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We’d heard that the first thing you’d notice stepping out of the airport in Bangkok is the smell. This is folk law, it was a bit smelly but fine. We then jumped in a cab and went to find our hostel. This place was a great example of how good hostel accommodation can be. It was clean, cheap and very friendly. We ended up staying there about ten days. We met some cool Americans the first night and went out to check out the night market. It was pretty frantic, but the stuff they were selling was pretty cheap (T-shirts $2, Cd’s and DVD’s $1). It was all knocked off or copies though. It does make you feel sick when you’ve spent about 500 quid before you go traveling on your stuff, to see it at a market for 50 quid!
We’d heard that Thailand is rather fond on Ping Pong and that regular tournaments are thrashed out in the capital. As we were there we thought it would be inappropriate to overlook such a well loved local passion. It would have been hard to miss the action as the sound of popping ping pong’s filled the night air around the market! Lets just say we had a little look……..let me tell you…..the Thai way of playing ping pong completely breaks European Ping Pong fixture regulations……They sometimes even ditch the ping pong for more lethal projectiles like darts or lit cigarettes!!!
One other fond memory of Bangkok was our Tuc Tuc ride back to our hostel after the night market. As there was a group of us we were split over two Tuc Tuc’s. What we didn’t realize when we hired them was that the two drivers were obviously two wannabe formula one drivers. They raced each other all the way home at break neck speed which culminated in the one Charlie and I were sat in doing a wheelie off some traffic lights…..we nearly wet ourselves as we didn’t realize it had a bar to prevent it rolling over. After that we continued to encourage the driver to do wheelie’s at every stop, it was great.
The main sights we saw in Bangkok were the Grand Palace, Emerald Buddha Temple and countless night markets. The Grand Palace was our favourite as the buildings were stunning and their style completely unique to South East Asia.
Our original plan was to only stay in Bangkok for about 5 days and then head to an island, these plans changed. On a more serious note, whilst I was in China I got news that my Grandfather had passed away. I was gutted as we were very close and although he had been ill before I left, you always hope for miracles. I wanted to fly back for the funeral to be with my family, so I left a few days into Bangkok and flew back home. I was only back for 2 days and as you can understand I just wanted to be with them, that’s why I didn’t mention anything to anyone. It was a very sad occasion, he and my gran have been an inspiration in my life and I love them both dearly. I dedicate my trip to him.
Right its hard to get back to anything funny after that so I will finish this later…….
When I got back from the UK we decided to get to a beach as soon as possible. So we headed off to an Island called Ko Samet. This place was not quite as good as the more famous ones in the south but it was still a tropical paradise, you know palm trees, white powdery sand, turquoise water etc. We stayed there for three nights, it was absolutely perfect. We just sunbathed, played ball, and had a dunking competition (unfortunately Charlie kicked my ass). It was exactly what the doctor had ordered. The island was where we had our first encounter with the native mosquitos, they are the size of eagles and really hurt when they bite. They didn’t feed on me much, I must not taste good, but Charlie and Rich were severed up for dinner several times!
We then headed back to Bangkok as Ziad had decided to come out and join the tour for a couple of months. It was really strange seeing such a familiar face hear…..but great at the same time. The next day we got a morning bus to Cambodia.
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