End of the trip and the journey home (14th December 2011)

Needless to say the duvet idea didn’t work. Oh well I’ll be back in my own bed before I know it.

Last night in the hostel they assured me that there would be lots of taxis directly outside early in the morning that I could take to the airport, I’d even heard them saying the same to another couple the day before so I guessed it might actually be the case and with my now massive bag I really can’t walk too far in search of one! So when I got outside and there wasn’t a single taxi in sight I can’t say I was exactly over the moon. Even walking to the main road there wasn’t any. Fortunately after a few minutes I did manage to flag a cab down and we were soon on our way, not as early as I had hoped though and as usual I hadn’t left a great deal of time to get to the airport, the only saving grace was I had checked in the night before.

So that was it the end of my trip, just a 12 hour flight to go and then it’s back to reality! ;-(

Once again I’ve had a great time, I’ve met some lovely people and seen some great sights and sites but it’s now time to catch up on the latest Emirates movie selection and enjoy the very last part of my trip.

A great memory of my time in SE Asia

Day two in Bangkok (13th December 2011)

It’s the last day of my trip and I’m not sure I’m really ready to come home now! The thought of work again and everything else I left behind really isn’t filling me with too much joy. I guess though unless someone else is willing to pay for my extended holiday lifestyle I‘ve gotta go back and try and earn some money to be able to do it all again. ;-)

One thing I wont be sorry to see the back of is last nights bed! I can’t believe just how uncomfortable it was, even worse than the night before. Honestly who were they kidding saying it was comfortable and who ever left a review on the internet saying the same were either having a very sick joke or usually sleeps on a bed of nails!

I did manage in the end to roll myself out of bed and make my back bend again before deciding on today’s activity and seeing as a session of physio on my sore back was out of the question I decided to continue to enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of Bangkok for my last day. My last day which actually started off at MacDonalds again! I am so breaking this habit as soon as I’m home.

I still had a couple more things I wanted to get so that was top of my list and then of course the mission was to try and get it all into my backpack without having to buy another bag.

One of Bangkoks night markets

I have a small bag I bought a couple of years ago in Borneo which has been great for each trip, it packs up nice and small and just goes in my backpack till the last day when I of course try and overfill it but sadly it seems this year might have been just too much and the zips broken! Thank goodness for 7-11 and their duct tape.

My last Thai meal of the trip - you really can not beat street food

So the last evening of my trip and I suddenly remember I haven’t sent some postcards, that’s not strictly true, I had remembered but I kept thinking I had plenty of time for that. Clearly the night before I come home is never going to be enough time. At the time I remembered again I was in one of the city’s biggest malls and hoped they would have somewhere to buy stamps. I asked a couple of people who seemed quite confident in knowing what it was I was after and said there were stamps in the car park! Really? Well ok then! So I started to make my way outside and instead came across what, to me, looked like a post office, apparently apart from sending parcels all over the world they didn’t in fact sell stamps and instead directed me to the car park again. At this point I’m wondering if this is just a fun trick that the Malay people love to play on stupid tourists, making them go into a car park to buy stamps! This was getting a little weird, I mean there can’t really be a post office in the car park can there? Another half hour of trying to find someone, anyone to sell me some stamps still with no joy I eventually ask one final time and after being directed to the car park again I finally find the multistory in question and there would you believe was the very small post office everyone has been talking about! It looks like a parking ticket booth and I’m still not totally convinced until I have my stamps and I’m leaving the car park. For some reason I found the whole experience quite surreal. It wasn’t until I got back to the hostel that I noticed directly opposite my accommodation was a massive post office! I could have saved myself a good half hours wandering around in random car parks!

The car park post office

So with all my last minute tasks completed and my bag packed, or maybe that should read rammed full, and postcards posted in the nice big post office across the road (!) I made for an early night as I think I have to leave around 6am for the flight home. Tonight though I ‘borrowed’ the two duvets off of the two unused beds in an attempt to soften my bed slightly.

Some fantastic street entertainment in Bangkok

Day one in Bangkok (12th December 2011)

Last night’s sleep was little better than nonexistent!

First, at midnight two new arrivals came into the dorm not exactly quietly, then around 2am another room mate arrived then around 4am one of the first arriving girls sat bolt up in bed and started screaming! I think she must have been having a nightmare because fortunately she didn’t go on for too long and certainly not long enough for anyone to do anything but it still woke us all up, this was coupled together with a bed you could crack nuts on. Oh and there were no curtains on the windows, which although not the end of the world as I always have my eye shade with me I think they could have stretched to it myself.

So first thing this morning I decide there’s no way I can do another night there let alone two and immediately try and find an alternative. The thing is Bangkok seems to be the same as many other major cities, expensive and not great quality with regard to accommodation. All the same I spend an hour or so on the internet trying desperately to find somewhere with a more comfortable bed. In the end I narrow it down to three other places all a sky train ride away and pack up my gear in readiness before heading off to check them out. The first place I went to was very friendly and seemed nice, although somewhere outside someone was frying chilli which is an absolute killer if you get anywhere near it and I nearly died as I walked in the door, so coughing and spluttering I managed it up to the room just to find that the bed was even harder than the one I’d just come from….really? Is that possible? Apparently yes! I thanked them very much and headed off to the next place.

The next hostel seemed to be in the middle of building works which isn’t a great sign but as long as they’re not banging around when I’m sleeping it might be ok. The girl on reception wouldn’t let me check out the room for myself but assured me that the bed was very comfy and kept showing me pictures of the rooms, I had also read a review on the internet saying the beds were nice and comfy so I thought I can’t go wrong, it was getting on for midday and I was pretty much done with finding accommodation so gave in. I paid my money and went straight up just to find that the beds were on a par with the one I’d just got out of and the other one I’d tried yet in true British style when I went back down stairs and the receptionist asked me how the bed was, I lied through my teeth and said ‘Yes it was fine!’. Now I only have myself to blame if I end up with a bad back.

So it was straight back to last night’s hostel to collect my bag and trail back over town again to drop it off at the new place. This was turning out to be a busy day already.

The busyness of Bangkok

By the time I had got back to the new hostel again and reaffirmed the ridiculously uncomfortable bed it was past lunchtime and it seems the new hostel is not only right in the middle of the financial area (meaning very expensive for everything) but also slap in the middle of the red light district! Nice planning Em!

For lunch I’d eye spied a Mexican restaurant and although a part of me thinks I should be making the most of the last couple of days by eating everything Thai having seen the Mexican I now NEEDED the Mexican. So that’s how I found myself having not very tasty chicken (!) burritos in a Mexican restaurant in the red light district of Bangkok being served by a very sweet ladyboy singing Christmas songs to me. Next time definitely Thai food. ;-)

The rest of the afternoon I opted for a bit of a wander around the area, just enjoying the last couple of days before heading back home.

The upside about being in the middle of the red light district is the night market, Pat Phong, this I also remember from the last two times I’ve been here and it’s actually a nice little market with some different things for sale and as long as you didn’t glance into the bars either side you weren’t likely to be too offended! You name it they had it on offer, today as they did all those years ago. Although the main difference this time was I received no offers and no invites, perhaps I am getting too old!

Pat Phong market was more fun than the market yesterday, smaller and easier to navigate, more interesting things to buy and better food and of course the entertainment in seeing Western guys being ‘invited’ into the bars! Entertaining, intriguing or very sad…….one or the other!!

The funniest part for me was sitting in a café on the top road getting a bite to eat and opposite was the gay red light district and the amount of guys being drawn in by the bright lights and loud music only to realise their mistake and go running was a good half hours entertainment for me!! ;-)

Pat Phong

Arriving in Bangkok (11th December 2011)

I slept really well last night considering we’re constantly on the move but I guess it might be a little like being rocked to sleep…….a little but not quite!

This morning’s journey continued through some very interesting countryside which was lovely to see as when I took the train in the other direction it was already dark. What was still quite striking as well, was the extent of the flooding still, the closer to Bangkok we got the more flooded the outlying communities were. The thing for them living in these areas is that they have no choice but to just try and carry on with it all as best they can and in some cases becoming very enterprising. Where there were once roads there are now fishing areas and where there were once cars to travel from A to B, now they are using boats. When there’s no alternative but to live with it all and carry on you just have to adapt and make the most of what is a really bad situation. It was quite moving to see daily life carrying on despite the problems they were constantly and consistency facing, it does make you think.

Some of the flooding in Thailand

Two videos of the flooding in Thailand showing a school with its playground underwater and some of the local people fishing in the road!

We arrived in Bangkok pretty much on time at 12.30. The website said 10.30 arrival but I think we did pretty good to just be two hours late and to be fair that was the time the ticket lady said we would arrive. Now for my next mission! Souvenir shopping!

There’s a massive market that’s just on on a Saturday and Sunday, I’ve been to it before about 6 or so years ago and I remember it well so thought it would be good for some last minute bits and pieces and was actually the whole reason for coming back to Bangkok on the Saturday night train to get here in time for the last afternoon of the market.

First though a bed for the night, I’ve decided to opt for a hostel that’s says it’s a Youth Hostel, I’m not sure what the difference is between the two but I’m about to find out.

I’m at the end of my trip and although I haven’t really bought anything much my bag is pretty heavy, or maybe it’s just cause I’ve been carrying it around everywhere for the last few weeks. Either way negotiating the underground and then sky train was a little trying so regardless of what the hostel is like I’m staying at least one night. I’d really like to stay in one place till I fly home but we’ll see.

So it seems the difference between a hostel and a Youth Hostel is that you’re given your bedding at check-in and its do it yourself. Which is fine of course if only the bed I was making up was a little softer than solid rock! Maybe it’ll be just the one night after all.

I literally just dumped my gear and headed straight out to the market with a hope of all things wonderful to buy.

The market is at the end of the sky train line and it seems everyone on the train is going the same way, never a good sign for someone who doesn’t like crowds, or shopping for that matter. Did I really want to go to the market?? As I got off the train, straight away it was absolutely manic! People everywhere – either selling or buying or both and I hadn’t even got to the start of the market yet. They say it’s one of the largest markets in the world and I actually don’t think in this case they’re exaggerating, it’s ridiculously huge, too huge in fact to try and negotiate I’m thinking. The question is where to start and then once I’ve started is there a possibility I may never find my way back out again! The majority of the market is covered which is a god send out of the heat but then it made it seem even more busy as all the walkways were small and crowded with people and there was never a slice of sky to be seen. I could see I wasn’t going to last long here to be honest. And to be fair a lot of the things they were selling I’ve seen in a lot of the places I’ve been to, both here in Thailand and elsewhere in SE Asia, there was nothing much in the way of new and different and it was that, that I was after. I think when I was here before although I had traveled a little I don’t think I had really seen anything like it before so it was all new and exciting. This time around I felt I had seen quite a lot of it before and it actually reminded me of the time I was in Goa and left the quiet, relaxed and chilled out South of the state to come back up north to a market that again I had visited before and thought was going to be really good, only to be disappointed and end up wishing I had stayed south. Sone day I’ll learn by my experiences wont I?

But really it was nice to visit the market if only to have a different view of it all than I had before, I managed to pick up a few nice bits and pieces but I was also quite happy when it got to 6pm and they played the national anthem stopping everyone in their tracks and that was then pretty much it, everyone started packing up and it meant I could head back and make my bed of rocks!!