There are three of us, great friends from Australia, lived together partied together and lived a great life on the sunny gold coast. Then we thought we needed an adventure, promptly quit our jobs, sold/gave away everything we owned then packed a bag full of the essentials and headed over seas for a change. First stop - Thailand!!! - Untouched sandy beaches, sun bathing, eating yum thai food - sounded like a dream...
So we touched down after a 9 hour flight from sydney into Bangkok, now the first thing people tell you is not to accept rides from strangers, and also to be wary of getting ripped off. Well we needed to get to our (4 star hotel) which we had pre booked for safety reasons, and 1000 baht sounded like way too much to pay for a taxi ride, so we settled with a dodgy looking stranger for 400 baht and proceeded with our bags (weighing the equivelant of a small person) to an even dodgier car park wher his unmarked taxi took us eventually to our hotel which was by the way far from 4 star!!! But we decided to have a sensible early night and woke up with masses of red dots which were extremely itchy all over me - bed bugs!!! Anyway with bed bugs in tow we headed out into the street, as soon as that hotel door opened, a stench like nothing before creepily filled my nostrils and didn't leave them for a while.. We decided to explore the stinky streets and passed numerous people minus limbs and with small children grabbing at us for money, and tuk tuk drivers crazily carrying on trying to get us on their dodgy vehicle, and dogs oh the dogs - everywhere.... We then met a lovely man who insisted that he help us book something so we got sucked in, got into a tuk tuk and got ripped off on a tour for the next day..first lesson learnt - be wary of extra nice people trying to (help) you. Anyway with our new found knowledge of Bangkok, we went to Khaosan road to party!! We walked through alley ways and stumbled across a guesthouse, which looked ok, got inside, booked our room for a few nights and turned around to face a sign that read 'Please don't leave food in rooms as the rats will make their home in there' Sounded welcoming, we then climbed many stairs with our backpacks to get to our room. And since we were budgeting we opted for no air con, and since coming from oz, we could handle the heat right? Wrong, it was so so hot! Our beds were joined together in the centre of the room, and when I checked out the shower I accidentally bumped it on and didn't realise how, water was going everywhere so I took shelter from behing the door and had to be saved by my friend. After that I needed to pee, so closed the door,sat down and the door fell apart AGGHH Things were going great. We then headed to get some food - a toasted cheese sandwich seemed safe but another lesson learnt - when in Thailand Eat Thai Food! They only know how to cook what they eat properly!!! And wow did I pay for that cheese sandwich, and did I mention the heat, yep mix them together and it is not good at all!! So after we established that the food wasn't really agreeing with us well it got worse - massive case of thai tummy!!! So massive in fact that we seemed to embarrassingly block every toilet we cam across that is if it even flushed, and it wasn't the toilet paper blocking it either - we had to get people to come with plungers and eventually they just left a plunger with us, that said we still only had one toilet and had to run through restaurants to use theirs and block them too... We were absolutely drained! Couldn't eat and forgot about the ice affect when drinking cocktails... yep more blockages! That aside we proceeded to other parts of Thailand, pat tigers, rode on elephants, had massive nights out on the booze and met heaps of awesome people on the way! The bed bugs left, and the tummy settled, we ate thai food, and loved it!!! We travelled by boat, plane, bus, tuk tuk, you name it, to beautiful spots - Patong - where we rode around on mopeds in the rain, Phuket where we ripped apart rock city and the aussie bar, Ko Samui where we did some serious drinking and toilet blocking, oh and sun bathed!, Ko pagnan where we raved and partied under the full moon covered in illuminous ink ( and got my bag stolen), then back to Bangkok to fly out to the uk. Wow Thailand sure is an experience, one I won't forget in a hurry and in fact am going back to do it all over again. Highlyn recommend it but take a tip - don't flush toilet paper and eat sensibly. Also a travel plunger probably will come in handy!!!!
