Following the Dream

Christian December 27th, 2008

     First off, sorry for the delay in our last two postings.  It has been crazy since we got home last week.  We will post another couple of posts this coming week.  We took a van from the Jolly Frog Guesthouse to Bangkok.  We were both stuffed in the front seat with the driver, but that did not matter much since it was even cheaper than the second class bus + taxi into town would have been.  Sitting in the front seat we could really see all of those “close calls” with other cars/ motorcycles, but I guess that is all part of the the experience.  When we got to Bangkok, we were happy that the guesthouse that we had booked for the following night had a room available a day early, we hate switching rooms when we don’t have to.  We actually sat down for a bit before venturing out and getting our bearings.  We walked down the infamous Khao San Road to see what kind of merchandise is on sale, testing the waters on how low the prices can go.  After walking for a bit, it is still pretty early, so we caught a cab to the MBK center downtown to do even more browsing.  We have one of the largest malls in America close to us back home, but that is no rival for intense shopping experience at MBK.  It is seven floors of of sovenir stalls, food vendors, pirated software/DVD stands, tailors, and handicrafts.  After three hours of intense bargining, we got away with some good deals and headed back to the guesthouse.  We wanted to experience some Bangkok nightlife so we went out to Khao San Road.  We grabbed a little stool at a cart offering 180 baht bucket drinks.  We met a few people around us and all headed to the Irish Bar down the street a bit.  The two guys and me ordered a three liter tower of Chang beer.  Some of the girls that were working at the Bar were eating some hot chili paste on crackers.  The guy we were with ate a tiny bit of it and was in pain from the heat.  I told him that I like hot food and that it could not have been that bad.  He dared me to eat a heaping spoon full of it.  I am not one to back down from hot food challenges, so I started munching away on the spoon full of hot chili paste.  It did not seem that hot, but within fifteen minutes my stomach started to turn and I had to make a break for the street.  The chili paste was making it’s revenge on my stomach, and I was throwing up in a pile of garbage on Khao San Road.  It was terrible, it felt like fire was coming up my throat and out of my mouth.  Within minutes, I was surrounded by girly boys.  Lucky for me Casey was by my side shortly and they left.  We made our way back to the guesthouse where I spent at least an hour sick off of the chili paste, feeling like I was burning up.  The next day, I still felt sick so we did not do a whole lot.  We mostly stayed in bed watching TV, occasionally getting up to get something to eat.  The next few days were spent getting in contact with the airlines, checking the news to see what was going to happen with our flight since the airport was still closed from the protests.  We even went to the embassy to see what they were doing, since the Australia government chartered buses and airplanes to get the stranded Australians to another airport and fly them out.  Unfortunately we did not have that luxury.  If we were going to get out, we had to arrange it ourselves.  We ended up canceling our amazing ticket that we had that had us stopping in both Japan and Hawaii for a week each before going home, all with direct flights to a ticket almost a week later that flew out of Phuket in the south of Thailand to Hawaii and home with super long layovers. 

     Once the flight situation was settled, we could relax a little bit.  We spent the next couple of days shopping in Bangkok, getting some of our Christmas shopping done.  We checked out the Patpong markets to try and find some cheap shirts and whatnot as well.  We ended up not buying anything and being propositioned for “ping pong” shows every five feet.  It was not all that fun, especially since the shop vendors there were very pushy, grabbing your arm to look at their stuff.  We left there sooner that we thought we would.  One of the days we decided to do some acutal sightseeing, so we checked out the world’s largest reclining Buddha and the Grand Palace.  Of course we were stopped by a guy who told us the palace was closed today and he knew about a very good deal on a governement tuk tuk, knowing this ploy, we declined and went to the palace to find it open.  It was amazing, the detail was just incredible.  The reclining Buddha was interesting as well, but the grand palace was a highlight for sure.  We noticed that as each day passed, there were fewer and fewer tourists and the touts got more desperate.  It got to the point where we could not walk five feet without being asked to look in a store, asked for a suit, given flyers to some new resaturant, or begged for money.  It really started to put a damper on the end of our Bangkok experience.

      We decided in the end to just head down to Phuket, keep our fingers crossed for good weather and enjoy some beaches.  Since it was a holiday weekend in Thailand and the Bangkok airport was closed everyone seemed to be trying to head south.  Almost all of the buses were sold out.  We arrived at the bus station an hour before we wanted to leave, and all of the VIP buses were booked for the night already.  Our only option was a first class bus at 8:00 pm to Phuket.  The three and a half hours in the bus terminal were pretty boring.  When the bus pulled up, we were okay with first class with it’s large seats and loads of leg room.  That is until we realized it was not our bus, ours was one from the 60’s that had no overhead compartments and seats super close together.  It was a long ride, especially since every other bus, truck, and vehicle passed us as we slowly moved along.  We had to stop for air in the tires at least three or four times.  Neither Casey or I slept very much on the overnight bus ride. 

     Getting into Phuket town, we were surprised at how much the tuk tuk drivers were charging to take people to Karon Beach, the area where we wanted to stay.  The short 20 minute ride would cost more than the 14 hour bus ride from Bangkok.  Casey and I declined the offers, since they would not accept anything less and started walking into town, hoping to catch a songthaew to Karon Beach.  Along the way, at least three tuk tuk drivers stopped and quoted outrageous prices as well.  All of them had a laminated sheet of paper, which they claimed was the “official” rates.  I thought it was bit suspect when each one of them had different prices on the “official” rate sheet.  In the end, we did find a tuk tuk driver who did not quote us, but asked how much we wanted to pay.  We offered him less than half of what the other tuk tuk drivers were going, and to our delight he accepted.  We would be spending four nights in Karon Beach, so we decided to splurge a bit and get a nicer room.  The place had a really nice swimming pool and huge rooms with a mini bar.  The rooms were cleaned daily and they even had a restaurant on site.  It was a nice place to get stuck in for $35 a night.  One of the other things we noticed immediately was the difference in prices.  There were still tourists here, and the tourists were more the older with money crowd than the poor backpacking crowd.  This means that the shops could sell everything for more expensive, since people were willing to pay.  We did manage to get a couple of deals, but it still would have been cheaper in Bangkok.  Our days followed this pattern: wake up whenever, go to the beach, come back for lunch, relax at the hotel, jump in the pool for a while, do some hawaii planning, go out to dinner and walk around, come back watch a movie and go to bed.  It was nice and relaxing.  The beach was pretty nice at Karon, with clear water and soft sand.  There were tons of people there, mostly from Scandanavia.  We also noticed that there were many many bars that specialized in Thai women.  We ate at a tex mex place that had good value tacos that were not half bad a couple of times.  Karon beach was nice, we had a good time but it felt like we had been in Thailand to long and were ready to leave.

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