Bangkok and magical Koh Tao

---

My trip to SE Asia was really unexpected fast choice. Instead of China travel, which I was doing nothing for, I decided to do Thailand-Cambodia-Vietnam-Laos trip.

June 11, I got in to taxi and went to Tashkent airport. As expected it was a bit messy there. I had no lil shitty paper they gave me 4 months ago, so I was already panicked that I wont get into the plane in first place. But it went out good and eventually I was on Uzbekistan airways plane, 6 hours flight to Bangkok. The services in the plane was better than I expected!

Landed in Thailand and got my on-arrival visa. The first surprising thing was the humidity. As soon as I left airport it was like I got into sauna. And this humidity kept surprising me all the time - as soon as you leave shop or any place, which is air conditioned to cool stage, it catches you by surprise. The taxi drivers attacked me immediately, but I knew a bus I had to take to my guest house. The Asha guest house was very nice, real bagpacker place. I never been to such before and it was really nice experience. Started feeling the traveler community. Although it was quite weird being alone there. And what is more - it was so different from Uzbekistan that I felt quite lost first few days.

The next day I had a trip to Koh Tao. I always had people to talk to - most travelers, from whatever place they would be, have pretty good or excellent English. That was really nice to know. I met this perfect English Thai woman. And perfect English Spanish woman, who lives in India and teaches kids music. And that was first few incredible people I met. Most of travelers I met had some really great experiences to talk about and very similar wished and drives.

Koh Tao... It was a magical place. And island which still has affect on me, although I am already in other country. The island life was amazing. Diving, rock climbing, cliff jumping, having beer on the beach and watching fire shows. And all this chilled out atmosphere... It was very hard to leave the place.

After a week in the island I went back to the big city. Now I could really feel Bangkok life. It was crazy, messy, loud... and I loved it. I ate at food stalls, had very tasty pealed fruits - they sell them almost like candies there on the street. What surprised me in market was lack of bargaining - after Central Asian bazaars it was unexpected - many merchants don't bargain at all, they just look away and don't talk to you.
The food was great, although sometimes too spicy for me. The people were very nice - it is so true that Thailand is land of thousand smiles.

I had two days to explore bangkok and two days to places around. The best experience was getting up early in the morning to see how the city gets into a rush and how the monks are walking in the streets.

Thailand is very controversial country - at the same time you see traditions, Buddhism and then the lady boys and all the night life stuff.

Towards the end of stay in Thailand I started feeling much better about being alone and started to prefer being alone to being with someone. Now I do understand the comments of other travelers about this.

June 25th was my last day of visa and I went to Cambodia. That was a long and tireing journey to absolutely different world...

P.S.
What I have noticed:
* In all SE Asia I have seen a dish - French Fried or Fried French, which makes me laugh each time. Having in mind the history of french coloniliasim there, you never know what you can get....
* My skills that I have learnt in Uzbekistan - crossing the street in wrong places and barganing are oh so much useful here.
* All people, no matter what language is their mother toungue, how much they know english, no matter if they are speaking to friend of same nationality or to naybodey else, everybodey when taking photos counts "one, two, three" in English.

---

Photos

River Kwai
On a train over river Kwai