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Published: July 29th 2011
After a very sad and emotional goodbye at Heathrow to our parents we set off on our journey to travel the world. (South East Asia and Australia!)
After going round the corner and making it through the security checks, Danni was then pulled over to have her bag checked for bomb residue; she obviously looked a bit dodgy! After they discovered she wasn’t carrying a bomb we made it to our executive lounge for a well-earned glass of champers and some vodka as well as all the cheese we could eat!!
Arriving in Bangkok the following day we had the challenge of trying to life our bags off the conveyer belt and then search for a taxi to take us to khao san road. Whilst waiting in line a guy asked us where we were headed and it turned out we were going to the same place so we decided to share. Later Danni reminded me of a film called taken where girls travelling get kidnapped by someone using the same chat up line. Zif from Israel turned out to be a kidnapper and shared his travelling stories with us and between the 3 of the taxi only cost £6 whereas on our previous trip to Thailand we paid treble this each! (We are already wise to the ways of Thailand)
When we got to our destination, Khao San road could not have been more different from our previous trip when we stayed on the more reserved river side. It was only 5pm but the streets were already full of fellow young travellers drinking buckets and chang beers. The smell of street side food and the heat combined was almost unbearable, so we were pleased when we got to our air conditioned and even more pleased when we took our first dip in the roof top pool.
We were chatting away at the top of our voices as usual when a northern monkey shouted "where’s that accent from?" we thought he was referring to Zoes messed up accent later we found out this was just a chat up line, but all the same we had made a new friend and stayed in the pool for several hours chatting and having inappropriate banter. After referring to hi as Bruce for a few hours he corrected us and said he was called Lewis and we made plans to sample khao sans nightlife later with our new tour guide.
We decided to go somewhere a bit quieter for dinner and so went to a little backstreet and of course our first meal had to be red and green Thai curry and a water melon shake. After a big bottle of change beer each and a few rounds of buffy the vampire slayer drinking top trumps we headed to the roof top bar of khao san road. The bar was packed, so steamy could hardly see the Thai guy singing acoustic and playing the guitar. The atmosphere and live music was really laid back and friendly.
We then moved onto the bucket bar where for 200 bahts (£4 each) we got a bucket filled with a whole bottle of Thai brandy, a can of red bull and sprite. After having one of these each we were feeling a bit merry. It turned out that our new friend Lewis had a superman tattoo, we were really excited as wonder woman and super girl had a 3rd super hero to hang out with and made it our mission to meet more super heroes to add to our gang.
8 years in wales must have paid off for me Jack who later became a fellow gang member approached me asking if I was welsh as I looked welsh apparently. We explained our super hero quest to him and he expressed he wanted to be Batman but after a group decision we gave him the title of robin which he was not bet pleased about. The chang kept flowing for the rest of the evening and needless to say we were feeling pretty rough the next day.
We woke the next day to a changover, rain and Lewis banging our door down, having meant to be leaving for koh Tao that night we had been persuaded by our new friend to stay another night and sample more of Bangkok’s delights. The rain soon cleared up and the sun came out so we spent the rest of the day on the roof top pool. As much as we enjoyed our day I don’t think the other guests round the pool appreciated our taste in music and chatter and giggling.
That evening we ventured out on our own taking a slightly different bar crawl route top the night before. We stupidly started our night off with a bucket, which didn’t go down as well. A local Thai guy came and joined our table so to make the bucket go down quicker we invented a game of higher or lower. It turns out men’s opinions of women’s complexity is the same worldwide as out new friend Lal questioned us to which we replied that men are equally as confusing to us. As Lal kept losing the drinking game he was a little worse for wear so he headed off which gave us the chance to speak to 2 hot ozzys we had spotted earlier. Thai lady’s flocked around them like the paparazzi taking pictures so when they had left this gave us the chance to use our new chat up line. "Oy...are your famous?!" We soon discovered they weren’t famous and ere 2 brothers from Bryon bay. We soon got talking of our travel plan and discovered we were going to completely the opposite sides of the world as they were on route to Europe until they find their future wives! We swapped tips on the UK as did they about oz.
After being woken up again by our fellow Superhero, we spent the day chilling by the pool before our journey down to Koh Tao. We went and had lunch and both ordered macaroni cheese, when our food arrived our macaroni cheese had scrambled egg in and had sliced cheese on top…note to selves remember western food in Thailand is very different to back home! After getting showered and ready we headed to our picking up point, when a Thai man came and walked us down Khao San road, picking up travellers on the way, he stopped and chatted whilst we were carrying our heavy bags in stupid heat.
Once we made it to the night bus, me and Zoe decided to head to the back seats with a master plan of being able to lie across them. Little did we know that the bus continued to fill up, and our plan backfired when we had to move for 2 girls from England. With the combination of leather seats and the heat, we knew the next 12 hours were not going to be enjoyable ones! Once on the road it began to tip down with rain, literally bucket down! As the journey went on people started to notice drips from the ceiling, slowly everyone had a drip on them and the bus was leaking from everywhere. With one girl holding up a plastic bag to catch the drips! Slowly the rain stopped and it dried up, we tried to get some sleep. We struggled to get to sleep and switched positions many times trying to get comfortable. We gave in after a few hours and watched Tangled, we then tried to sleep again and with aching necks and backs we woke. We then kept the bus awake by watching inbetweeners and laughing the whole way through! We finally made it Chumpon ferry port and were literally dumped at 3 am, having to sit outside in the dark, with the smell of rotting fish and dirty sea! After stopping off there and being eaten alive by bugs the ferry arrived at 7 am, and a supposedly 2 hour trip took 3 hours! We then finally arrived at Koh Tao…..where are story will continue shortly!
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mum
non-member comment
Hey you didnt take much notice of my talks miss Hoare ! I believe you mentioned the film taken... Glad you are living your dreams, but dont forget the mosquito spray x