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Published: July 22nd 2015
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bangkok temple I cant beleive how long it has been since I last posted, I guess time flies when you are having fun. I also generally struggle with finding internet cafes that have the appropriate USB capacities to upload pics.
After Manila and how I felt about it, arriving in Bangkok was a pleasant surprise. I had pictured much of the same - hectic, smokey, crazy, poor. some of that applied, but not really. First impressions in the taxi from the airport were how developed and rich it was, full of skyscrapers and garages for posh cars. We stayed at the notorious Kao san road (known for partying and being able to eat scorpions and the like) but a couple of streets down.At first it was a lot of fun, so many cheap markets selling nice clothes and amazing cheap food, and booze. However after a few nights it did start to lose its appeal. Whilst in bangkok we visited one of the biggest/most famous temples, visited the largest market in the world and also went on a boat tour down the river.
After a few days it was beach time, so we took ourselves down to Koh chang, an island
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railey beach south east of thailand, bordering cambodia. it might not sound like that makes much sense but because Garys friend was coming and there are more islands south east, we decided to go there first. The first impressions there were good, it wasnt too expensive, peoplee were nice and the beaches were good. Not phillipino standard, but i guess that goes without saying. We had a great first few days where we spent a few days at each beach and moved down the coast. just as we were getting into the swing of things, the rain started. No big deal, itll stop, we thought. Wrong! About 5 days later and the best we had was a couple of hours of severe cloud where it didnt actually r ain one afternoon. Because of James;s arrival, we couldnt really go anywhere, so felt a bit like we were just passing time and spending money, as all we could do was eat and drink and pray it would stop. Once we decided to leave, the sun came out! Typical But off to bangkok again and was happy for a change of scenery.
We left a couple days early, and James wasnt arriving for
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ao nang, krabi another few days and would want to do the bangkok tourism stuff, so i decided to take myself off to do some volunteering and let the boys have some fun before i met up with them again. I went to Koh Samui, to volunteer with samui cat and dog rescue, the plan being that i would do a week there and then meet them in neighbouring Ko pagnan where the full moon party is held which we planned to go to. I could probably write an entire blog post on my experiences, but ill save it for the moment. Suffice to say that after soi dog and the positive experience i had, I was bitterly disappointed with how things went. The people there were rude, bossy, unfriendly and just generally the opposite of how you would imagine volunteers with animals would be. I am still surprised at the manner in which i was spoken to , and after speaking with others, realised it was just badly managed and wasnt anyything personal. I toyed over what to do as the dogs were great but i didnt feel happy there and the atmosphere was such as if the headmistress were taking your
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jungle experience class and you'd done something wrong (except you hadnt) so in sh ort i decided to put myself first, not here to waste my time, here to be happy and have good experiences so i decided to travel myself for the week until i met the boys.
I spent a couple of night on Ko Samui itself but i didnt like the place much. it was over touristic, bit dirty, beaches werent that nice, expensive and i got continual hassle off men for taxis etc. I was generally fed up and decided to up sticks and go elsewhere. I had been told that Krabi was a nice part to visit, so on I went. Took me 2 taxis, 1 ferry, 1 coach and one mini bus later but i got there and spent 4 nights there, staying in a girls dorm. I figured that it would be cheaper and i might even meet people, by this point i was feeling a bit lonely and at a loose end. I met some americans at the beach on my first proper day there, and the next night i met a lovely french girl called Justine who later came with us to
the full moon party so that definately raised my spirits a bit. Krabi itself was nice, a lot more cliffs/islands and phillipine-esque, but again, typical thailand, really busy and hoaching with tourists. I started to get really tired of being hassled to go for maels, have a drink, take a taxi, buy a scarf, whatever it was. Constant hassle to buy stuff. After 4 days, I was glad to leave in that respect. I did get some amazing massages for very cheap though which I thoroguhly enjoyed.
I wont lie, after 1 week of being on my own, I was absolutely delighted to see my man again. 7 hours later and I was in Ko pagnan. The weather was glorious but we had some partying ahead. Every month on the full moon there is a big beach party where peple come from all over the world to go to, but there are also side parties such as the jungle experience which we went to, basically a big rave in the middle of the wilderness. the parties were good, we had fun, but at this point nearly 29 years of age i definately struggled with drinking more than 1 night
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out scootering! in a row although the boys didnt seem to have this problem! Once all the partying was done, we moved to a different area of the island to chill out for a bit. We had a couple of quiet days, and then it was my birthday! I couldnt have spent it better, we hired mopeds and went on a tour of the island, the weather was amazing and it was such a fun way to spend the time especially without my friends and family back home. After getting back, we went to a nice restaurant we had been to the night before with a friendly french owner, they had 2 for 1 cocktails between 4-8 so i ti ld him we'd be back as it was my birthday. Few cocktails later, some delicious food later (to the point where i couldnt almost breathe!) they surprised me and gave us some birthday cake they had made for me. I couldnt beleive their hospitality and it was so nice to have that treatment for a day when I was far from home. So, even though I was stuffed, i shovelled some more cake into my mouth and thoroughly enjoyed it!
We
had one more day, when we left about 5pm, to get the night bus back to bangkok. A few dramas later with the hotel being overbooked and sending us to a plACE without telling us the name, we got settled again. Easy day, Garys last day with james, and even treated ourselves to a mcdoonalds after all the thai food we'd had, haha! I had an early night whilst the boys had a couple of drinks to say farewell for now, as we had to get up at 5am for cambodia.
Definately getting old!
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