So this is long over due as it is with most of my posts on this blog, but nevertheless this is the story about the first week of October when I took my 3rd trip to Thailand. Myself and 9 friends on my staff took off on a Friday night only to arrive in Thailand at 3am in the dirty city of Bangkok. After arriving we hauled our sleepy butts to a hostel and then got up again at 6am to see the Bangkok floating market.
Floating markets are like living museums where you can immerse in the local culture and way of life as it once was before the arrival of global consumerism. Totally lively and extremely chaotic, small 'khlongs' or canals are filled with flat boats piled high with fresh produce, each fighting for position and paddled by ladies ready to stop and bargain at a moment’s notice. It's colourful, noisy, touristy but great fun. We took a long tail boat ride after our shopping and saw the village that lives on the river. It was very interesting to see where these people live and how they get around on the water.
We spent the rest of our next day living life on the world famous Khao San Road which is a huge destination for travelers on a budget (aka me!). If you have ever read the book ‘The Beach’ or watched the movie it would be the crazy busy street in Bangkok that is full of hostels, guesthouses, restaurants, pubs, clubs and endless street vendors… selling whatever you are looking for! It is a whole new world within a world where you can get some great cheap food, shop your feet off and find somewhere to stay on a budget!
We got up our second morning at 4am (not fun) to fly to a place called Surat Thani. At the airport we hit a snag in our adventure. I was at the end of the line waiting to check in, and when it became my turn the women behind the counter passed me back my ticket and said ‘I’m sorry ma’am, but you booked your flight for yesterday”. My stomach nearly flew into my lungs!! I couldn’t believe it. I almost panicked, but luckily my friend Sophie kept me calm, we RAN over to different booth and explained the situation. Luckily there was still room on this flight and if we ran we could make it onboard in time. So I sucked it up and bought another ticket to Surat Thani, flew through check in, ran through the airport with Sophie and arrived with 5 minutes to spare before boarding. I felt horrible and so stupid for booking the wrong date, but I made up for my financial blunder by avoiding any day trips or scuba diving and by the end of the trip I had forgiven myself.
When we arrived in Surat Thani we took a van to catch a ferry and then another van to our hotel call Rung arung in Koh Phangan. Here we broke up into groups and shared tiny shacks on the beach. The restaurant was great, the beach had beautiful white sand, and there was a pool for cooling down. Sadly it rained most of the time we were there. We spent our time shopping the streets in town and eating delicious Thai meals. Curry and spring rolls were crushed at least once a day.
After two nights in Surat Thani we took a van to catch a ferry and then took another van to get to our next hotel in Koh Samui. Our place here was not very clean and had a bad smell to it, but the pool was beautiful and we stayed on a cliff side over looking the water. Nai, the worker at the hostel, became a close friend and treated us really well. In Koh Samui we did a few nights out drinking and dancing and did a little bit of beach hopping in the day.
On our last night we had to take a ferry back to Surat Thani (a boring, dirty town) and stayed over night at a hotel so we could be up bright and early the next morning to catch a plane home to Shenzhen. We had a 7 hour layover in Bangkok before our return so we went back to Koh San Road and did some silver shopping and had our last authentic Thai meal. Needless to say the trip was really good; we ate well and had a good time seeing a new part of Thailand….I’m already planning my next trip.
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