new country, new friends, new crazy atmosphere.
It all started in the singapore airport... I got off the plane, immediately realized I'd left my phone in the seat pocket, and when I tried to get back on I wasn't allowed. They proceeded to "search" for my phone which shockingly they couldn't find. This is the same airline that had no tvs for either of our 7 hour flights, charged money for a glass of water, charged 160$ to check your bag (pleasant surprise), and basically ignored you all flight long if you weren't thai. Never fly jetstar asia. never. I'm fairly confident my phone was sold on ebay to help cover staff wages.
Anyways, just to add insult to injury, this was my birthday. Maybe the worst one ever. When we finally got to Bangkok, Josh told me to wait while he changed. I waited for 35 minutes (no exaggeration, I was sitting under the clock and watching it) wondering where he was. I ended up just leaving, convinced he was abducted or lost. The only place I knew by name was Khoa san road, so I went there.... If you know anything about Khoa san, you'll know it's one of the worst possible places to go when you're scared or confused (both of which I was... mostly scared of Josh's wrath when he found me). There's about one million people on a 20 meter stretch of road, and 1/10 are screaming at you to buy a suit or eat the scorpion they just fried up. The next 2 hours were spent frantically trying to get a hold of josh on the internet, hard without a phone, but even harder when he tried to arrange to meet me at an abandoned restaurant called Mr Yim's. Eventually we did thankfully find each other and booked the first place we ran into. After that we walked around Khoa san for a bit, and even though it's a short road you can walk up and down it for hours because its always changing. We got dinner and beer for 3$, which was lovely, but Josh also lost 500baht in a bit of a suit scam, which he can tell you about...
The currency here is the baht. 100 baht is about 4$, so we could usually get a room for about 300 baht. Why they choose to work with such a crazy currency I don't know, but it definitely makes you feel rich when you take thousands of baht out of the ATM.
Onwards
with our first day... We planned to meet up with our friend from home,
MC. We planned to pre with her and then hit skybar. The problem with
Thai taxis is that they rarely understand where you're trying to go
unless you have the directions written for you in Thai (something we had
yet to learn) so the cab driver took us way out of the way and dropped
us off. This was only after he begged us to come to his friend's suit
shop. After speaking to the lady at 7/11, we realized we were still 20
minutes away, so we trudged back, found another cab and went home to
bed. Once again, this was our 23rd birthday.
Thankfully
things started looking up the next day. Bright and early we met our
first friend, Tom. Tom is an animated and hilarious guy from northern
England, which basically means his sense of humor is crude and he loves
to drink. Tom had gotten to khoa san at 3am the previous morning after
getting scammed 2500 baht for his cab from the airport (i paid 350) and
he, like us, was extremely rattled by the place. The 3 of us moved to
another less crazy place in Bangkok. By that I mean there was still
millions of people around you at all times but they weren't shouting at
you and pulling at you non stop. On route we ran into his 3 foot woman who kept touching Josh and Tom and licking their sweat off her fingers and then cackling. terrifying woman. The hostel was called smile society and
the owner was an absolute gem. There we met up with three of our German
friends from Germany: Doris, Ana and Judith. It definitely felt
soothing to meet up with people who understood the culture shock of
coming from Australia to Bangkok. We also met 4 Brits.. Matt, Matt 2
(aka "the ash man"), Myles and Luke. We walked around a bit and then hit
sky bar that night, which is basically a really nice bar on the outdoor
patio on the 65th floor. Amazing views but as you can imagine it was
insanely overpriced. After one drink we left to find a new place, where
it became a game to avoid the cockroaches running all over your feet.
Myles
was a bit obsessed with the concept of lady boys, which are basically
really convincing transvestites (look it up), so he dragged us out to
find them... We found a place called thigh bar ...... Where inside a few
girls were dancing (unconfirmed lady boys) and we had some cheap
drinks. I also had my first experience with a squat toilet, which is
basically a hole in the ground that you do your business on. In Asia you
definitely appreciate western toilets, and when you find one it feels
like you hit the lottery as they mostly don't have toilet paper as are
usually squatters. You also aren't allowed to flush toilet paper, you
have to throw it out... Sooo when you go number two they have a hose in
the bathroom that you're supposed to use to clean up. The toilet in this
place was literally a hole in the ground with a red plastic seat
situated in the strip club's storage room and instead of a door there
was a curtain. Not delightful, but at least now I know(hope) I've faced the
worst.
The
next day the Germans, Tom, josh and I headed by boat to the grand
palace. When we got there we found out it was 300baht to get in, so the
boys and I went to an air conditioned cafe to wait for the Germans to
see it. After some confusion involving china town on the way home, we
treated ourselves to McDonald's and went back to smile society. For
dinner all of us including the Brits went out for dinner and had a
horrible experience being hated on by the Thai servers. All of the boys
and I then started to pre (the Germans bailed) and we all ended up just
talking at the table. The Brits dared Matt to break off from their group
and come with us, claiming he'd never have the balls to do it. I didn't
think he would do it either, but the next morning he announced he was
going to come south with us and meet up with them in a day or two. Of
course they ended up going north and screwing him for 5 nights, but he's
happily on his way to meet them now.
Anyways,
after we checked out of smile society we finally met up with Chris and
Lindsay (friends from home for those of you who don't know) and that
made me and josh incredibly happy. The 4 of us plus Tom and Matt headed
to the bus stop, where we waited for 8 hours for our bus... The
highlights there included horrible manicures and being forced to stop
playing president by security because they insisted we were gambling.
After
that 8 hour wait we were finally getting out of Bangkok. I'm still not
sure how I felt about it, but I'm leaning towards saying i strongly
disliked it. Too much hustle and bustle, too much mayhem. Don't get me
wrong though, very cool atmosphere to be involved in.
We
then faced a 7 hour bus ride which was thankfully air conditioned,
followed by a 3 hour ferry which was so awful that I was seriously
considering kamikazeeing into the ocean. Thankfully at 11am we arrived
at the absolutely beautiful island of Koh Tao and checked into an
amazing bungalow at royal resort. Our first way was an easy one at the
beach, which was a top 3 beach of this trip. The only problem was that
the water was actually too hot. Matt ended up getting fried, and the
rest of us got a bit of heat stroke.
We
planned for a big night that night, but Matt was feeling ill and Tom
had managed to turn a nap into a sleep for the 3rd night in a row
(dreadful habit) so the four of us headed out. Chris had quite a big big
night but that is his story to tell. The bar we went to was called
castle and they played awesome music. On the walk home Chris taunted
every wild dog we passed and I thought he would get us killed but we
made it back. The next day was pretty similar in that we hit another
beach. We also spent a big portion of the day booking our scuba trip for
the next day. The only other activity of the day was eating.
The
next day we all (except josh) got up early to scuba dive. Our
instructor was a babe from Switzerland so that was nice. He took us to
two sites, Japanese gardens and twin rocks, both for 50 minutes. We saw
about a million types of coral and some huge fish called emperors, but
he scariest one was the trigger fish. It was my first scuba so initially
I was panicking but it ended up being awesome and I wish it could've
been for longer.
That
night we had our big big night. We had a fun Predrink then headed down
the beach, led by a stray dog we picked up at the hostel. He came all
the way with us 3 km down to a place called lotus bar where things got a
bit crazy for Matt and Tom.. Matt managed to walk directly through a
fire show to puke in the ocean and then back several times... The four
of us plus Jess (great friend from NZ that we met up with and are now traveling with) danced and laughed all night about the other two, then
walker the long way home at 4am, sadly without our dog friend.
The
next day was equally as exciting. We rented scooters and immediately
Jess had a minor crash into the wall that cost her 100$. I climbed on
the back of one, too scared to drive, only to crash 5 minutes into the
trip on the first turn. Thankfully both me and the driver (identity kept
secret to protect the ego) were unscathed, just a little rattled. Mom,
do not worry! The crash count remained at 2 for the rest of the day. We
drove or scooters to a place called shark island. Sadly I had a mild
case of food poisoning so I mostly slept and moped, but everyone else had a
great day and most of them saw sharks while they were snorkeling. Bad
day to be ill. When we got back to the hostel I think we were all pretty
relieved to be ok. We had a group dinner then josh, Jess, Tom and Matt
went back to lotus bar. Matt actually stayed up to watch the Manchester
game at 2am, what a trooper.
Today
we got back on the scooters, not quite rattled enough to avoid them. We
hit some other beach and hung out in the water all day. I also managed
to spot a Toronto ultimate disc and stuck up a convo with a weirdo
Canadian who now plays in tssc...
We
said out goodbyes to Matt, dealt with the problems with the bikes and
now the 6 of us are on a Ferry to koh phangan, which is basically the
party island in this area.
That's all for now..... Thanks for sticking it through this post amigos! Home in one week xoxoxo
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