Advertisement
Published: September 16th 2008
Ok so first full day we decided to see the sights of Bangkok, we had a lovely breakfast at our hotel.....dan had some cereal and fruit, I of course had to go straight in for the hot stuff, omlette cooked freshly by a chef right in front of us....was good.
Caught the sky train to Siam Square, looked around Siam and visited Siam Paragon, Jimmy Choo, Marc Jacobs....window shopping!!! Then we caught a taxi to Hualaomphong Station to book a train & boat to Koh Samui...due to the politics that have been going on here since 1st September the trains have all been suspended....we were advised by a nice Thai bloke that we could catch a coach and boat to Samui...was only 15quid each, bargin for a 12hour trip!!! We booked to leave on the 12th September to arrive the next morning.
After booking our transfer to Samui we caught a taxi to the Grand Palace. Got a taxi driver who didn't speak a word of English, although was advertised that he could on the side of his cab! Nice! We dropped us off in an obscure place round the side of Grand Palace, completely lost and bewildered we walked around the perimeter of Grand Palace, was pretty quiet around the side we were walking and then we got approached by one of the locals...the grand palace is closed until 2pm....its a trick, we'd heard never to believe a local telling you that a place is shut...took a while to get rid of this one! But we did and carried on our way, we were just bout to cross a road while 2 other toursits headed our way...tourists seem to be few and far between so we asked them if they knew where the entrance was to Grand Palace they said they couldn't find it either....we began a force of 4....safety in numbers battling through the locals telling us Grand Palace is closed...see sitting buddha, this temple head to this shop blah blah. Eventually avoided all 20baht taxis and umbrella salesmen we found the entrance!!!
We had to cover our shoulders and knees, hence my rather fetching sarong in the photos. We walked round and saw amazing sights, so many colours and tiny little details on the temples.
This day was our best day in Bangkok, sun blazing down on us. Rick mentioned finding the river, so we headed in that direction and found a cafe at the end of the streetfood markets.....1st beer of our trip!! :-) Was good to have a chat and get to know them a bit more. Really nice couple of Kiwis, but now live in Melbourne :-)
After our beer we visited Wat Po, pretty similar to Grand Palace really. Saw the emerald Buddha, its actually a piece of Jade but that was discovered after the name of the emerald buddha was given.
We wandered through the markets with our new found fellow tourists Adele and Rick, we got a tip off to see the flower market and china town....flower market was pretty impressive, large bunches of tight rolled roses for 30baht....around 60p!!! the smell was gorgeous.
After walking so far we were nearing to Rick and Adele's hotel, this is where we parted and Dan and I grabbed a taxi back to Siam Paragon...and had a naughty Maccy D's!! This is where i took on the double big mac, wasn't really a challenge i have to say! 4 burgers tho, oopsie!
Next day we explored Sukhamvit a bit more, where we were staying in the strange place that is Bangkok. The Emporium was about a 5-10 minute walk away, again another shopping centre with shops such as Prada, Channel, nice! We found a good internet cafe here. Ate at a non traditional restaurant...piri piri chicken, was nice!
Last day we did our laundry, found it very useful to move on with all new clean clothes!!! No need to seperate clean and dirty clothes in our backpacks. We spent a lot of time on the net @ emporium and found an amazing food court in MBK in Siam....all different cuisines so i didnt have to settle for dans safe choices!! Sorry hunny!! :-P
Ok so we had left plenty of time to get to Hualamphong station to catch our coach for koh samui. Got a taxi @ 5.30pm, got stuck in some serious Bangkok traffic, reception told us 1/2 hour, 40 mins with traffic. We had to meet at 7pm! Got to the station just before 7pm!! Were we on edge of what!!!!! Jumped on the coach at 7.30pm, no problems. We were catching this coach to Surat Thani and then getting a boat from the ferry port to the paradise island that is Koh Samui.
Watched Spiderman 3 on the coach, that took us to around 10ish. the coach kept making random stops interupting the film and interupting peoples sleep. We stopped around 12.30am at Hua Hin for a 30 minute break, we were told it would be our last stop until 6am......my thoughts were can the driver really drive non stop for that long?!!? no one spoke much English so just accepted what we were told! Stopped off with 2 other coaches at a road side street food place, dan and i got a tube of pringles! dont think we r born travellers, haha!!!
After the break we all ploughed back on, everyone had their reading lights turned off to get some shuteye, sorta patchy sleep for me, always fidgeting dan always dead to the world! great! not helpful! then all of a sudden bright ligths would turn on, cannot remember how many times or what time but was rather confusing! kept stoppnig, picking up pasengers, dropping some off. The best was when the lights came on one time and then a local stood up and walked down the coach (we were on the top floor, and yes we were swaying!!) he loudly said wet towel and people were handing him their blankets....dan and i were quite fuzzy headed and confused...then finally worked out he meant Ko Tao!!! haha, oh how we laughed, its a standing joke even now...lol. so it seemed we had more than just koh samui passengers on this coach.
Eventually we got dropped off, this must have been around 7am, yes around 12 hours on a coach!! not the best! we were at a ferry port, so we sat and waited for our boat. a sign said you must wear your lifejacket whilst on board the boat. i grabbed a bite to eat and hoped that a stray dog wouldnt pinch it out of my reach! after quite a long time sitting waiting for this boat we began dropping jokes aobut hoping how this wasnt our ferry as we pointed to small fishing boats......
Some time later, maybe an hour or 2 someone announced that people for koh samui were to get on this bus that had just turned up, an old mercedes banger bus....so old! omg! so we did as we were told, backpacks in the hold and got on. fell asleep again somehow and then arrived in the middle of no where at what looked like some old boat port...i saw hoards of backpackers piling onto a rocking ferry. My heart sank as my mind rushed back to what i had read in the lonley planet 'most boats are overcrowded and overfilled with passengers' oh god i thought, theres no way i wanna get on that thing!!! but looked around and there seemed no other option, we were in the middle of no where...my thoughts were turning to get a taxi out of here there must be a safer way!!!!! i sort of lost dan is the crowd of people, we headed towards the boat. backpacks were taken and put in a pile on the top of the boat and people were around the edges and people heading inside. I thought sitting outside would be best, fresh air and easy to abandon ship!!! Suddenly rain started heaving down at us, and everyone moved down the precarious stairs into the inside...it was mahem....no sits could be seen and a sea of backpackers just turned and watched us all pile in. There was no room for the remaining passengers backpacks so we had to walk through the insdie with them on our backs...around 12kgs plus a hand lugagge bag and my handbag. Dan was drenched! I managed to make some germans/swedes budge up and we managed to sit down. My stomach was in my mouth as the boat was really rocking and the weather was really hideous. I just looked at dan in disbelief at how crowed this tiny boat was and the mahem that we were surrounded by. We were just waiting for ages to, i just wanted to go an get it over with. A guy was walking up and down seeing if people had places to stay, dan asked him what we were waiting for and he replied another bus is coming!! Ok now i was starting to worry, and thinking if this thing sinks there's no way out!!!
A couple of Kiwis infront of us turned round and started chatting, they were very friendly and took my mind off the boat. Chatting about their travels and what we were planning to do in NZ and Oz. We finally started moving without the extra bus load of people, relief!!! We were chatting pretty much all of the journey which helped A LOT. there were times that we were catching the waves so awkwardly i would gasp really loud! was not good. i have never been so relieved to get onto dry land!!!! as we carried our backpacks off that boat i just shouted to dan who was infront we are flying out from this island!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, so enough of the boat ordeal!! We got a minibus to our hotel, everyone said how nice the Samui First House was so i was intrigued to get there and sus it out :-)
It lived up to it, although you could see the difference between 4 and 3* - but still was fine and a really big relief to have a bed for the night. We chilled by the pool and ate at the hotel restaurant - here i tried my 2nd thai dish, pad thai....gorgeous! prawns in noodles and beansprouts cooked in an omlette, finally got some sleep also!
The 2nd day we decided to check out Chaweng beach, the most glorious sight ever!! Lots of photos to come of this! We spent around 5 1/2 hours chilling on the beach, brought a few things from sellers parading the beach and some gorgeous fresh fruit from a really cheary thai lady! mango and a whole pineapple, she threw in some bananas and coconut too...100 baht, no even 2 quid (i have to keep saying quid as there is no pound sign on these keyboards!!!!). In the evening we went to Chaweng Beach Road, where all the restaurants and bars were. We ate at Coyotes Mexican Restaurant, really good food here. Unfortuanately there was no alcohol being served on this day due to the elections taking place the next day....we did manage a sneeky vodka at the PFC bar...really good night here. Met Pompey Nick and Poon, and watched the pompey vs. middlesborough game, we won 2-1!!! Was great to support pompey here in samui!! Made it known that we were pompey fans too :-) We even went back to the hotel to get his shirt!!! Upon arriving @ PFC bar we got a big cheer as dan was wearing his portsmouth shirt and Pompey Nick explained it was Vodka only 2nite, we thought we was joking but he wasnt, it was due to the no alcohol thing...he said Poon was on the look out and if the police came she would shout and we would drink and then pour in the rest of our mixer......we watched the game and all of a sudden was a cry and some bloke screamed DRINK!!!! Drink! Drink! I downed around half of my drink but was so strong, the measures aren't like home, passed it to Dan and he downed it. Was the funniest thing. Police didnt come in so was fine.....vodkas all round!!
Yesterday we decided to explore Chaweng beach, we only took 200 baht and wore our swimsuits and paraded the beach which is on the doorstep of our hotel here in samui. was the best thing as we walked around 3/4 miles and got so hot that we took off our flip flops left them on the shore and went for a dip :-) no need for a towel as we strolled back and dried off. We grabbed a couple of doughnuts along the beach, so good they come to u!! Pineapple donought, was good :-)
Due to the sunburn from the beach the day before we sat in the shade around the pool in the afternoon, reading our books and ordered some chips to munch on. We are finding it hard to remember what we have been up to, everyday's a sunday here!!! Pure bliss.
Last night we ventured back along Chaweng Beach Road, we were planning a cheap day yday but got lured into a very classy italian restaurant by a flyer handed out to us - no selling required it sold itself. The restaurant was run by Francesco, the name was convincing for an italian restaurant, it was down a side road off the main stretch, quite a walk down but boy was it worth it. Had some gorgeous wine, complimentary with the flyer, wine is very expensive over here tho as it has to be imported so soon moved onto good old heinekein!!!! Nice cold beer. I have this thing of being adventurous otherwise i feel i am missing out and not exploring new avenues. I had homemade mint tagliatelli with lamb ragu, dan had penne with goats cheese and asparagous - i was impressed with that selection. The whole meal was very delicious, we shook the chefs hand as we left and headed back stopping for a cocktail on the way at the three monkeys.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.074s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 7; qc: 43; dbt: 0.0436s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Judi
non-member comment
Fantastic
Great blog Jo - keep it up. Well impressed at you -- and you Dan. Penne and asparagus!!! More adventures to come... no doubt. Love your photos Lots of love Judixx