Trains and Parties

It has been a while since we have had time to write on the blog, but this is a summary of the last few weeks.

On our last day in Bangkok we met the people that we would be spending the next 17 days with. It was a small group of 9, a Scottish lad called Paul, a group from Northern Ireland , Hugh, Debbie, Georgina and Jenni and two girls from Ireland, Lisa and Anna. We met our tour leader Kit at the same time, a Thai man who has been doing tours with Imaginative Traveller for years. We decided to go and have a meal and start to get to know each other. After dinner we went for some drinks, Kit told us we should go and have cocktails in the gas station, as we got there we realised it was a disused petrol station, but all the pumps and signs were still in place, weird!



Next morning we had an early start and headed for the floating market. This is a market that is on the banks of the river about 2 hours from Bangkok. It was a fantastic experience. We got on a boat and floated around the market and passed the boats full with food and souvenirs and they would pull your boat over so you could have a closer look. We spent about a hour looking around the market then we started our journey to the bridge over the river Quai. This was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, still very picturesque, but the story behind the bridge was really interesting. There was a museum dedicated to the Prisoners of War who built the bridge. We saw and read the conditions they had to work in and how people starved to death or died of disease at a very young age. I remember reading a paragraph from a paper whereby a POW survivor told his story of how he tried to imagine the maggots in his Christmas pudding to be currants – yuck! We also visited the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery where the names and ages of some of the prisoners were written on memorial stones. It was sad to see as the majority of people seemed to be in their twenties when they died – it was very moving!



That evening we had to get a train, we all were dreading it, 13 hours overnight on a train is no joke but as we got on the train we were met by the campest man, he introduced himself as Frank and welcomed us to cabin 10. He turned out to be the best entertainment on the train and made the time fly by. We all enjoyed a few drinks and Frank’s singing and dancing in the bar on the train, however it was soon time to go back to our cabin as they locked sections of the train. We made our way back and started to settle for the night. However a girl from one of the other cabins (Caroline) got stuck in our cabin as the doors had been locked so we helped her out and made a bed for her on the floor out of blankets. I didn’t sleep too well on the train and only got about 3 hours sleep. Once we had got to our stop we then went to catch the ferry and then the four by four to take us to Koh Pangan.



As you can imagine by this stage we were sick of travelling and all needed a shower to freshen up, however when we arrived at our resort we all agreed it was well worth it. It was just paradise. We had lovely little wooden cabins, basic but comfortable. The sea was so warm and inviting. We dumped our bags into the cabins and headed straight for the beach which was literally one minute away from our accommodation. We stayed 4 days on the island and had the most amazing time. We all hired canoes and canoed to the other beach, we ate most nights in restaurants which were on the beach and partied a lot in the” Jungle bar”.



We also went on a day trip out. Elephant trekking was the highlight of that day. Adam even got onto the neck of the one we were on and steered our 40 year old elephant along. We were then taken to the beach to go snorkelling but this was a bit disappointing as we had hoped to be taken out to an island by boat but instead had to make our way out into the sea clambering over rocks and coral which was very painful. Lastly we made our way to see and swim in a waterfall, but this too was disappointing as the waterfall had dried up and it was literally a puddle. Still even though the day trip had been disappointing we were still happy to be on such a beautiful island.

The following day we all had a lazy day on the beach as we knew the night ahead would be long. We were all going to go to the pre full moon party. The full moon parties are meant to be the most maddest parties but as we were going to be leaving the day it was on we decided to go to the pre party which is still meant to be brilliant. Kit sorted out a taxi to take us to the other side of the island about an hour away where the party was and we grabbed a bite to eat which was soon followed by consumption of lots of alcohol. Along the beach there were stalls selling buckets which had a choice of different alcohols and mixers a bargain at only 250 baht - £4. We enjoyed the fire dancing and Paul even had a go at skipping with the fire rope – it was scary just watching him! One girl got caught up in the rope and her dress caught on fire so i thought i would give it a miss. We partied hard and when it got to 3am none of us wanted to leave but the taxi to pick us up had been booked and so we had to make our way back as we had to be up and leaving the Island at 8am.

Temples and Theatre

I woke up feeling much better and was looking forward to another day of sightseeing. We went and had breakfast and also booked a theatre trip for the evening. We decided to visit Wat Phra Keo (Reclining Buddha Temple) and the Royal Grand Palace. We went to get on the local boat again and decided to find a pier a bit closer to the hotel. However after an hour later of walking in the heat and being told that the 2 piers we had been heading towards had both closed we were getting rather tired and annoyed. We tried one more pier otherwise we ready to give in and catch a taxi we came across one that was in operation – yippee! So we caught the boat and were on our way! The boat ride only lasted 10 mins, we made our way through a market and headed for the Reclining Buddha temple.



From the outside the temple looks like the other temples, highly decorated, but once we had taken off our shoes and entered the temple there was this amazing gold Buddha lying on its side approximately 40m long. We walked around the site looking at all the statutes and temple buildings. Time was getting on and we had to back at the hotel before 5 to catch the bus to the show we had booked earlier, so we headed towards the Royal Palace, the only problem was the entrance was on the other side of the Palace to where we were. So we decided to put our life in our hands again with another tuk tuk ride, after some serious negotiation we got our ride for 20TB and no shops. As we arrived we heard thunder but continued heading to the ticket office, just as we got our tickets the heaven’s opened (when it rains, it really rains!). Fortunately we were able to shelter under the various buildings. We got to the main temple and sat inside with everyone else just taking in the grandness of it all. We decided to brave the rain and continued to look around but it just wasn’t fun anymore. We headed towards the exit but before we left Adam cheekily took a photo of me with the guards. Another tuk tuk ride back to the hotel!



Adam’s shirt had arrived at reception so after freshening up, we got dressed up and Adam wore his new shirt. With the ticket we had bought it included food and transport. We arrived at the Theatre complex which included a Thai village. We went and enjoyed a lovely buffet style dinner and then continued into the village. In the village we saw elephants and after much persuasion from Adam I got a bit closer to one of them and even fed it some sugar cane (well it helped himself). It was then time to go and see the show. Our ticket number was V42, I thought we would be stuck right at the back but as soon as we walked in we noticed that V was only 4 rows from the front.
Before the show could start we all had to stand to the national anthem which was a bit bizarre, however from talking to people, Thai people seem to be very patriotic to their King and Queen and even wear yellow shirts with the King’s emblem.
The show started and it was wonderful. The story was about Thai culture and beliefs and was told in the form of dance. Colourful costumes, fantastic backdrops and even had a river built into the stage, which apparently holds the record for the highest stage in the world. It was a fantastic evening’s entertainment!

Bangkok in a Tuk-Tuk

This was the first day of our travels where there was sunshine as soon as we woke up, apart from the heat, we had a good night’s sleep. We are staying in a hotel called the New World Lodge, which to look at from the outside is nothing special but our deluxe double suite with bathroom is really quite nice and spacious, we were pleasantly surprised.
We had breakfast, freshened up and made a plan for the day. We filled up my camelback (a water container stored in a type of rucksack) and headed off through Khao San Road which is a market area full of stalls selling bags, clothes, food and there was even a boots pharmacy there. I bartered for a mini calculator which I thought would be quite handy to have and got the price down from 300TB = £5 to 100TB = £1.66.
Somebody had suggested we go to MBK which is a large indoor shopping area which is in the city centre so we went to find it. On our way we passed the Royal Grand Palace, we had numerous people approach us to say we could not go in with what we were wearing as you are meant to have your knees and ankles covered and your shoulders, fortunately we were already aware of this as Lizzie (our friend come travel advisor) had informed us of this. We walked past the Palace through various market stalls and got to the river. We had been advised by a travel guide at the hotel what sort of prices we should look to pay for boats and tuk tuk’s and this advice was invaluable as we found out.
We approached a desk which seemed to be selling tickets for boats and they gave us a price of 400TB each, the travel advisor had told us it should only cost us a maximum of 30TB each so we quickly said no but were confused as to why the price was so steep. The lady trying to sell us the ticket asked why we didn’t want it so I informed her that we knew the price should only be 30TB so she was very honest with us and helpful and told us and pointed us in the direction of where the local boats were as opposed to the boat cruise they were selling.



We boarded the boat and enjoyed the ride along the river. After 25 mins on the boat we arrived at the Skytrain terminal, this is a train service that runs above the city like a monorail. The Skytrain took us to the MBK.
The MBK was massive, 7 stories of shops and also market like stalls. They had one level just one restaurant’s, another one for just electronic goods and another one just for souvenir stalls. I managed to barter and buy a 1Gb micro SD card for £4 for my mobile.
After grabbing some lunch in the MBK, we headed back to the river and grabbed another boat to take us to the Golden Mount. When we go off the boat a man approached us and told us that this was closed until 5:30pm as the monks were praying, but we should go and see the Standing Buddha. So we checked our map (every time we got our map out we were bombarded with offers to take us places in taxis and tuk-tuks). A tuk-tuk driver approached us and offered to take us to the Standing Buddha, Lucky Buddha and the Marble Temple for just 20TB (about 33p) this sounded like a bargain so we asked him what the catch was, he told us that today was the last day of a government scheme where souvenir shops gave fuel coupons to tuk-tuk drivers if they bring customers to their shops. We didn’t mind going to various shops so off we went and started with the Standing Buddha. As we arrived we could see a massive golden statue, it stood 32 metres tall. We wandered around the site and then continued onto the Lucky Buddha which is a temple. The decoration of the temple was amazing, bright gold mixed with greens, oranges, reds, all colours. We got chatting to a Thai man who was a banker and had lived in America for a few years. We noticed there were small boxes with people’s pictures on them around the temple site. He explained that the building opposite was a crematorium and Thai families would keep the ashes in these boxes as opposed to having gravestones.



After this to help Anan our tuk tuk driver get some gas coupons we allowed him to take us to a tailor’s that specialised in suits and shirts. The store was very modern and there was a factory behind it. We found out that the suits made at most of the tailors in Thailand are exported and are sold as designer suits ie Armani, Hugo Boss etc. As tempting as it was to buy one because of the price Adam did not have the luggage capacity however he did order a handmade tailored shirt which we designed and cost only £15, we were guaranteed delivery of the shirt to our hotel by 3pm the following day.
We then continued onto the Marble Temple. There we paid the admittance fee and were approached by a man who said for a small amount he would be our guide, we agreed and he started to show us around. He was quite funny but very difficult to understand. He was an ex-boxer (he showed us an old picture of himself in his boxing gear) and had been guiding people around the Temple for over 30 years. He was 63 years old. He explained how there was a Buddha for every week of the year and we even stopped to talk to a monk for a little while. We saw where the monks lived and where they prayed.



From here Anan took us to a local jewellery and souvenir shop. We saw workers making up pieces of jewellery; their handicraft was very precise and detailed. There were rubies, emeralds, sapphires every sort of precious stone imaginable but unfortunately the price of these items was a little more than what we could afford.
After a long day of sightseeing we were very tired and our last stop was our hotel. Anan drove us to the hotel (have to just mention that sitting in the back of a tuk tuk is an experience in itself as they are crazy drivers) where we said goodbye to him and wished him luck for his wedding next year – it’s amazing how much you can learn about someone when you have been with them for a whole day!
In the evening I unfortunately started to suffer from heatstroke and had an awful migraine, Adam went to dinner whilst I slept. When he came back upstairs he looked after me as I started being sick and so we just relaxed in our room. I will make sure I wear a hat tomorrow!

To Bangkok

Adam and I woke up at 4am after having gone to bed just after midnight to be up and ready to catch our 5am coach from the hotel to the airport. We got to the airport an hour later. We couldn’t really look around much as it was too early and the shops were still closed so we sat at the gate waiting for our flight to open.

We eventually boarded the plane and were on our way to Bangkok via Singapore. For some reason there was not a direct flight for the type of ticket we had bought so we had to stop inside Singapore airport for 2 hours before catching our flight to Bangkok. Fortunately we were able to leave some clothes that we did not think we would need for our trip in a locker at the airport so as to try and reduce our luggage weight.



On the flight to Bangkok i got a chance to watch Fool’s Gold and the time went so quickly the next thing i know we had arrived. As soon as we came out of the airport the 32c of heat just hit us. As well as that we were bombarded by people asking us where we were going, if we would like a taxi or a limousine to get us to our hotel. Adam and i tried to find the train but the building of the line had not yet completed so we took a moment to try and work out the price of things and so hid to one side just to get away from people. One person had quoted us 700 TB which is equivalent to approx £12 which you might think is a bargain however Adam and I managed to catch a coach which stopped at various places for only £5 for the both of us.

We got chatting to quite a few people, one group from Ireland and another from Wales who were also travelling around, we advised them of things to do when they got to Australia. 2 hours later ( at trip that should have taken an hour at the most but was delayed because of the heavy traffic) we arrived at our stop. We walked 5 minutes and got to our hotel absolutely dripping in sweat. Aircon is just a brilliant invention! We were so tired from the busy day of travelling we ordered room service had a bite to eat and fell asleep straight away.