Bangkok (10.01.22 - 15.01.22)
Monday 10th January 2022
Overall, the journey to Bangkok was not pleasant, well at least not the last leg of it. The boat crossing fine, it was smooth and the 3 hours went quickly, I listened to music and watched the islands in the distance pass by. Mainland Thailand looked beautiful as we approached it with the mountains soaring into the sky, grey from a distance but turning green and rocky as we neared them. Once we docked there were several minibuses waiting, all heading to different locations, so I jumped on the one for the train station. 20 minutes later we arrived at a bus station in the middle of no-where and were told to get off and board a coach adorned with pink frilly curtains. And there we sat for well over an hour. Then minibus to the airport turned up and the passengers boarded our coach, then the minibus to Krabi turned up and the passengers boarded our coach – the strangest system ever. Eventually we took off and once we got to Surat Thani, we disembarked the coach and were ushered into a ticket office where we were given stickers saying where we were heading and told to wait outside for our respective minibuses – hysterical. The one for the train station was half an hour late, but I was in no rush, being prepared for Thai time I had booked the 21:16 sleeper train. After about 15 minutes a guy from Burma got off, took his luggage and off we trundled only to do a U-turn 5 minutes later – he had taken the wrong luggage! The guy whose ruck sack he had mistakenly taken started rummaging through it thinking the Burma guy had robbed him but I’m sure it was a genuine mistake, both rucksacks were the same except one was adorned with red and the other pink, and then the western guy started accusing Burmese of being on drugs – totally uncalled for, but luckily, he was out of ear shot and nothing came of it.
It wasn’t that far to the train station and my three and a half wait on the platform. At one point I got a bit panicky as my phone only had 20% charge and contained all of my tickets, but the tourist officer guy directed me to a rickety and potentially lethal power outlet where I charged it by using the actual phone to delicately balance and hold the plug in place. To kill some time, I had a couple of beers, the cheapest ever at 27 baht each, which I bought from a car mechanics across the road from the station, and ate a couple of meat sticks and read my book. In true Thai fashion the train was 30 minutes late and it is here I sit, the following morning, writing this and hoping we made up time over night. Unlike my last train journey this time I had a top bunk – never again. The bed was so narrow I was scared to roll over for falling out, I’m sure the black seatbelt straps would not hold me in place, and getting into it was a nightmare, there is a definite knack to which I have now mastered, but after slipping and breaking my shoulder on the boat stairs in Croatia, I am very nervous with any form of stair that is not normal. At one point I didn’t realise but the mattress had slipped, making the actual bed space wider, so during the night, when I went to get down, I flung my legs over the side of the bed to find I was sitting on nothing and I almost fell 
but the worst thing was how cold I was all bloody night, even with two blankets, being up in the ceiling meant the air con units were right in my face – OMG – I even had to put a jumper on. And to top it off there was no window so I missed all the amazing views – I just want to cry, I would have been so much happier on a 12-hour bus journey, which would have also been 100 baht cheaper.
19:30
I felt so sorry for the taxi driver, it took him 15 minutes of going round in circles and a phone call before he found the Beautiful Souls Hostel – the fair was only 165 baht so I gave him 200, so bloody cheap compared to the islands, especially Koh Tao. For the second time ever I am in a dorm, but this time I have the company of 2 guys, Luca from Germany and a guy from Sweden, didn’t quite catch his name – lol
I was a bit nervous about booking this hostel due to the fact it is in the Thon Buri district, which is the other side of the river and further South of Bangkok and quite a distance from where I was before – Wallop district – lol. But just got back from a walk, had sweet sticky pork and rice for dinner (4 baht) and totally love this area bar the very busy main roads, but there’s a crossing bridge nearby so it’s not a big issue. Anyway, so far so amazing- definitely not farang area, in fact I feel like I am in the middle of Bangkok ‘proper’ – full of markets, street restaurants and lots of local people, the only downfall are the skyscrapers looming in the background – I look forward to roaming around tomorrow. The river isn’t too far and China Town is just the other side of it, there is also a floating market nearby, so I am excited to visit both later during the week. I also found an opticians and got the scratched lenses in my glasses replaced for all of 500 baht (£13 compared to £175 at home!). The poor ladies there didn’t speak a word of English but we eventually got by with same same. They took 15 minutes to replace them, it would take at least a week at home! Unfortunately the glasses are not the same same, long distance is fine but for the life of me I can’t read a thing, even reading the keyboard and typing this is a blur. I don’t think they realised they are varifocals ☹ so I will go back tomorrow and this time I will take my prescription with me – I’m sure they’ll happily fix them, I just hope I wont have to pay anymore but at the price they charge I won’t complain if I do.
OMG – guy just walked out of the hostel vaping, hope he comes back soon, must ask him if I can buy them near here – so can’t wait to ditch the fags and get vaping again.
Tuesday 11th January 2022
Had a lovely day – feel 10 years younger after dying my grey roots – really loving this cheap Thai hair dye, it only needs to be left in for 15 minutes and covers the grey beautifully – I hope I can find it on ebay when / if I return to the UK (other than Yasmin’s wedding – of course). This morning I got chatting to a lady who is staying at the hostel and feeds the million cats that are roaming the local area. Turns out she is a refugee from Syria, her husband is also here but they are separated and in separate rooms. She says she is a Christian, but in Syria they claim she is a Muslim, her husband is a Muslim, they had to flee Syria for obvious reasons. Anyway, I wanted to cry for her as she told me her story, especially when she told me how her husband broke both her wrists. She’s been in Thailand for 3 years but has a brother in England and hopes to get there this year. She’s definitely a mad cat woman and told me she not only feeds the ones roaming the area but also has one in her room!
This afternoon I went for walk and found this amazing market, it reminded me of the old Berwick Street in London, with every type of material you could imagine and shops that just sold buttons, or scissors or lace and fluffy stuff. There where even some leather stores that make shoes to order, you chose everything form the leather sole to the leather canvas, to the style – truly magical – if only I had enough money and space in my rucksack – lol. Alongside all of this were street food stall, fruit and veg stalls, meat stalls and fish stalls – with live fish to select for your dinner tonight. I also went back to the opticians, but they wanted a further 3500 baht for vary focals, which is still over £100 cheaper, but I didn’t have the cash on me, and nowhere takes debit card ☹ so I’m back to the scratched lenses for now.
Wallop has been in contact – I thought he was at Bamboo Laughing but said he was coming back today (he only went yesterday?) and would pick me up at 6pm – lol. This was just after I made contact with One! So I am seeing neither of them this evening and have arrange to see Wallop tomorrow and One on Thursday – lol – never thought I’d see the day when I was juggling 2 Thai men – LMFHO.
So finally managed to change the SIM in my phone back to the original one, it took two guys and finally the Syrian lady to open the SIM case – lol. Anyway, I changed my Coinbase password so I can order a new vape. I then spent ages trying to work out how to put enough money into Coinbase to cover the costs when I got an email from the vape shop stating that I need to pay via bank transfer – lord what a hassle, so tomorrow I have to get up early, make the transfer and send the vape shop proof of payment. If I do this before 10 am I could get it the same day, if not definitely on Thursday – fingers crossed.
I’m still trying to decide what to do next month – Cambodia or the Caribbean. If I do the latter, it would work out almost £200 cheaper to use my return ticket and fly from the UK. But I think Cambodia is calling, a month there and Vietnam (or even Loas), which now has a sandbox program could open properly and all I need for Cambodia is an e visa, flights from Bangkok are about £50 – may as well while I’m in the area. I also need to sort out my travels for North Thailand, did a little research this morning and it sounds amazing, I’m thinking coach so I can enjoy the scenery – need to investigate.
Happy birthday to Macy and Connell xx
Thursday 13th January 2022
Yesterday I got Wallop to take me to the Khlong Bang Luang Floating Market – unfortunately by the time we go there the market had floated away – lol. But I took a boat trip along the canals, which was very interesting. Lots of dilapidated properties on the waterfront and set among them numerous Wats glittering with gold and we stopped and visited the Wat Paknam Bhasicharoen with its enormous sitting buddha – very impressive, I researched, there are 300,000 monks in Thailand. The canals were quite disgusting, littered with rubbish, and so many collapsed or else dilapidated shacks falling into it. I was surprised to see fish in them. But most surprising were the 2 crocodiles and 3 commando lizards I saw.
This morning I went to another floating market, The Wat Sai Floating Market; yet again it had floated away – I don’t seem to be having much luck in the market department – perhaps I will try the Chatachuk Market on Saturday morning.
Friday 14th January 2022
Several of the long term residents here at the hostel are teachers, one of them, from the Philippians, was telling me how racist the system here is and how hard it has been for him to get work simply because of his passport and they don’t think he looks like a teacher. It transpires that they would prefer to employ a Russian with very poor English than him with perfect English, regardless of teaching skills or experience. He said that, due to my English passport, I would get paid double what he does. In the land of smiles the paler your skin colour the more respect you gain, he said this is because years ago most Thais were farmers and working in the fields gave them dark skin, modern day Thais do not want to be associated with or labelled as farmers. To my surprise he said it is much better in Vietnam, less racist and better paid with a lot more perks – I must finish my TEFL ☹before I get to Vietnam.
Last night I went to see One, he was working at his food stall and fed me duck and noodles. The first duck I’ve had since I’ve been here, bar the fact I put too much chilly on it, it was bloody delicious. He then filed me with Chang – bless him, so I stayed till the bitter end – 4 hours watching him serve food then pack away his stall – enough respect – the guy works so hard – selling street food is not as easy as it looks. His mum also helps him for a few hours each evening after working all day prepping food in a hotel, when she leaves his employee turns up, he earns 500 baht a day – that’s £12.50 – FFS – and I think One was boasting that it’s a good wage. He also boasted that he earns on average 80,000 baht a night, which is good money here, but then being a single father to two girls and having his mum around as well I am sure it doesn’t go that far. He gets through 15 ducks a night, 6 days a week, and has done for the last 14 years – that’s a lot of fucking duck! Once packed up he pushed his stall back to his house, which is only a few minutes down the road and in the middle of a market. We drank more beer and watched a film with his two daughters before heading of, at 3am, to Sampheng night market where he purchased 30 kilos of duck – his supply for today – he does this every night. The meat stall was absolutely disgusting, piles and piles of dead flesh, and the stench of it was stomach churning, enough to make me think about becoming a vegetarian, but I didn’t think too long as after the meat purchase we had a walk around the actual market area – tons of tat for sale at ridiculously cheap prices, I didn’t get back to my hostel until 5am and have only had 5 hours sleep – not sure I’m going to get to the Chatachuk market today and I booked a minibus to Ayutthaya for Saturday.
20:50 – just got back from a bloody long walk – my feet are killing me. At 5pm I decided to do the 50 minute walk to China Town, totally need the exercise, but I completely overshot it – lol. Anyway, I thought the route I took contained a bridge over Chao Phraya River but it was actually a ferry crossing and only 4 baht. There were two ferries that crossed paths in the middle of the river, with the crossing taking no longer than 2 minutes. The platform you stand on to jump on the ferry rocked madly as it came in and, much to the amusement of the passengers getting off, I had to hold onto the railing. Instead of following my sat nav I decided to turn down an ally way full of market stalls which I later learnt is Chakkawat shopping mall and led onto Sampheng, where I was last night, but being a night market it was not in full swing and the traders were just beginning to set up. By pure chance I came across a lovely food area along either side of a canal called Bophit Phimuk Alley, starving I stopped and had muscles, shrimp, and some other fishy things on sticks – so delicious, I thought I was being greedy having 5 sticks but to be honest I could have eaten 10 they were so scrumptious. After that I decided to follow the sat nav and finally found my way to China Town and all the amazing food stalls, but I didn’t stay for long – far too many people for my liking – but I must admit it was an awesome sight and the foods looked amazing, except the octopus on sticks ☹ The ferry crossing was closed by the time I found it again so I had my first Tuk-tuk ride, the poor guy took me to the wrong monumental roundabout (sound familiar – lol) so I gave him a great big fat tip which totally cheered him up. He was so funny, kept telling me about all these places in London and then asked me where abouts I lived, so I thought he must have been there – no, he’s studied it on the TV – LMFHO.
