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Wednesday 14 November
Quote of the day-"that dark cloud is beautiful" (comment made by PP-not his real name but its too long and i can never remember it so hes now PP)
Biggest blonde moment-"omg what coin is this, it doesn't say how many Thai bhats!" then Stew points out its actually a 2 pound coin!
Craziest thing I have eaten - a scorpio!!!
Number of mosquito bites- 0 (GET IN!)
New Thai saying - Kankunkar...THANK YOU!
After leaving mum at the house, dad and Stacey took me to the airport, had some dinner and sent me on my way! The plane journey was surprisingly good and i managed to sleep about 6 out of 7 hours on my first flight to Muscat and then tried to stay awake during the second flight- which didn't work as i fell asleep whilst watching snow white and the huntsman. Gutted i didn't get to see the end! But did get to watch ice age :) walking to our transfer flight i got chatting to a guy called Stew and soon discovered that we had booked the same hostel in Bangkok, nappark. So we met at the other end of the flight, and jumped on a shuttle bus which my notes said would take us to a bus stop so we could get to Khoa San Road. So after visitng a few random car parks we come to a bus looking station so just jump off! Buses didn't seem to be running to Khao San Road so mananged to blag a taxi ride with 3 other people who wanted to go there for just 50 baht each! What a bargain! I don't even think the taxi driver knew where he was going as we stopped twice and he was asking directions from different people - how can a taxi driver not know how to get to Khao San Road! Well, we eventually arrived at about 10pm. Jumped into bed to catch up on sleep :) Woke up at 3pm to hear some girls complaining that they had stood in some poo and wee that was covering the entire hostel room floor. Not nice, so decided to keep quiet and go back to sleep!
Wednesday morning, I bumped into Stew who had got lost walking around on his own, so we decided to spend the day together visiting the Grand Palace and Wat Po. I met a guy in the hostel called PP so he joined us too! Palace was amazing, beautiful, crazily busy, full of Chinese and Thai people, who would find any kind of shade and rest in it. The clothes rules are crazy as I knew you had to cover up, but you would not even be able to wear leggings, as everything had to be 'loose fitting'. You could hire some classy looking trousers, with bright colours and crazy patterns iwth Elephants, flowers, random buddas!Stew was a little bit of a wally, wearing shoes and socks as every time we went in a temple we had to take them off so he spend half the day sitting down taking his socks on and off - probably the most times he's ever put shoess on in one day! So left the grand palace for some food...and got chatting to a man at the zebra crossing who was saying get on a tuk tuk and he will take us to the other 2 tourist sites for just 10baht. MISTAKE RIGHT THERE! Jumped on, tuk tuk driver was lovely and so enthsiastic, helping us say 'Thank you' in Thai. We went to a cool area with a standing budda and an where it was good luck to poor water over a budda made for the month you were born in. So we all did that and then he said he would take us somewhere to eat....so arrived to a posh restaurant which was 300baht for just a curry and 300baht for a rice...so we walked straight out and told him its too expensive. Then he took us to 2 different travel agents who wanted us to book something - we refused and told tuk tuk driver to just take us to Wat Po. So a few hours wasted but was an experience going on the tuk tuk and we experienced the scam first hand! :) good times!
What Po was incredible - you see pictures of the reclining budda but you just don't realise the scale of it until you acutally see it up front. It was incredible. After a long day out, we headed back to the hostel and PP who we were out suggested we go to a music festival. We ended up going with 9 people, all really cool and a real good laugh. Split in 3, we got in a taxi and another 3 got in a tuk tuk - we ended up racing them there, they were the other side of the road!. Was a good laugh. Didn't really know where we were going, but just knew that we had to meet at Christmas tree - we were hoping to god we would find this Christmas tree otherwise we would never find each other again. Luckily I spotted it :) (even through it wasn't lit up!) Good night...good music, good beer games (a beer tower between 3 of us was £3 each - I couldn't resist, you just can't go wrong! Never drank beer before but it was actually ok!) Then had a few cocktails, which said "Very strong cocktails" ..and I agree! I bought a bucket with my bunk buddy, Ruby - we enjoyed a mojito! They made it with Rum though - very odd! Then headed to Khao San road for a few more drinks, where Ruby and I with our beer goggles decided to tuck into a delicious Scorpion! How can i describe it - crunchy at first, then just got worse and worse as you got through the body. I wouldn't recommend but we definitely showed the lads up as they wouldn't dare touch it! Enjoyed a few more drinks then headed back to hostel, and crashed in the lobby with a few others - chatting. Next minute i wake up to find everyone had gone apart from Ruby who was lying next to me snoring!!! PP then comes through the door, we find out he's been in 2 night clubs, lost his glasses then retraced his steps to find the DJ in one of the clubs wearing them!! He was not too impressed! Oh food - how could I forget. Not a great start with the food, grabbed some thai red curry and rice just before Wat Po - oh goodness, I have never seen people sweat so much and look like they are going to faint! This dish was HOT. I have never had anything that hot before. It was an old lady who had a few dishes - looked home made so we were like oh great, some real Thai food. It was good just flipping hot, I was crying and sweating at the same time. First time there was silence between us all all silently suffering! T'was great. We also grabbed some food at the music festival - all really exicted to try some new Thai food. We should have filmed the moment when we all tucked into our food, all so hungry - after the first spoonful (no knives in Thailand, just folks and spoons!) we all just stopped with our mouths wide open trying to gasp for some air to cool our pallet down. Hot once again! And I did order duck cheek, but it deffinitely wasn't duck - it tasted more like liver :S Not great I must admit! Very dissapointing, so just downed it with the beer!
Thursday morning, must admit - wasn't feeling great! So had a chilled morning and headed out about midday with 5 others (PP, Reza, Stew, Ruby & Cal) All feeling rough but in desparate need for some food. So walked across the road to get some breakfast! Tasty! Had a soup with rice and chicken. We we all feeling pretty rough so decided to have a chilled day, maybe find a park to chill in, have a massage and have a stroll around China town. I grabbed a mini map from the hostel and the 5 of us set off....10 minitues later we walk right past our hostel again. Not one of us picked up that we were walking in a complete circle! Oh dear, not a good start.
Meet the locals - we bumped into a couple who seemed really nice and just wanted to tell us what we could do and go and see. Then a tuk tuk stopped behind, then a man came up shaking our hands saying "I'm a police man" wearing a stripy shirt and flip flops, I wasn't so sure myself and with only a phone holder saying "police" on it, I was not so sure. He was pursuading us to get on a boat and have a tour, as it was a particularly special budda day which they kept saying was free to take photos and look around (we didn't quite understand!) but jumped in the tuk tuk.
Strangest moments this day:
- walking through a building site to the boats...all Thais who were working on the building site just stopped working to let us walk straight through - we went under pilons, over rubble, in front of digger - it was surreal!
- decided not to go on the boat, so strolled around the area to take a look at where we actually were. It was incredible, we saw so many people young and old working, preparing food, moving boxes, we ended up in a massive warehouse which was full of all kinds of food, we didn't know what half of it was. It was so great to discover as it wasn't a tourist place, the Thais were just staring at us but all so friendly and most smilied back at us and let us take photos of them!
- We had some young school children approach us on our walk, who wanted to practise their English. They were very good, very giggly, let us take a photo and then ran away giggling!
- On our walks, Cal nearly had a heart attack as he walked passed some gates, some tiny crazy dogs started barking at him. Jumped a mile! Was funny!
- Arrived in Chinatown after about 3 hours of strolling down the river to find it -and thinking we had already reached it twice already! We found a Thai massage down a back street so 4 of the guys had a full body massage, and Reza and I enjoyed a Thai foot massage! I was thoroughly enjoying it, Reza on the other hand was in great pain! He obviously stored all his stress in his feet!
- About 8pm we discovered China Town...the real China town! It was like New York City, 4 rows of cars crazy traffic 24/7, so many people eating outside on the streets, so casually, yet you look around and you are surrounded by cars, buses, tuk tuks, rubbish vans, young kids standing on each others shoulders to make a tower - the kid at the top was no older than 3 years - stood at the top of 5 other kids, inbetween people eating the food and the cars! It was so sad...they were risking the kids lives on the edge of the road, if they lost balance, got nudged, they would not have survived one minute! It was scary. Whilst this was happening we were tucking into the best Thai food ever - stuffed crab, fish, cockles, a veg dish and rice! was delicious! and not spicy. We were just tucking into the food, enjoying watching the traffic and people go by...we could have stayed there all night! Then inspected every stool down the road - we didn't know where to walk...the paths were full of the food stools, with people cooking the food, then there were tables just in front then the heavy traffic going by - it seemed we would either upset the chefs walkin on the path, interrupt the people sitting down eating the food, or option 3, get run over by tuk tuks and taxi drivers!! We ended up walking inbetween the cars and the tables! Was crazy but incredible experience, then Reza decided to get in a rubbish van. He was worried they would drive off, so was hesitating to get on or not - we managed to pursuade him - then they teased him and started driving off! Was so funny seeing the horror on his face thinking he was going to be taken around on a rubbish van around bangkok all night! Mental but a really fun, unpredictable day with some really cool people! :)
Right, in the lobby trying to write this, but some mates have got back from dinner so best go otherwise this will make even less sense than normal and worse spelling than normal so I will save you the pain and go now!
Missing you all! It actually feels like i have been gone for weeks already, and its only been 2 days! Crazy but as people have said, you meet people so easily in hostels and you get to know them so well within a couple of days its lovely - you don't feel lonely in the slightest. Must plan the next few days tomorrow morning!
LOVES XXX
- comments
Kat Dooley You had me in stitches reading your first blog Kel!!! Tears of laughter :-) can't wait for the next chapter! Xx
Kayleigh McGowan This is brilliant. Matt and I have been crying with laughter reading this in the library. Keep up with the posts and dont go following any more fake policemen! xxx