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Published: March 2nd 2009
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I arrived in Thailand after a very impressive Singapore Airlines flight - loads of room, great food and free drinks! The flight included a stop-off in Singapore airport which was equally impressive, really modern and clean, free internet everywhere, lots of reataurants and shops and other entertainment facilities. I made the mistake of having a burger king there (6am), having not had beef for a month I was craving a good burger, but it turns out that 6am is not the best time for burger king.
I was picked up by Marcus, the Thaintro group leader, and took a taxi with him and two others from the group to the hotel in Bangkok. There were 16 people in our Thaintro group and we all gelled very quickly. There were even a few people from previous Thaintros who were still in Thailand who came out with us, everyone we met was great. We spent three days in Bangkok, comprising of sightseeing activities in the day and hitting the Kao San Road at night. Koa San Road is the centre of the main backpacker's area of Bangkok, and upon arrival here it struck me how different this new place was to what I'd
experienced of Asia before - mostly westerners in the area, more than thai people, a lot more calm and spaced out than India, cars actually stop and let you cross the road than continuing regardless of humans on the road, as in India. The hotel we were staying in was like the Ritz for me, having spent a month staying as cheaply as possible in India.
Second day in Bangkok, we took a riverboat cruise out to a temple called Wat-Arun which was impressive, not least for the steps up the top which were so steep it was almost like climbing a ladder. We went from there to another large temple and were guided around there. One part of the temple housed the famous recling Buddha, a huge, probably 100-200ft long and 50ft high, gold-plated figure of the Buddha recling, which was said to be the position in which he found enlightenment.
Every night in Bangkok was a late one, we would go out for a meal and then on to experince the bars and clubs of the Kao San Road. A popular way of drinking is to buy a bucket, which is literally a small bucket with a usually
lethal cocktail of spirits, red bull and mixer. Some nights we'd sit at street stalls and sink a few of these and then head to a club, others we'd spend the night in bars. One night we went for a meal down by the river and watched the boats go by, and I ate shrimp and pineapple friend rice, served in a pineapple! From here we went to a place called the Tuk Tuk bar which had a guy with a guitar playing live music. It wasnt long before we had commandeered the guitar and 3 of us were busting out some timeless and tuneless classics.
After a few days in Bangkok it was time to take an overnight train down south and a boat over to the islands. My first few days in Thailand had been an incredible experience, a completely new place which, like India, I very quickly fell in love with. This was going to be some month....
So we arrived on Koh Pha-Ngan by ferry, and everything was very much like the post cards, hot, blue sea, amazing scenery. We had another great hotel courtesy of Thaintro, a spa resort with its own private beach.
In the days we did various activities, the first of which being the 'Snoop Dogg boat trip', a boat trip taken by a guy who called himself snnop dogg for no apparant reason, funny guy though. We stopped off for some snorkeling in a marine park and then went on to a place called bottle beach for lunch which was a great beach, really beautiful and very peaceful. From there we went to another beach and walked up to a waterfall.
The next day, after a supposed 'quiet night in' turned into a heavy night on the sangsom (thai whiskey) and very little sleep we took another boat trip. The combination of a hangover, a rushed full english breakfast and a very rocky boat journey made for an unpleasant cocktail, but luckily we managed to retain our dignity and keep eveything in. Same sort of thing, we stopped off for some snorkling and then went to another beach for lunch, from where we took out a bunch of two-man kayaks and went for a paddle round another island and back to the beach. We also did a bit of elephant trekking, which unfortunately I dont have any pictures of. It
only last about 40 minutes but was a very new experience, plodding though the jungle high up on an elephant's back. After the thaintro week was over we mostly all stayed on for a few days on Koh Pha-Ngan and slowly people went there separate ways, however, we managed to keep a group of about 8 together which is great.
Koh Pha-Ngan is famous for its moon parties - full moon, half moon, black moon and various other excuse for parties. the full moon parties are the biggest but our stay only coincided with a black moon which turned out to be an amazing all night party. We're on Koh Tao now which is just a bit north of Koh Pha-Ngan, really nice place, smaller and chilled out but still the same fun to be had. We're planning on going back over to Koh Pha-Ngan in a few days to cath the half moon party which promises to be a good one.
That is all for now!
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