Tues 16th November 2010
We arrive off the plane at Bangkok at 9.10pm with swollen feet and heavy eyes. The Bangkok airport is very LONG and there are flat escalators down the middle of the building so you can walk double time..awesome!It takes us about 30mins to get through the airport and we find one of our suitcase handles are broken..not so awesome! By the time we get into our transfer vehicle our backs are sticky with sweat..thank goodness for air con (though this doesn't help Dave who managed to get a flu just before we left NZ). As we drive through Bangkok we can't see much as it's raining and dark, lots of slum looking buildings though, and often right next to flash buildings. We drive down a couple of rough roads, then breathe a sigh of relief as we get to our hotel that looks pretty flash! So we settle in, have showers to realise there is next to no water pressure here, looks like the pool will become very popular. I stub and slice my toe on the way out of the bathroom, then curse at myself for not bringing a first aid kit. I have to sleep with a lady thing around my toe, as to not get blood on the white sheets!Aircon on, and goodnight Bangkok..
Weds 17th Nov
After a restless nights sleep we arise at 4.15am and get ready to go on a temple tour. Dress code is quite strict so i'm wearing closed in shoes..getting these on with swollen feet and a cut toe was not pretty. We decide to grab something to eat before we get picked up at 5 so head to the closest 7/11 store. 4.45am is probably not the best time to be on the streets we think as we see strange, drunk people. We grab crossaints, water and get the f*** out of there. So we wait for our ride and after waiting till 5-45 I ring the lady and she tells me "No, no, no 8.15! Not 5.15"....of course... so we fill the time by hitting the breakfast buffet. This is the happiest i have seen dave yet and he dives into an array of Thai food, at 6am none the less. We go for a walk and check out the slums..it's truly so sad how some of these people live, and there are
stray dogs and cats everywhere...:(
8.15 finally comes, along with our taxi, and we check out some temples with another couple, and well, after you have seen a couple of temples, you've truly seen them all. We are also taken to a fitting store where they personally make garments for you..they try and tell you you NEED suits and show you expensive fabrics. I have learnt the word NO very quickly and have learnt to just WALK AWAY!!!
Along the tour we see many many men with guns, including one outside of a gem shop we got taken into and were lucky to make it out alive with our wallets in order. After the tour and a quick snooze Dave and I hit the poolside for a few cocktails. They're extremely cheap and potent..about $50 for eight cocktails. After a few delish mai tai's, we hit the pool for a 'wash' (stink I know but MUCH better than the cold dripping showers!).
Quick quiz of the day: Is USED toilet paper meant to be flushed down the toilet, or placed in a rubbish bin in Bangkok?? In each of the ladies rooms I go into there is a bin next to the toilet with toilet paper scrunched up in it. I actually do think that they are for used TP, though Dave thinks this is absurd.
We decide to head to a night baazar area of Bangkok, and a taxi man agrees to take us there for 200baht (around $10). Whilst we are in the taxi however, he tells us there are 'no restaurants' where we are going. We think this is odd, but he recommends somewhere 'cheap' and 'thai' so we are more than happy for him to take us there. The restaurant he takes us to is average, though Dave got his crab he so dearly wanted and I got my spicy green curry. Dave and I decide our bill should come to around 1300baht, so when the waitress brought us our bill for 2700+400 for service we were a little stumped, but of course we paid.This is extremely high priced for dinner, norm is around 1000baht. It wasn't until we got back to our hotel (with our same taxi driver), we realised he must of had some sort of deal with the restaurant he took us to and yes..we just got SHAFTED! Ha, and up until now we thought we were too clever for these Thai's to rip us off. So straight home to bed with an empty wallet it is.. Better luck next time ;)
Oh, and I will be sleeping with my feet elevated tonight as they are still swollen and unable to fit into shoes, kankles much?
Thurs 18th Nov
This morning we wake at 5.45am, shower, then head down to the buffet. Dave piles his plate with breakfast and non breakfast foods, then tells me to get over my health buzz as I eat a bowl of fruit. I prove him wrong by following my fruit with some bacon and eggs. I then see one of the hotel men making waffles, and can't help but grab one! Yum! As I eat my waffle, a man walks into the restaurant asking "Walker?" We nod, and follow him out of the room. I grab my waffle on the way out of course. Yet again, our tour times have been wrong..it seems that's the norm with other people who've booked the same tours. After picking up two other couples (one English couple who we also spent yesterday with), we drive for two hours to see the River Kwai. On our way we stop at a war cemetry, and a war museum, not very exciting. The tour guide asks me if I am Thai, to which i'm not offended as this isn't the first time i've been asked. I tell him no and explain my genectics to him and he laughs. "6 generation of blood make for good genius" he says pointing to his noggin. Ha ha.
We then jump on a speed boat and take off down the river. There are many river houses, river "Dance ducks", and floating restaurants. We get splashed a bit on the way, so I try hide my face as the water is far from clean.
We jump off the boat to walk along the bridge over River Kwai, it also has a railway track (that we later found was still in use), and it is dodgy to say the least! Standing around 20m above the water, there are broken planks of wood, and massive spaces to easily fall between. OSH would shit themselves, ha ha!
We roam a nearby market, then have lunch with another couple on the tour with us, before hitting the road again for Tiger Temple. On the way the tour guide asks "You got something cover?" pointing to shoulders. I answer, "No...(shit)", nor do I have a spare pair of pants on me to cover up my knees. So we get to Tiger Temple, and I have to buy an awesome Tiger tee (souvenior) and pull my shorts halfway down my butt to look repectable. We see, pat, and walk with the tigers, and long to be back in the air con van after two hours! Not unlike buddahs, once you have seen one tiger lazing around....
We hit the road again (3hrs back to Bangkok), and turns out Dave has developed quite the unsettled gut, so many "Happy room" stops are made. We all laugh and joke as Dave sits uncomfortable but truly I feel sorry for him- the public toilets are covered in piss, the seats are only just off the ground, and have no toilet paper! No so happy room.
(I discover today that toilet paper in fact is not supposed to go down the toilet, but into a bin. No wonder why the happy rooms all reek!)
We get home, shower and dress, as we have arranged to meet the English couple and hit the night markets. While I get ready, Dave occupies the toilet. Boor fing!
Fri 19th Nov
Slept in this morning (8am) as we went out last night to night markets, and for dinner and a few cocktails. Every second step we took along the night markets, we were asked "Ping pong show??" We might have fallen into their trap, except we were with the English couple who didnt want a bar of it. he he. Didnt buy much, but what we did buy, we got ripped off with the stuff we did get. Thems the breaks I suppose We later sat down an alley with a few bars, and people watched for a bit...and it's so true that anything goes in Thailand.
So I wake before Dave, and hit the treadmill at our hotel gym. Even though the gym has air con I have never, ever sweat so much in my life! Must be all the exotic food laden with SALT nom nom.
We attack the buffet once again then decide to walk to the big shopping malls. We see three malls, each one more amazing then the next. They are all around 7 stories high, and vary from market prices to high fashion such as Gucci, Armani and Versace. In my dreams..haha!!
After window shopping for a few hours we grab lunch (by now we are well and truly over Thai food, so eat Japanese haha), then grab a taxi back to our hotel. So this morning, it took us 10-15minutes to get to the mall, and on our way back in the taxi, it took us over 45mins!! Traffic is horrendous throughout the day, and it didn't help that there was some kind of street hoobilation going on.
So relax by the pool, quick dip, then a dinner cruise on a rice barge tonight, sounds good to me!!
Our dinner cruise was awesome, we boarded the gorgeous barge along with about 30 other people, then set off down the Bangkok river. While we were wined and dined with many delicious treats, a couple of Thai ladies danced for us and we got to see all the sights of Bangkok lit up by night. As we tried our platter of deserts, we found that one of the strange red fruits tasted exactly like the streets smelt!! We lost our appetite after that, ha ha.
Sat 20th Nov
Today we woke excitedly, ate and set off for our Flight of the Gibbon, Rainforest experience. This was by far the best experience off our trip! We walked up and into the rainforest, got hooked up to zip lines, and flew high above the tree tops. We flew across a total of 24 lines, ranging from 40m long to 300m long, and up to 50m high- amazing!! Our tour guides were hilarious and cheeky (one named Peter Pan), calling me Teiland. Ha fricken ha. Can't say how many times i've been asked if I am Thai, but there have been a fair few. After two hours of flying high, we had lunch with our tour group surrounded by friendly monkeys, then went to an open Zoo. Lucky for us, our tour guide drove us around most of the Zoo because we were too hot to get out of the van. All the animals in this zoo have their own areas, and stay in their areas with their own kind, with a majority of them not being in fenced off areas (hence 'open' zoo). There are no signs saying do not feed or touch the animals- each man for himself in Thailand! The tour guide gave us 15mins to get out and have a look around, so Dave and I ran like crazy animals as fast as we could to see as much as we could. On our way out of the zoo, we nearly ran over a HUGE lizard (gag) but weren't fast enough to get a snapshot.
We travelled back to Bangkok for an hour and a half, and after dropping a couple of people at their hotels, our driver dropped us on the street in town to get a taxi home. We thought that was ratshit, but then it got worse. We jump in a taxi, who ensures us he knows where our hotel is (even though he does not speak English), crawl through rush hour traffic round in circles for half and hour, before I have to start directing him by pointing. We finally get somewhere I recognise and I point and say "right!" He pulls over to the next road on the LEFT and says "You walk". I can't help but call out a few explicit words (not that he even understands), we give him only half the fare, then jump out of the cab. As he takes off he does a skid haha taxi no happy, but neither were we, we still had to walk to our hotel..over an hour after our tour ended!
Finally, after a long but primo day we get back to our hotel, hit the poolside under the (smoggy) night sky, and order room service and a couple of drinks. Later, we pack, and look forward to our 13hour flight (not so much) to a much cooler London, to start organising our new lives!! :)
