Returning to Thailand..Islands,Christmas in Bangkok...

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We left Cambodia with fond memories of trekking, minority groups, chasing wild elephants, eating many plants and barks in the jungle and of course the wonderful people we met 😊 We took the bus from Andoung tuek to Bangkok, taking 10 hours (if you're lucky!) and costing around $19. The border crossing was easy as pie but we felt bad for the people coming the other way. They were getting scammed into a quarantine testing zone for a few dollars (don't worry this isn't official and they will still let you through if you've a raging temperature, you just have to pay them!) We didn't see this on the Vietnamese side, I guess the Vietnamese must be scarier than the Thai's lol!



We arrived into Bangkok at the Victory monument, so we shared a taxi with fellow travellers to our home away from home Khao san road. One taxi guy, refused to use his meter and quoted us 400 baht, so we took the one 2 seconds after him for 200 baht (some of these guys are pure chancers). We stayed in a nice, clean new hotel with friendly staff, costing 460 baht (Lamphu house) I then had an amazing banana pancake off the street vendor, I had been dreaming of this ever since I left Bangkok, nearly two months ago! I was one happy camper. Phil got his meat on a stick too 😊 Bangkok which much more pleasant for us the second time around as the crowds had disappeared and the tuk tuks pretty much ignored us 😊 The next day we done a spot of shopping and booked our joint train,bus and boat ticket to Koh Samui costing 1000 baht each. We had a good sleep on the train and were happy as we had one lower and one upper bunk so we could sit opposite each other before our seats were turned into beds at night 😊 We arrived early in the morning to Suratthani and grabbed some cheap ass toasties from the 7/11 😊 We got a super posh double decker bus to the boat pier, took about an hour (we could have done with this bus for our longer journeys in Cambodia! The boat journey was nice but there was a mist clouding Koh Samui, which concerned us as we planned to laze on the beach.



Koh Samui really wasn't our cup of tea, way too built up and western with sexy sexy bars everywhere! I awoke in the morning to see prostitutes walking past our bungalow window! The taxi's here (pick ups) really take the piss wanting you to pay a tenner for a ten minute drive (which costs the locals a euro!) It wan't all bad though, there is a great choice of restaurants and bars meaning you can get any cuisine you desire. It would be a great place to come for partying and chilling like on a stag week or something 😊 So we headed onto the neighboring island of Koh Phangan. The full moon parties were happening in the south but the north was lovely and quiet. We found a nice resort, with friendly people, chubby cheeky dogs, a pool and the beach right below. It would have been perfect but for the non stop torrential rainstorms. We passed the time, walking along the beach with our umbrella and chatting to a lovely French couple who gave us lots of tips for traveling in India 😊 We decided to leave Koh Phangan as the weather was to stay bad for the foreseeable future and our hotel would increase the room rates for Christmas.



So, on Christmas Eve we took the night train to Bangkok and awoke on Christmas morning on our train in Bangkok! It was a Christmas like none other! We went back to the Lamphu hotel and then set about doing some shopping and finding Christmas dinner. The christnmas dinner didn't look tasty and was way over priced at 35 dollars so we got some yummy Thai food for a fiver instead (when in Thailand..)



We got our e-visa for Myanmar approved (costing 50 dollars) and took a flight with Nok Air on Stephens day to the only recently discovered by travelers Myanmar 😊 I loved the fact that our plane was decorated like a bird (beak and all) and we got a free snack of tea and a banana muffin 😊



Next we shall tell you of our travels in Myanmar.

Watch this space!





#spudstobananapancakes xoxo

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Comments

[Olivier]

Thanks for your comment about our place
Hi from Green Lantern restaurant , thank you guys for the comment, all the best for the rest of your journey. Olivier (not Ivan) LOL The cat massage in Japan is still in planning ... need more cats

[Spuds to Banana Pancakes]

haha sorry, met so many people and not so good with names! you should definitely do it :)