Thailand

So I’ve decided that Thailand is almost the perfect country for tourism. It’s a great country that’s easy to get around, is cheap, really nice, has great weather, is safe, has awesome beaches, a ton to see, and has the best food on the planet. Thailand does have its downsides: its sex industry is huge, the country is a military junta for the time being (although apparently democracy is returning soon), and its poor, but it is still a great country to visit (and it was wealthier than Vietnam and Cambodia, at least.) It was probably my favorite country so far…..I just loved everything about it (except the sex trade.)

Some observations:

1. The picture of the king is everywhere. And don’t say anything bad about him, because you will go to jail.

2. I heard that in Thailand, the national anthem is played twice a day and everyone freezes during it and that was something I really wanted to see. However, I didn’t hear it in Pattaya or Ko Chang. I heard it my last day in Bangkok at 8 AM, but I was still in bed so I didn’t get to see everyone freeze.

3. The sex trade there is terrible. There are prostitutes all over the place, and tons of transgenders too. The sex trade is the worst thing about Thailand as a tourist, by far.

4. The country isn’t rich, but they have a really good transportation network. It’s easy to get around. And the really cheap cabs are great (just like the rest of Asia, I‘m talking 1-2 dollars for a 10 minute cab ride, and in our case, always 3-4 people in the cab, so think about how much that costs a person), although in Bangkok they sometimes try not to turn on the meter which is obnoxious, but you just don’t get in if they won’t turn it on.

5. Most expensive Pad Thai was 60 baht. And I ate it at least once a day, if not twice.

6. Chang is a crappy beer. Singha is better.

7. Thai language is tonal, so its very difficult. Took me a while to learn how to pronounce thank you in Thai.

8. Great beaches, but the water in Ko Chang wasn’t as clear as I thought. Now, my trip:

The first day, it took forever to get off the boat because Thai immigration took 5.5 hours to clear the ship. By 2, however, we were off. The ship docked at Laem Chabang, a port city 2 hours away from Bangkok. The night before, me and two other guys came up with the plan to go to an island called Ko Chang which is near Cambodia. We were debating for a while which beach town to go to, but we decided on Ko Chang because it’s a bus ride away (as opposed to a plane), looked really nice, and isn’t as touristy (or trashy) as some of the beach towns near Bangkok.

Since we got off the boat so late and knew we wouldn’t be able to get to Ko Chang that day, we decided to go to the closest city to the dock, Pattaya. We didn’t really want to go there, but we figured it would be the easiest way to get to Ko Chang, and we were only going to go for half a day anyway. Pattaya was absolutely terrible, don’t ever go there. The city is a beach town, which is obviously good, but its way too developed and the whole city is filled with old men and prostitutes. However, when we got there, we were able to get some good food (and the food in Thailand is great, I didn’t have a bad meal till my last day…the food tastes a lot like American thai food but was a little better most of the time) and get a minibus to take us to Ko Chang the next day (there was no public bus from Pattaya to Ko Chang) that would cost only 450 baht a person (which is around 15 bucks) so that wasn’t a bad deal. We got a hotel for 800 baht for the 3 of us and we all went to bed early because we were tired (even though we didn’t really do anything all day) and because we had to be up at 7:30 the next day for our bus.

We got up early for our 3.5 hour bus ride to Laem Ngop, where we would catch the ferry to Ko Chang. Just like in other Asian countries (minus Japan), the driver was absolutely crazy….he would drive in the shoulder, cut off cars going in the other direction…pretty much, he would do anything to get us to Laem Ngop as fast as possible, but that’s the norm in most Asian countries. Also, on the way, I noticed that there are pictures of the King everywhere on the road. I’ve heard that the King is very loved and respected, but the people don’t really have a choice since you go to jail if you say anything bad about him.

Anyway, in Laem Ngop, we caught a ferry for Ko Chang, which took around 30 minutes. Once we were there, we got in the back of a pickup with 10 other thai people (the pickups have umbrellas and two benches on each side, its pretty cool) and went to White Sand Beach. In Ko Chang, the cabs are pickups, and they just drop you off where you want to go…there is only one road and it just goes around the whole island, so the pickups just pick people up on the way and drop people off. It was only 50 baht (like $1.75) for the 10 minute cab ride….not bad at all.

At White Sand Beach, we ate some awesome Thai food and then got a hotel a little further down the island. We then went to the beach for the rest of the day. It was overcast but still awesome, the water was great, the beach was all sand, and there were barely any people on the beach. It was great. We then walked down the beach and checked out this awesome lagoon. After that, we saw some little hut with internet on the beach so we checked it out, it was around 2 minutes from our hotel walking. When we got there, we saw we could book a 4 island snorkeling tour for 500 baht (like 17 bucks), so we all thought we had to do it so we signed up. We then got dinner that night at the hotel right next to our bungalow which was real good (just like the other food.)

After that, we crossed the street and saw this little area with shops, so we checked it out. We saw a place where we could get massages for 350 baht for 90 minutes so me and Swain decided to do it while Eric decided he would rather chill instead. Anyway, the massages for both me and Swain started out with girls doing them, which was good because no one wants a massage from a guy. However, we go to the room after the foot massage and two guys walked in. Not only did it suck that a guy was massaging me, but the guy was terrible too. I was hurting the whole time, it sucked. Worst part of the trip.

Anyway, after that we go outside and see that Eric made friends with a bunch of random Thai guys. One of them spoke a little bit of English, the rest of them none, but of course he was still hanging out with him and they hooked him up with some food. It was classic. Then, it got awkward because one of the guys was having problems with some girl and he became obviously upset, but we hung out with these Thai guys for a while before going to bed.

The next day, we woke up early and a cab picked us up at 8 AM for the snorkeling tour. We went to the bottom tip of the island, then got on this old, sketchy looking boat for the tour. There were around 30-40 people on it, most of them being tourists. They hadn’t run the boat in about two weeks because the seas were too rough (since its rainy season), but that day was really nice so they finally ran it…good timing for us. Anyway, the ride to the islands sucked. It was really rocky, and I got really sea sick (funny, because I never get sea sick on the cruise ship.) I threw up off the side a bunch of times on the way to the islands, but once we got to the first island and we started snorkeling, I felt fine. We went to four different islands, all really close to each other, but they were around an hour south of Ko Chang so they were all really desolate, none of them had any people on them or anything.

The snorkeling was awesome, for each island, the boat would just drop its anchor and we would just drop off the boat and start snorkeling….no docks or anything. The water was slightly murky, but I still saw some really cool coral and lots of fish, it was awesome. Also, one thing that was awesome was that for the fourth island, we could swim or take their little motorboat they had attached to this really small, sandy beach. Of course, we went to it and it was great, just chillin on a beach on an island that no one lives on.

I took a sea sickness pill right before the trip back, so luckily I didn’t vomit on that, although I did still feel sick during most of the ride. When we got back, we went to White Sand Beach, got a hotel in the town (the town is really small, just has a few shops, small hotels, restaurants, bars and internet cafes….there is only one really big resort on the island), and went to dinner with some Australians we met on the snorkeling tour. They then said it would be funny to go to a Lady bar, and since we were in Thailand and didn’t really care, we were down and went. Pretty much, a lady bar is a normal bar, except it is just filled with transgender girls. It’s really weird, but it was kinda funny to go to just to see it. We just had a few drinks there while thinking about how funny it was that we were at a bar with a bunch of transgender girls, and then we left and went to bed.

Next day, we woke up, hit up the internet café, and then got a cab so we could go to Laem Ngop, then take a cab to Trat where we could catch a bus to Bangkok. We were gonna stay the day and then leave at night, but the weather sucked so we figured it would be better to just head to Bangkok and have a full night there. The bus ride from Trat to Bangkok was 6 hours, but the bus only cost 250 baht, or 8 dollars. Again, so cheap. The bus wasn’t bad, it was a bit uncomfortable but not horrible and it looked way nicer than I thought it would. They had a movie showing though, but it was in Thai. Anyway, we got to Bangkok, and then we met up with some guy named Roger from Cameroon who knows Swain’s sister. We then got a hotel room on Khao San Road, which is the big street for backpackers, and the hotel was only 175 baht a person. We then got some food, and then went to some club on Sukhimvit road because it was our friend’s birthday so a bunch of us got together in Bangkok to celebrate that.

On the next and final day, we met up with another one of our friends and the four of us went to check out the temples in Bangkok, which were awesome, I actually thought they were the best temples I’ve seen on this trip. We went to Wat Pho, which has a huge lying Buddha, and then we went to the Golden Mount which you have to climb up and at the top, there is a large golden cap (I probably didn’t use the right word to describe it.) We then got lunch and went to the Grand Palace, which is the home of the king. It was very expensive by Thai standards to get in (250 baht), but it was awesome. It was way better than what I expected, I actually think it was one of the best things I’ve seen on this entire trip. Before you go to the Grand Palace (which you can’t actually go in because the King lives in there), you walk by all of these amazing buildings, it was just such a cool site to see and was a really good way of ending the trip. After that, we got a van with 7 SAS people and made the two hour drive down to Laem Chabang to get back on the boat. But before that, we went into a Mister Donut and started chanting “Mister Donut….Mister Donut” and the girl working there was laughing so hard that she had to go into the back. It was classic.

Now, I'm back on the boat and this 6 day stretch from Thailand to India has been rough in terms of work. I've had two tests, and have one more test tomorrow. Our boat was also stopped near Singapore for almost a day, but it never docked and we were never able to get off the boat to go into Singapore. The boat was going at near full speed (which has never happened, we usually go 14 or 16 knots, we were going 24 most of yesterday) after Singapore because we went through the Straights of Mallaca, which has the most pirate activity of any area in the world (but they have never been able to get onto a cruise ship.) I think we are through it now though, I haven't checked the TV yet today to see our speed.

And I'll put up pictures tomorrow, I haven't even uploaded them yet but I'll definitely get some on here before I get to India (and I'll put some up from Vietnam as well.)