had a whole steamed sea bass, and Laura had a stunning curry. It was the best food we had eaten in Thailand, besides what we had cooked ourselves obviously, and we wolfed it down appropriately! Upon returning to the hotel, I watched the footy and Laura had a bath. The comforts of home defeated our free spirits, and along with the all you can eat buffet breakfast, we had finally sold out.

The next day we headed north out of the city to a market that a well known guide book called the ‘daddy of all markets’. Expecting swathes of tourists and the accompanying touristy stuff for sale, we instead encountered somewhere occupied almost solely by locals, selling everything from vintage handbags to goldfish. It was the biggest market either of us had ever been to, and I don’t think either of us have ever seen a greater concentration of vintage clothes. It was all of Laura’s dreams come true at once, and there were an awful lot of checked shirts to keep me occupied also. Unfortunately, we were not in a position to shop for nice clothes, so after several hours of wandering we decided to head to the other place in Bangkok where all the ‘youngens’ go, and went to the MBK Mall. We have enjoyed these malls, finding a seat and watching the world go past for an hour or two. This mall, despite providing us with some tea and cake, had more in common with the grisly St John’s Centre in Liverpool, and was not the hotbed of Thai fashion that we were expecting. This of course provided us with an excuse to head back to the hotel for a few hours.

In the evening we met our friends John and Emma, whom we had spent time with in Xingping in China, and after listening to Laura, we found ourselves in the middle of the red light district. Instead of being offered street food, as desired, instead it was ‘Sex DVDs’ and ‘Ping Pong Shows’. Laura was demoted and had the map confiscated, and as a result we managed to find some street food, followed then by the large night market that we had been seeking initially. We had a pleasant evening, drinking the now worshipped Sang Som whiskey, and got a tuk-tuk back to the hotel. We bartered hard and managed to get a good price, but the driver of the tuk-tuk decided that the punishment for being thrifty would be the scariest ride of our lives. He duly provided it, and despite my attempts to get him to slow down, it was truly a miracle that he didn’t flip the thing. We headed in what we thought was totally the wrong direction, and in the midst of hanging on for our dear lives, we tried to bury the thought that he was taking us to a dark alley to rob and stab us. We did make it home safe and sound, but exactly how totally defeats me. It has to rate as the most frightening 10 minutes of my life, and I know that Laura seconds that statement.

We had an enormous breakfast the next day, in preparation for the journey ahead of us, and only ventured out of the hotel long enough to explore the mighty Siam Plaza - a shopping mall of Hong Kong like proportions, which contains equally expensive shops. After being frightened by the sight of school kids shopping in the mall on their lunch break (I used to go to co-op to buy cherry tomatoes, and that was at Sixth Form College) we picked up our bags from the hotel and headed over to the Khao San area so as to catch our bus to Koh Tao.

The plan was as follows: catch a bus to Chum Phon at 6pm, arriving at 4am. Wait 3 hours then catch the ferry to Koh Tao, arriving at 9am. What actually happened was slightly different...

The bus did indeed leave at 6pm, and after making the usual pick-ups from across the city, we headed on south towards the islands. We were forced to watch a terrible film called Jumper that I couldn’t even escape by looking through the window into the darkness, for all I saw was the reflection of the TV. It was so bad that absolutely no time seemed to pass, which is surely the aim of showing a movie on a long journey. We did not have the 'comfort’ of beds like we had on buses in Vietnam and China, and instead had to sleep in an upright position.

After catching about 3 minutes of sleep, we pulled up at about 2am, at tiny little ferry port. There was a shop selling coffee and some plastic tables and chairs. It transpired that we had arrived in Chum Phon, and thus would have to wait 5 hours to catch the ferry, or so we thought. It is a truth universally acknowledged, as Jane would say, that at no point in a journey in Asia will you be given any information. Consequently, when we were ordered back on the bus rather hastily, our confused sleepy queries went unanswered.

We spent a further 4 hours on the now hideously uncomfortable bus, and worst of all, Laura had a squeaky chair. We arrived at another set of plastic chairs, in Surat Thani. Everybody piled off the bus, and those of us heading to Koh Tao were informed (I asked) that we would have to wait 2 further hours before we were going anywhere. At about 8am we traipsed onto another bus, and travelled for one hour to a ferry terminal. Here we were left to bake on tarmac for another hour, before being herded into a small boat, together with people heading to other islands, which did not bode well.

We were to spend to next 6 hours on the roughest seas I have ever experienced in my entire life. It’s rather ominous when all the passengers are either vomiting or unconscious, further ominous when a monk is being sick, and unfathomably ominous when the crew are taking the biscuit out of each other for how much they are being sick. Laura didn’t speak to me for 6 hours; instead she stared at the floor, half asleep, half dead, and made the odd groan, much like the rest of the ship. I stared relentlessly at the horizon - one attempt to get the camera out of my bag to document the aforementioned madness had to be hastily abandoned. Of course our stop was the last one, and involved a change of ship - unfortunately not to a bigger one.

I seemed to be staring at the island of Koh Tao for hours without it getting any closer - my stare was only broken when the ship ducked and rolled so dramatically that the horizon vanished from sight.

We eventually made it to the island, and then to our hotel via a journey over the hills that was as steep as the sea was choppy, but it proved to be worth every second of misery.

The island is renowned as being one of the least built up in Thailand, whilst still offering tourists the opportunity to stay. Our temporary residence on the island is a bungalow on an almost deserted beach, set in a little cove, in the south east of Koh Tao. Out to sea past the eastern peninsula is the infamous Shark Island: a large weather beaten rock famed for its appeal to divers.

Our adventures on the island, or lack of them, will be detailed in our next blog, but it is fair to say that this is a truly breathtaking place, and perfectly exemplifies exactly why Thailand has unrivalled popularity amongst holidaymakers and backpackers alike.

Soft we may be, but a pretty beach has won us over. In terms of being close to paradise, this is as close as I have ever been.

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Comments

[jason]

Did you stay at the Aspen Suites hotel in Sukhumvit? It sounds exactly like the hotel we stayed in for Alexa's birthday: plush rooms, huge flat screen TV, pool, a breakfast buffet big to make Americans quiver with excitement, and fuzzy bathrobes. Awesome. And happy belated birthday.