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Bangkok
Gulf Air kept us busy all the way to Bangkok. The imigrations went quickly, our backpacks were where they were supposed to be, we headed out into the humid air of a strange country. There was a shuttle bus from the airport to Khao San Rd, apparently the epicentre of happenings in Bangkok.
We sat, i smoked a long awaited for cigarette, we boarded the bus, met a canadian girl who told us about a great area she found in Bangkok to live in cheaply. The bus dropped us off at Khao San, i took one look down the street, saw only gaijins and stalls with immitation shorts and decided immediately that this place was exactly the kind of place I wanted to avoid while here. We took a tuk tuk to Sui Nam Du Puis, a great little area about ten minute walk from Patpong, with great restaurants, the worlds coolest bar, and an amazing park with a huge lake in it to relax by away from the smog and shit of the big city. We arrived there late, checked in, i drank a cold beer which i had managed to take from the airplane, and then we headed downstairs to eat. Fredde and I ordered Sweet and Sour Chicken, thai style, and this meal blew me away. I scraped every last piece of rice off the plate and swore that even if i hated thailand the food would not be a problem. We then headed up to sleep........and we slept with no apparent interference.
Our first day in bangkok involved walking around the city, exploring the palace (with the emerald buddha), getting into a tuk tuk which offered to show us 3 "sites" for 20 bhat on the condition that we visit a jewelry shop and stay inside for more than 10 minutes so he could get some Government sponsored gas vouchers to promote tourists visiting these chosen stores. We agreed, and off we went to see some huge Buddha statues, and other things... we ended up at the store (after visiting one and staying too little time for him to collect his voucher) which had jewelry and wood carvings. We tried to seem as enthusiastic as two backpackers with no money could in a jewelry store and the woman who was guiding us couldn’t wait until we left the store. She hurried us through each floor as fast as possible (perhaps she knew there was a tuk tuk waiting outside and she didn’t want the driver to be given a coupon?) but we were stubborn and stretched out every minute asking questions about the precious stones, looking at bracelets and mumbling something about our mother liking that particular stone..etc. Well, we managed to stay for more than half and hour and when we returned outside our tuk tuk driver was most pleased. He then took us to see the marble temple, but as we returned from what was obviously NOT the marble temple he had sped off with his tickets !! Well, we felt kind of stupid in one way, but on the other hand we had been shown around bangkok without even having to pay him the 20 bhat. So, we hailed another tuk tuk and returned to Khao san Rd to look at some travel agencies.
We basically booked our way down to Koh Samui pretty fast, I don’t exactly remember the amount of days we were in bangkok but soon we were getting ready to move again.
That night we ate at Wongs Bar, opposite our hotel, a charming little bar owned by a Thai who spoke fluent english and made some of the greatest food we had ever tried. The red prawn curry was exemplary......i will never forget that flavour. We washed it all down with beer chang since i thought it was less bitter than Singha.
The next day we packed our bags, hung around talking to Patrick who constantly asked us if we wanted whores or ping ping pussy, to which we replied "no!" each and every time. We drank a beer, i bought some cigarettes for the trip, and we flagged a taxi to take us to Khao San Rd to catch our night bus to Surat Tani.
At khao san rd we checked our email, walked around bargaining for shorts, watched a movie and ate dinner at a restaurant and then made our way to the travel agent to catch our bus to koh samui. We were both absolutely excited... aching for some beach time after having spent the last two weeks with a new schedule every day.
The bus was to depart from another place so the agency sent a small taxi to pick up 8 people all with huge backpacks. This ride was comedy, people and backpacks hanging out, but the bus stood a few streets away so it wasn’t a problem. We boarded the bus, and leant back to relax.
In the morning the bus dropped us all off at a small cafe at around 6 a.m, said nothing and just drove off. We all stood there having no idea what to do, but most of the travellers went to the cafe and had breakfast. We ended up sitting there for the better part of two hours before the bus to koh samui came. In the meantime we had a funny experience, a young english guy and his girlfriend plus two german travellers were really irritated by the thought of waiting. They made up their minds (by talking loud so that everyone could hear them) to take a taxi to the harbour and catch the earlier ferry. I remember thinking what pricks they were because our tickets were only good for passage on the ferry that the bus went on, but they left regardless and all seemed to look at us as though we were pathetic for waiting. Half an hour later they all returned, red in the face.... obviously the ferry had denied them passage and they were forced to come back. All the others simply laughed at them, and I am sure they looked around for big enough rocks to crawl under.
Anyway, the bus finally came and we were off to suratani to where the ferry left. We arrived there and sat for a few minutes enjoying the beautiful look of the sea. The sea in thailand is like no other place.. so clear and calm.. so crystal blue. Within minutes we were on the ferry and off to the beach island. Upon arrival we joined a group of people (which included the english boy and his girlfriend) who had been told by a taxi driver he would take them to a hotel where the rooms where 150 bhat a night, right on the beach. We couldn’t pass that up, so we jumped on the back of the toyota pickup truck and leaned back to soak up the sun. The ride was fantastic, looking at all the palm trees and the coast snaking its way along the side of the road. It was really warm and fredde and I were so happy to be alone and near the ocean.
Upon arrival at the hotel we got our room and fredde went straight into the ocean. I stayed out and ate lunch and read books before jumping into the sea later on in the afternoon.
The place the taxi driver had taken us was not so fantastic, the beach was full of sticks and the sea bed was muddy. We decided that we would leave koh samui the next day and go to koh pang nan. Also, koh samui was not that cool.. it was pretty touristy and not backpacker friendly..... more aimed at families with money who wanted a piece of sunshine and demanded some comfort. So, we got up the next day and walked to the road in the sweltering heat to try and find a taxi. We had to walk pretty damn far and were wrapping things on our heads to keep from fainting since we had heavy packs also, but finally a taxi stopped and took us to the ferry. We found out we had an hour to wait, so we ate and went to sit by the sea and look out across the beauty that surrounded us.
A small ferry took us to koh pang nan, and as soon as we got off I was sure that this place was different. We disembarked by a small town which I could have stayed in for a week.. it was so cosy and cool with mud roads and restaurants up on hills. We walked through the village, and found a taxi that knew a place where the rooms were cheap. We obliged. The ride there was amazing.. over hills with the sea in the distance, on mud roads by lush lush forests. The place we stayed at was called liberty resort, tucked by the beach...surrounded by palm trees, cheap and very very friendly.
This was when the real holiday began, laying all day in the hammock outside our beach hut, swimming in the silken waters, floating on the surface while soaking up the sunshine.... going to the restaurant to drink cold beers at dusk, watching movies later on when all was dark, while eating fantastic thai food and talking to the 4 israelis who were staying there too.. and jenny the canadian with her 3 year old daughter Indie. Waking up late, swimming once again, lying on the beach and smoking cigarettes as the sun departed before our eyes into the glorious sea that became a black carpet spread from the white beach onwards into oblivion. This surely was a paradise, a lost garden where time stood still... or moved at a lazy, incomprehensible pace.
Our daily life consisted of fredde asking daio (our lady landlord who was a sweatheart) to make him an extra large coconut milkshake, sitting in the restaurant reading old magazines and watching movies while eating such amazing dishes as chicken with cashewnuts and pan fried red chillies.... sweet and sour thai style.... thai green curry with chicken... red curry with prawns... oh the agony of choice. Mornings were times where we would stumble out of bed, walk to the restaurant, have coffee with milkmaid condensed milk in it as sweetener... shake the life into us that we needed to walk back, get our shorts on and wade out into the water (you could walk perhaps 100 meters out and the water level would never go above your waist) before finding a spot and just floating for an hour or so staring at the sun.. then getting enough energy to play frisbee in the water which was amazing fun.. and then go back to the restaurant for food and drinks.. sit with the israelis at sunset while they smoked ganga and laughed... talk to them about goa and hampi and all the wonders of india.. talk to them of china.. of japan (one of them had also been to japan and had worked in shinjuku, very close to where we were living in yoyogi).. so we talked about how much we loved japan.. and how crazy roppongi was at night.. and all the curiosities about japanese culture.. etc.
Our lives decelerated until we had nothing planned, and finally could rest and regain the energy for the next two months of travel that lay ahead of us. Then the only downer of the whole trip happened... I returned to our room after having watched a movie at the restaurant twenty meters away to find fredde looking rather confused. He asked me if I had seen his small backpack, I told him I hadn’t.. we found out that it had been stolen while we were sitting a few meters away.. the thief had taken his bag which contained: camera (bought one month ago in japan), cd player, CDs, new headphones, passport, flight tickets...etc.
We were totally shocked.. and so the next day we asked all the people at the resort if they had seen anything or heard something mysterious last night... someone mentioned something about hearing the dogs bark during the movie.. we decided it best to go to the police station and report it. In the mean time I also noticed that I no longer had my passport but the bag in which I kept it had not been opened so I know not whether I lost it or it was stolen that night also.
The trip to the police station was a perfect example of police in action.. or lack of. We arrived there to find out that the tourist police officer was not ready for us... he was smoking or peeing or something stupid. We were given seats and waited almost half an hour for him. When he finally arrived he treated us with suspicion and even contempt, and took as long as possible to do the simple tasks of filling out two forms. It seemed as though he was indifferent to what had happened and only wanted to return to smoking his cigarettes again. We finally received the police reports which we needed to help replace the passports in bangkok, and then as we were leaving he had the nerve to ask for bakshish...(tip).. we told him to piss off and gave him one fourth of what he asked for since we didn’t know what he would do if provoked.
On our way back we ended up walking ¾ of the way back since we couldn’t find a cab. It was sweltering and we were weak.. but we finally got a cab and were home and in the sea within twenty minutes.
The rest of the time was lethargic and sweet.. although ofcourse it was a total bitch for fredde to lose all those things, but we tried to make the best of it and enjoy the last few days of peace until returning to bangkok to sort out the tickets and documents.
It was a time of sheer bliss... absolute relaxation.. nothing on our minds other than swimming and eating, and sleeping.. the days moved by fast and just as we were starting to relax it was over and we needed to get back to bangkok. We were picked up by the same taxi that took us to liberty, said our goodbyes to the israelis, jenny and indie were also coming to bangkok to meet jennys boyfriend and they were going on to goa, where we would be heading in a few days. We got to the port and ran into the first travel agent to try and book tickets for the ferry. Jenny came with us and we were told that this travel agent only had 2 seats left, so fredde an I let jenny take those and we headed next door to ask. They got us tickets for the ferry and also told us we could make the train up to bangkok since all the buses were full. After having spent the journey down here on a bus we decided to try the train. So, we were booked and told that the ferry would leave in 5 minutes. It took about one hour before we boarded the small boat that took us to koh samui and the whole trip it felt like we would go under a wave since the boat was so tiny. Onto the big ferry and within minutes we were ploughing through the waters that hours ago we swam in... Fredde sat downstairs in the ferry, I went up to find jenny and indie... and we sat and talked for a while about meeting up in goa.. at a party or at anjuna flea market on Wednesday.
The ferry reached and we were placed on a bus to the railway station. We arrived and ran across to collect our tickets. The conductor told us the first train had only seats left, that did not recline and were in 3rd class.. we booked them but after a moments thought we went back and changed them for the next train and second class recliners.
The train was set to depart a few hours later so fredde lay down at the station to try and rest and I wandered the streets looking for email, atm and food. Amazingly I found all of them.
I returned to fredde and we sat there waiting for the train, finding out that the time of departure was put back three times.
On the train I noticed how nice thai transport is. The carriage was clean, smelled good and I was seated on a good chair with a complimentary blanket to take the edge off the airconditioners breath. I fell asleep pretty fast, thanks to the valium I had from my visit to india 9 months before, and drifted off to thoughts of koh pang nan and daio, and the israelis.. I would miss all of them... in one way or another.
Thai transport was too good to be true.. and when I woke up at 6 a.m. and looked out my window to see fields I knew something was wrong. We were supposed to arrive in bangkok early that morning, and only later did I find out that a truck had crashed onto the lines and they had been standing in this place for the past 6 hours trying to mend the fault. That meant 6 hours late, 6 hours more of sitting and staring out the window. It turned out to be great, I enjoyed being able to see more of thailands countryside and see the small villages go by in a blur. The only thing that marred the journey was the girl infront of me who played a handheld game the whole time and had not turned off the sound.. I was almost at the point of strangling her when we pulled into bangkok at just past midday.
We walked to a photo shop to get passport photos done immediately and walked straight into a guide who told us where to go to find out the addresses to our respective embassies. We got the information quickly and sped back to sui nam du puis to stay another few nights. The hotel there seemed so noisy and disjointed after having been at koh pang nan, and we noticed the amount of transvestites and prostitues who hung out there night in night out. I made friends with some english blokes and sat each night talking to them before changing table and talking to a great guy called John from canada. He was a middle aged traveller who lived in the philipines and was on his was to puri beach in orissa. We talked many nights about india and all sorts of things and I really enjoyed his company.
During the days we were taxi-ing back and forth to sukhumvit rd, collecting forms, signing forms, paying money, collecting and handing in police reports, getting stamps in our new passports, booking tickets and all sorts of madness. At night we would sit at the hotel, chase off the transvestites and boys offering massage, drink beer and put on different CDs of ours on the juke box.
Bangkok is not my kind of place. It is a collective of underworld activity thrown into the daylight, all played in a city with too many people, far too many cars and too much construction. I positively despised bangkok, except for some few areas where there were peaceful streets and nice markets or coffee shops.
Jan and sarah also joined us in sui nam du puis after telling us by email that they were coming to Kosan Rd early morning and I went out to meet them. The story was actually comical because they had been stranded in hong kong for over a week, and then flew to bangkok, took the bus down to koh pang nan and arrived on the ferry that we left on when everyone had emptied off.. but we saw neither of them.. and they went to the same resort we stayed at (this we had told them already, the name of the place) and they slept in the same room and hung out with the israelis and drank coconut cream shakes.
Now we were all in bangkok and all staying in this hotel, wandering around bangkok by day, sitting talking to john at night. Eventually we got all the things sorted out, but fredde could not get a refund on his flight ticket so he got money wired over and bought a new ticket.. soon afterwards he went back to his job in sweden and we all hugged and said goodbye. I then stayed in bangkok for atleast a week longer, sorting out all the visas and stuff before jan, sarah and I booked a ticket to India, to Mumbai... We were absolutely sick of bangkok.. the last days were spent walking in the polluted streets, spending half the day playing computer games so as to forget we were there.. and then nights with john at a place down the road from our hotel called wongs place which was a fantastic bar with amazing food and the biggest collection of music videos I have seen. We could basically choose what we wanted to see, so we flicked through the doors, rolling stones, etc while eating thai curry and drinking beer chang.
this was the best of bangkok... nothing else caught my eye.
Finally the majestic day came for us to leave thailand... it was sad to leave the country that had such amazing places as koh pang nan but great to leave bangkok since all of us had had it with this city. We looked out of the taxi window.. laughing at being able to leave and fly off to india where my home and heart rested.. off to see goa once more, see my parents and friends up in the mountains... relax and regroup for a month and a half.
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