Bangkok Again! (04.04.22 - 13.04.22)
Tuesday 5th April 2022
I spent my last night in Cambodia with James (ha ha, it’s not Jake, it’s James and his nick name is Thommo), we got drunk, listened to loud music, had a giggle and snuggled up for a couple of hours. Thank heaven for alarm clocks, I left Cambodia still pissed!
Leaving Cambodia was hard work, the check in guys wouldn’t check me in unless I produced $500 in cash as I didn’t have an exit flight out of Thailand, I tried to tell them that I didn’t need one but they weren’t having it, so now my bank accounts are all messed up and I have no way of putting that money back into my bank. Getting into Thailand was easy, all they wanted was my Thai Pass and Passport, just as I had told the check in guys in Cambodia. Although I am so relieved to have left Cambodia, what with the last 2 weeks being a bit of a nightmare, I am not happy to be back in Thailand and just want to cry all the time. I am so running out of money and am really concerned about how I am going to manage, and the last thing I want to do is go back to the UK, I have nothing there, friends and family of course, but no job and no home. Don’t get me wrong I am so glad to have given it all up and come out here, but life is no longer going as expected – I keep fucking up. Right now, I don’t even have the motivation to leave my hotel room, but know I must. I’m in quarantine for 24 hours, I ordered some food last night and they wanted cash, I showed them my dollars and they said I could pay today, so the least I need to do is go and change my dollars to baht.
I contacted Tracey and she is in Phuket, but she said I could use her house, so on the 7th I may head to Samut Prakan and stay there, she is back on the 14th and has friends turning up on the 15th, I feel like a ponce but a rent-free week will help a little and I can focus on trying to get a couple of hours a day teaching online. If I can do that then I think life will pick up again, all I need is about £30 a day to survive and then I won’t have to touch the rest of my savings, which is just about enough to pay Goodfellows for another year, go to Defected and return to the UK for Yas’ wedding. I feel so lonely, lonely and desperate and stuck in SE Asia – lol – I need to get the last events of Cambodia out of my head, being stuck in PP for those days, and the Silk Island incident, has totally knocked the stuffing out of me.
Wednesday 6th April 2022
I’m looking forward to leaving this hotel tomorrow and staying at Tracey’s for a week – that is if the offer is still open, I sent her a message this morning and am still awaiting a reply, but I know Tracey, she is not tied to her phone. I’ll bell her if I have not heard from her in the morning, and if needed I can always find a hostel somewhere. I’ve basically stayed in this room all day, except one outing to get food – I had the last 2 spring rolls for breakfast, then I finished the sour fruit, after that I had a cheese and ham toastie, bag of crisps and bag of tamarin coated in sweet plum sugar, all washed down with a couple of beers. I have had stomach ache all afternoon, not to mention the farts – lol. So what have I done in my room all day I hear you ask – I’ve been working on my diary weblog – I didn’t touch it the whole time I was in Cambodia, meaning I was about 10 weeks behind, I am now only 8 weeks behind. It has taken hours, but I have now completed Thailand and will try to do Cambodia over the next week. The main thing is I have kept my Word diary up-to-date, so I have all the info and far too many pics, so all I need to do is find the time to add it to the weblog. Adding the test only takes a couple of minutes (I have to edit it through first) but the pictures all need resizing first and that is taking forever – there must be a quicker way of doing them, like in bulk, rather than one at a time as I have been doing – I will investigate at some point.
I hope you don’t think it has been a waste of my time, especially as the hustle and bustle of Bangkok is only an elevator ride away, but you must remember this is about my 4th time here in as many months, and really I am just passing through and using it as a means to recuperate from Cambodia, which was hard work but enjoyable hard work. If I am going to appreciate Malaysia then I need time out to recharge and as mentioned before I need to find work otherwise I’ll be on a plane home sooner than planned.
Thursday 7th April 2022
This is so weird, I’m in Tracy’s house and she is in Phuket. What an awesome friend to let me stay in her place while she is away. I was going to get a cab here but made a last minute decision to get the BTS, so I walked the 20 minutes to the nearest station and must have looked like a dripping mess as I sat on the train, but I saved myself about £3, which is a days worth of food so I am well happy. As I swiped my card out at E14 Bearing I notice I had 175 baht left so I can do a few runs into Bangkok if I need to without spending any more money. In fact, Emily is arriving on Saturday and as long as she clears quarantine we will meet up for an evening of food and drink, I’m looking forward to that.
I didn’t meet up with Wallop, he started going on about coming to room and giving me a massage, I explained to him no room visit, no massage, no sex – he wished me good luck and that is the last I heard of him, can’t say I’m heart broken.
So I’ve taken liberties with Tracy’s washing machine and dumped all of my clothes in it – even what I was wearing, all I have on is a sarong, not even got any underwear on – it took me about 10 minutes to realise I now have nothing to wear to go get food – thank god I had a late breakfast of pork and rice. It so good to see decent street food again – the Cambodian street food really did not look edible so I ended up spending a lot more than I can afford on western food – still such is life and hopefully I will find some online work to keep me going a bit longer.
Now I’m back in Thailand I can really appreciate how rough and raw Cambodia is, but to be honest Thailand now feels too civil and very sterile in comparison. It’s nice not to be openly stared at anymore but I think I actually prefer Cambodia – it has a more ‘real’ quality to it – don’t get me wrong, Thailand is absolutely awesome but if I had to chose to live in one
or the other I would chose Siem Reap in Cambodia, definitely not Phnom Penh, as I have said before, that place is far too harsh for me, although I did have a brilliant last few days there thanks to James and the Iraqi guy – miss you James – miss you big time, your girlfriend is lucky to have such a handsome funny loyal boyfriend. I hope our paths cross again one day.
Friday 8th April 2022
Feeling bloody awesome today – had a shit nights’ sleep. Fell asleep at 9pm ish after drinking too much samgson (the lady in the shop said my accent was very good when I asked for this 😊) and woke up just after midnight thinking it must be about 3 am, can you imagine my disappointment when it wasn’t – lol. Not really done much today bar try to sort out how to sell my Beatherder ticket to Alan, check up on when my TAX return is due – the .GOV site states that it has not been calculated yet, I’m sure I have to submit some docs in order for them to calculate it – all to do with renting out my house. I also began the process of looking for work online, not applied for anything, just at the research stage and now I am in a little café having eaten rice and beef in order to soak up the samgson that I drank before I came out – lol. The food was very good and the beer is going down well, but I fear I may be in need of a cat nap before I head to the night market for dinner – shit life is hard – not 😊 Lol – I also booked a room for Saturday night, just off the Khoisan road, so I don’t have to worry about catching the last train back – see I am not just a pretty face, got some brains, not a lot, but enough to keep me laughing.
Tuesday 12th April 2022
This is a ma-hu-sive catchup as the truth be told I have been very very lazy but needed to be. Emily arrived on the morning of the 9th and as coincidence has it I only went and booked a night in the same hostel as she was in. When I arrived she was still in quarantine so I went for a drink and was just sending her a message telling her to assail out of the apartment, which had a balcony overlooking the bar so we could chat(!), when she surprised me with a tap on the shoulder. It is quite mad as I don’t really know Emily that well and haven’t seen her for year but it was as though we were best of friends and just didn’t stop talking until 2 in the morning. The next morning as we were having breakfast, we got chatting first to a guy and girl, just friends, out here travelling, she is a solo female traveller on day 3 of her adventure, I could see the nervous excitement in her eyes and she so reminded me of me 4 months ago, but she also made me feel like a well-seasoned traveller, which I suppose I’m now beginning to be. We then got accosted by the guy who told us his life story, which was quite boring really and when Emily put on her hat I took it as a sign that we should leave, so we did. Went on a lovely ferry boat ride down the Chao Phraya River and as luck would have it we got off at the Chinese market. Talking of luck, and this is a side note, whilst on my own I kept walking past a palm reader and he kept telling me that he could sense that I was a person who carried with them a lot of luck – too true (well most of the time anyway!) – I should have gotten a reading from him. Anyway, we had a lovely walk round the market and then a long but leisurely walk back to the Khoisan road. Emily agreed with me that it was a shame she had a train ticket for that evening to head up north – we got on so well a proper evening out would have been awesome.
We departed company that evening, and I went back to Tracey’s but the next day Wallop contacted so I relented and went for a drink with him, but on the condition he took me to buy a new e-cig first. God, I felt so happy to make that purchase, it’s been a long time and I do miss it and hate smoking so many cigarettes. Anyway, we did go for a drink but not to a bar, we went and sat outside his mate’s (Tom) travel agent store and we were joined by Jim Caery (a Thai man) and Anatasia, a lovely girl from Germany – it was a lovely evening of wholesome banter and laughter.
The funny thing is that after being in Phnom Penh, Bangkok seems so docile, in fact Thailand seems calm and sterile in comparison to Cambodia – I am still not sure which I prefer – they both have their individual awesome qualities.