First stop - Bangkok

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I landed safely but exhausted in Bangkok almost a week ago. I was quite sleep deprived when I left London, after the fabulous leaving drinks at the Loop Bar (thanks everyone for coming along and making it such a fun night), and sitting next to an elderly man on the plane, who apparently didn't need more than two hours sleep and kept turning the lights on and off while drinking his beers, didn't exactly allow me to catch up on any sleep.
I had a tiny flash of panic when I was filling out the landing card, as I read in the guide book that they sometimes don't allow you entry when you can't prove that you're leaving within 30 days, and since I'm travelling by land and haven't booked anything yet, I could suddenly see myself as Tom Hanks in the The Terminal trying to make a living in Thailand airport, while trying to sort out an onward journey. Or even worse - being sent back to London on the next plane - how embarrassing would that start have been?!?
As it turned out there was no reason to worry; the lady in immigration just took my passport and my landing card, stamped a bunch of times and sent me on my way. I now have 30 days in Thailand, before I have to make my way across some border... just haven't decided which one yet.

Outside the airport I found myself a public meter taxi, with a very nice and chatty cabby - and all this despite the fact that his English vocabulary was limited to about 100 words, I guess. He managed to teach me how to say hello and thank you, which is great. Then he enquired about whether i had a family and/or a darling. he also offered the information that he didn't have a darling either, that he owned a condo by "the liver" (I better get used to this swapping of r's for l's quick...) and that I wouldn't have to pay if I wanted to come and have dinner at this house. As kind an offer as that seemed, I thanked him no :-) I was quite keen to see if the guest house I'd booked actually had my booking.

My friendly driver dropped me off on Rambuttri Road near Khao San Road, and I walked for a bit with my backpack before I found the number and the name of my guest house: Green House Bkk. I had found this on another traveller's blog, and they seemed like a really friendly place, with internet access, private rooms, and common areas. And to my delight, they actually had my booking - there was a little note with my name hanging over the key to my room :-)
The room is nice and clean, and I've allowed myself a bit of luxury here in the beginning, with a single room with hot shower and air con. Wasn't sure how I'd cope with the humidity and heat, so needed to be able to sleep, I thought. And boy, have I slept. I love being on holiday!!! Sunday night I slept 12 hours! After dropping off my backpack in my room, I went for a little walk in the area, and got myself some Pad Thai from a street vendor on Khao San Road. It's so funny being so far away, in such foreign surroundings, and then there's a Boots in the middle of the street!
Anyway, after my little trip I sent some emails to say I'd arrived safely, then tried to read my book about Thailand, but couldn't concentrate, so off to bed at 8.30pm local time... well, it'd been a long day.

Monday, I got up, put on my sunscreen and long trousers, because I wanted to see Wat Phra Kaeo - the temple of the Emerald Buddha - which is the most revered Buddha image in Thailand, and hence modest clothing is a must. On my way, walking south a few blocks, I was surrounded by little old ladies who were feeding corn to the pigeons. I was having trouble getting past all the birds, and before I knew it they were emptying bag after bag of corn into my hands saying it was for good luck. I kept saying no and trying to avoid them, but they were having none of it. After I managed to get away from them they of course started asking for money - paper, paper. Apparently they wanted 150 baht for the corn which i didn't want in the first place! OK, so my first "scam" happened on my first day - lets hope that's it then!

As I walked on after paying them 20 baht, I met a guy who had just had the same experience, except he managed to get away before they emptied too many bags of corn into his hands. It turned out that he was also heading to the temple, so we walked together. He was from Australia and had been in Bangkok since Wednesday last week, and had managed to find his way around a bit. He had been arranging for his trip to Cambodia, so this was his first day of sight-seeing too.
Unfortunately the Wat Phra Kaeo was closed until 1pm (it was around 11am at this point), so we made our way to the river - in a slightly round about way, but we saw some interesting bits of Bangkok, I think. Very different little stalls along the roads, with anything from Thai fashion magazines to dried fish and various souvenirs.
We took the boat to the other side of the river to the Wat Arun - the Temple of Dawn. So called, because the king came here for the first time at dawn, and couldn't think of anything else, apparently :-) It's a very famous temple here (the picture on the 10 baht coin is from here), with a big tower in the middle and four smaller towers around. All of them are covered in pieces of ceramic and porcelain, donated by the public, and making up for example flowers made out of broken pieces of a plate. It's very ornate and almost confusing to look at, but the view from the 3rd tier was very nice - pictures (perhaps a few too many attached).
Then we went back to the other side of the river and went to the Wat Phra Kaeo to see the Emerald Buddha. The complex of the temple is very impressive - all the buildings are so different and all so beautiful! Considering how famous the Emerald Buddha is, he's surprisingly small - only about 60cm tall, and placed very high in the temple, so he's hard to see. The temple has a very quiet atmosphere - and was a nice cool sanctuary in the middle of it all.
Outside, the temple is surrounded by buildings with very shiny and colourful glazed roofs. The Royal Pantheon was surrounded by interesting figures, and the Phra Mondop is a library which holds Buddhist scriptures - although it's not open to the public, still an amazing building surrounded by little Buddhas holding it up. The most impressive of them all, though, in my opinion is the Phra Si Rattana Chedi, which holds a piece of Buddha's breastbone. Its a tiered cone shape made entirely of gold mosaic pieces.
Outside the temple compound we went to see the Grand Palace, which was once the home of the King - although he now lives south of Bangkok - it's a nice building but not particularly 'Thai' in style. The most interesting thing about it was the change of guards outside when we got there. They stepped around each other a few times before one of them checked that the new guard's clothing was all in the right place.
Down the road was another temple - the Wat Pho - which houses a massive lying down Buddha. This compound is now used also as a kind of community center where people come to learn. We saw a music class in process - there were quite a few instruments I haven't seen before...

After this we took the boat downtown to try to get on the Sky Train - which is an underground up in the air - but we got side tracked by a building I had been told about, which has a bar on the 64th floor, which we decided to visit. Unfortunately, it wasn't really open yet, and even if it had been, the drinks cost more than a night's accommodation, so we just looked at the view and sneaked a few photos in :-) Bangkok is sooo big. You don't realise when you're at street level - it just seems like a big maze around you. But seeing it like that from the air, it just stretches as far as you can see.

Back at the hostel, after a quick dinner near Khao San Road (the stalls in the street are so cheap and the food is quite delicious), I collapsed on my bed and slept for 12 hours again!

Tuesday I took it easy - looked around the area, and when I was back at the hostel, I saw my first monsoon downpour. It was like someone opened the bath plug in the sky - and it just came down in buckets! So I spent a few hours in the internet cafe, uploading my photos and updating this...

After the rain stopped I went for dinner and sat at a table with a very nice Israeli guy called Dror - we talked for a long time, and went down to the river where we discussed the current situation in Israel - very interesting. Back at the Green House, a girl came up and looked at the hostel. Israelis always recognise each other - and true to legend, Dror recognised the girl as an Israeli, and we helped her find a hostel for the night, as she'd just arrived. Then we walked around for a bit looking for some food and fruit smoothies, and she and I ended up talking until 1.30 in the morning. Her name is Hanni, she's very nice, and she invited me to come with her to a place called Kanchanaburi two hours drive north west of Bangkok. This place is on the Kwae river and is famous for the things that happened here during the second world war; events that inspired the film about the Bridge over the River Kwai. It is also very close to three National parks with waterfalls and beautiful scenery.

I decided to go with her. I still hadn't made any plans to go to the beach, and thought this was a good opportunity to try to go somewhere without having to do it on my own. So I got up really early on Wednesday morning (well 8.30 IS really early when you've slept till 12 for several days!! haha), packed my bags and checked out of the hostel. I then met up with Hanni and we had some breakfast before we ended up running around like crazy people trying to find the right minibus going to Kanchanaburi. People in Thailand are very friendly, but they will always give advice - even if it's not the advice you needed. Like some people outside a hotel telling us to go inside because this was the bus to Kanchanaburi - even though it turned out that it was neither leaving at the time we needed nor at the price we'd been quoted - so we ran outside again and looked for the right bus. And we made it just in time! Just in time to drive around the same area of Bangkok to pick up people at different places - including the Israeli travel center that had told us about the bus in the first place! All part of the experience, I suppose :-) We made it up there by midday and found ourselves a nice, cheap Guest House near the river. We then went out to look for some food.

Kanchanaburi is slightly chaotic and mostly seems to consist of houses along a long road - so we went up the road and found a little local place to have some lunch. Hanni is jewish and tries to eat kosher, so she doesn't eat hot food prepared by anyone not jewish, so she ordered a papaya salad, and I thought I'd do the same. It was quite spicy, but very nice - until Hanni, who hadn't eaten much because it was so hot, noticed these little red things, which I thought were pieces of tomato - they turned out to be little baby shrimps, which the Thai use to spice almost all their food. Hanni was almost ill at the thought of having 'insects from the sea' in her stomach, so lunch was cut very short all of a sudden. I had prepared myself before coming that there might be fish or fish sauce in some of the things I ate, so I was OK, but still quite hungry when we moved up the street. After maybe half a kilometer Hanni felt better and we bought some papaya from a street vendor who very kindly cut it in pieces for us. While we were waiting we saw a shop that rented out bicycles, and we managed to rent two bikes for the day. It was very nice to drive along like that, even though the saddles were way too low - it meant some fresh air, which was nice as it's quite warm and humid.
We drove through town and ended up in the town center, which was actually very busy with all kinds of shops and a few covered markets, but we continued around town and eventually found the river where we had a little rest before going back out the part of town where our guest house was. We stopped at a coffee house and had some very nice locally grown coffee.
After dinner, we walked up to town again and found a Thai Massage place - we thought we deserved a back rub after carrying our backpacks so far in the morning :-) I've never had a thai massage before... It's very pressure oriented rather than rubbing of the muscles - they seem to push certain areas a lot and stretch the bones and make the joints crack. A back massage also turned out to include the whole of the back of our bodies, including our arms and legs, which were also pressured, rubbed, stretched and bent, so that when we walked away we felt several inches taller than before. They were very experienced and had very strong fingers - even the one who massaged Hanni, who we found out afterwards was only 14 years old. It seems like the whole family was involved in the business - afterwards we had a cup of tea in their front room, which was also the shop window facing the street - and they were all watching a show on TV which was a kind of karaoke.
Generally it seemed like people helped each other out a lot - the next morning when we had breakfast, the lady actually went next door to get more fruit, as it seemed like she'd run out after making the first plate. And in the evening, when we relaxed in the Reggae Hut or Bob Marley Bar or whatever the name was, the food we ordered was actually from the restaurant across the street...

On the Thursday we had a slow morning, as it rained heavily when the alarm went off - but by 9am it had slowed to a light misty rain, so we picked up the laundry we'd had done the day before, and returned the bicycles, had breakfast and then went to find a bus up to the Erawan National Park to see the 7 tiered falls there. The travel agents only had really expensive day trips which included other sights as well, so we walked away. As we did, an Irish girl who'd also been at the agency asked if we were going there too, and did we want to go together, as they'd heard there was a public bus nearby very soon. So we joined her and her boyfriend - Jean and Eoin - and were very lucky to catch the bus just in time. It was a very rickety old bus - not unlike the American school buses, with wooden benches to sit on. The journey took 1.5 hours through beautiful countryside - so lush and green. We were driving up one side of a slight canyon with a view of the mountains on the other side.

Once we got there, we changed into our bathing suits and started the climb up to the first tier of the waterfall. It was so humid that even though it wasn't a steep climb, I was completely drenched in sweat after the 10 minute climb. So we had a dip in the nice cool pool at the foot of the fall - although it was a bit funny with fish that were nibbling at our feet :-) We then continued up the mountain in our bathing suits, and stopped and took pictures and enjoyed the scenery on the way up. It was slightly overcast, so not too hot, but still quite a sweaty climb for me, who sweats so easily. It took us 2 hours to reach the 7th and top tier of the waterfall, where we had a well earned dip in the clear cool water. Unfortunately, Hanni lost her ring in the pool, and we were unable to find it again, so she was quite upset when we started our return trip. We thought we had to hurry a lot because the last bus back to town was at 4pm, and it was 2.30 by then. But the climb down was a lot quicker than the one up, so we had 45 minutes and thus plenty of time for lunch when we got back to the starting point.
The bus back to Kanchanaburi was even more rickety than the one on the way up - after a short drive, the rain started pouring - also into the bus! They tried to close the door of the bus, which normally just stays open, and after the rain stopped and they wanted it open again, it had come off it's top hinges, so the driver had to get out his tool kit and use a screwdriver to slot it back into place. The floor of the bus was made of wooden slats, that we could see the road through the cracks of.... But it got us back in one piece, tired but fairly dry :-)

Hanni and I decided to reward ourselves with another massage - this time a foot massage - seeing as we'd walked so far that day. The hike up the mountain must've been at least 5km up and back, and our thighs were really tired. It was very nice and relaxing - and again, we also had our arms, back and shoulders massaged as well.

Friday we got the minibus back to Bangkok and Khao San Road. We went to the Habat house, which is like the Israeli community centers around the world. This was where Hanni was planning to spend Shabbat with her friend from Israel who was arriving in the afternoon. They invited us all to the Shabbat dinner that night - including me. After a few hours on their free internet connection, we got ready, met up with Hanni's friend, and went to the Habat House. First we went to the synagogue to pray and start the Shabbat. It was very interesting as I've never been to a Jewish synagogue before. Hanni was very sweet and translated some of the prayers for me. As you probably know, men and women sit separately, so I couldn't quite see the Rabbi, so I followed what Hanni was doing. Many of the prayers that start the Shabbat are sung, which was very nice - seeing as I don't speak more than a few words of Hebrew, this made the 45 minutes much more interesting for me. Afterwards we went into a massive dining hall, which was set for maybe 200 people. A lot of Israelis come there on Fridays for the free meal, and a chance to catch up with other Israelis. It was a religiously centered meal as well, with various rituals throughout, such as washing our hands and then not speaking until we'd had the bread the Rabbi had cut for us, and prayers and songs throughout as well. The Rabbi also held a little kind of sermon between the meal and the fruit we had for dessert.
After the meal, the more religious of the group were invited up to the Rabbi's house for more talk and food. Hanni really wanted to go, but her friend was really jet lagged and went back to our hotel to sleep, and as we were a bit slow getting up there, it was already full. She had also thought there'd be more talk than food, but it looked like they were going to repeat the whole meal, so we went downstairs. We ended up talking to some of her Israeli friends until almost 1am.

She and her friend were coming back on Saturday to spend the rest of Shabbat there, before flying out to Laos on Sunday, but I had bought a ticket to an island in Eastern Thailand, so Saturday morning I got up early and checked out of the hotel. I went on what they call a VIP bus, which is a double-decker air-conditioned bus, all the way to Laem Ngop near the Cambodian border - a journey which took almost 7 hours including several stops and breaks on the way - from where we took a ferry over to Koh Chang. I ended up talking to a young French girl called Dorine on the way, and we decided to look for a nice quiet beach together, as we both just wanted a few days of total relaxation.

So here I am - on Koh Chang's West coast in a beach side bungalow with a sunset view. I've spent the whole day on the beach, getting slightly sun burned, having Phad Thai for lunch and pineapple for dessert and in between a few coconut milkshakes. Life is good!! :-D

Sorry for the long entry... I know I've written way too much for some people to make it through - but so much has happened this first week, and I wanted to keep a record of most of it for myself too. I hope you just skipped the boring parts ;-) I kept running out of time when I was updating the blog along the way (uploading the photos took a long time in some of the internet places I went to), and when I came back to it, more stuff had happened in the meantime.
If nothing else, I hope you enjoy the photos - of which there is also an abundance :-)

Lots of love,
Kristine

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Photos

Flight QF2
The view from my seat

Khao San Road
A bit like Camden market, just with many more neon signs

Thai flags
Decorating a side street

On a river crossing boat
Hisham - my Australian friend for a day

Wat Arun
Entry to the Temple of Dawn

Boy monks
They were playing in this ally, carrying each other on their backs

Monkeys
Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil...

My Australian friend
In front of another offering site

Wat Arun
Is made up of thousands of little pieces of ceramic and porcelain.