Welcome to Thailand.
Our flight on Royal Nepal Airlines was rather uneventful, and within about 3 hours we had gone from Kathmandu, Nepal to Bangkok, Thailand. My illness had subsided enough I was able to get to the airport and on the plane without incident, and ate a little snack (snake?), the first food in almost 36 hours.
The airport was very neat, new, and enjoyable. While trying to figure out the best way to get to our Marriott Hotel in the city, Griffin got suckered into a tour of the city’s canals. It started at 7am the next day and sounded pretty cool, although the English translation did leave something to be desired.
We got a taxi for about 450B ($15) to our hotel, which was rather nice. After being sick in Kathmandu for the past two days it was a really nice relief to have a soft bed, great views of the city, and other amenities, like toilet paper, that we had not seen in almost a month.
I will mention here that out taxi had a rather amusing sticker in the passenger area (and also note the greenery on the dash board):
We walked around our area of the city looking for food and thinking maybe here we can buy Chez some pants (as the two she brought no longer fit thanks to the trekking in Nepal that dropped 13lbs). As it turned out, we were not only in the touristy area of Bangkok but also were in the “most expensive spend all your money here senselessly” area. Street vendors wanted $15+ for squid on a stick! The “designer” mall only included a Burberry and Coach store, neither of which had anything good. So clearly, this was not the place for us.
Quickly we realized just how much we missed Nepal, and how remote it was there. All these people, it just felt overwhelming. This was somewhat strange, as Kathmandu is a clustered city with narrow streets, car and motorbike horns blasting every second, and clouds of pedestrians, markets, children, and dogs everywhere. We hoped that upon leaving the city we would find the rural areas more like Nepal. (To our dismay this was not the case, as, for good reason, other tourists just like ourselves flock to the beaches and islands here. We will find over the next 10 days that we really do miss how calm and at peace with the world the rural areas of Nepal felt, and it will take some adjusting to get used to being around this many people again.)
We ate at a small restaurant with reasonable prices and headed back to the hotel where Chez got some more rest and Griffin took a swim in the pool and went to dinner.
In all, a rather uneventful day. Bangkok was not as cool as we had hoped. It seemed most like a tropical version of LA.
The River Cruise, Day 2
This would be the day of our river canal cruise. I’ll say no more here and start at the beginning.
The private car
We were picked up by a private car around 7am from our hotel. We had a driver and a tour guide who spoke English, but seemed to only understand the typical questions about the tour; subjects of other matters did not provide comprehendible English answers. We realized we had only paid US$15 for both of our tour tickets, so this seemed a bit luxurious. Either way, we were off to the river.
The canal boat
We arrive at the river canal and after a 10 minute wait board a very long narrow boat with numerous other tourists. Our tour guide, who is now clearly part of a pack of tour guides, also boards the boat.
The canal water is moving rather quickly, much to our surprise, and is a dark brown murky color, as it drains from the mountains and this time of year the monsoonal rains are still prevalent in those areas and serve to feed the waters with silt, debris, tree trunks, and other matter. Water hyacinths - which are huge, the flowers are over 6” wide when open - are constantly floating by us in large clumps. But not so picturesque, these clumps are gnarled, broken, and tangled, making the canal look more like a flooded river that needs to be tamed.
Regardless, our boat captain effortlessly pulled us away from the dock, where we then sat in the middle of the canal for about 5 confusing minutes, when we returned to the dock as apparently we forgot some late passengers. One more trip back and this time we were off.
We went down the main river for a little while, seeing temples and other sites of the industrialized city of Bangkok, before turning off onto a smaller canal. Here we saw lots of funky houses, built on stilts with so many plants on their decks it appeared as if the plants would pull the whole house into the water. We saw large iguanas and even a HUGE water monitor (ie, 4’+).
We were taken by a few deserted areas and were told that this had used to house the market, but as Bangkok had become so large, the fresh fruit markets had moved to an hour or two outside the city, and that no one had “market” anymore in this part of the city. That was too bad, as the tour description had indicated (and I say indicated because, as I mentioned, the English was not all that clear) we would see authentic Bangkok markets where people bring produce to sell via authentic long-tails (boats). We started to think maybe this tour isn’t so cool, and wondered exactly what was going on.
Snakes?
And then it got more weird. We arrived at a dock where our boat was tethered up, and were told we had 45 minutes here. Turns out, we were not at a temple, or market, but no, we were at the snake farm. That’s right. We were being shooed off the boat for a snake farm. Okay, sounds a bit cool, although the 300B ($10) for the two of us to enter seemed a bit steep, but we thought it would be more interesting than sitting around on the dock.
So we entered the snake farm, which had more than just snakes. There were birds, alligators, monkeys in cages, snakes, iguanas, guinea pigs, deer, and even a tiger. It was a bit weird. We felt conflicted about this snake farm. It was noble that they were raising awareness amongst tourists, and whoever the hell else actually visits this place, about the different fauna found in Thailand, but at the same time, the conditions these animals were being kept in was appalling. The cages were filled with mud and not one patch of dry land for the deer, tiger, and other animals. The monkeys were kept in cages smaller than my parakeet cage (ie, 3’X4’ at best), parrots were in tiny cages with mediocre cleanliness, and the tiger was in a tiny enclosure.
After walking around for a bit we were summoned to the center amphitheater ring rather abrasively. Clearly, this was where we were supposed to be. Within a few minutes two men had pulled cobras out of their cages and thrown them down into the middle platform. One guy was there with them, and he kept pulling their tails, hitting them on the back of the head, slapping them, and all sorts of ways to agitate them. They flared their necks and went into strike pose, as he continued to harass them. At a couple points he even picked them up by their tails and swung them around like a lasso towards the crowd. This was cool, to see how calm he was handling such a poisonous snake, but also not so great that these poor animals were being made so angry. At this point, I was pretty pissed off to be on this tour and seeming to "support" this type of nonsense. If we had know what the tour
really was about, we would have
never signed up.
To show us that these snakes were not de-fanged and truly had venom, the “milked” them. Again, not something we agreed with on account of the poor animal, but nonetheless the snake did have a serious amount of venom.
After the cobras they brought out the boa, which was beautiful, and large. And a couple vipers came out next. In all, it was a neat snake show, but not exactly what we were looking for on our canal cruise.
So our flock was being herded back to the boat. As it was only 10am, and our canal tour was scheduled until noon, you can imagine our surprise when we started going back the way we had come. Half an hour later we were docked at the same place we had boarded, and we being shooed off back to the company of our tour guides.
Then it got uncomfortable
We get back into our private air-con vehicle with driver and tour guide, and she asks us where we are going next in Thailand, and we say taking a train to Surat Thani (or so we think). She must have already known this because we had asked specifically to be dropped off at the train station after, not back to our hotel. She says oh okay, you are new to Thai, let us get you information. A couple minutes later we are at a tour company. We are ushered in and sit down, and a guy tries to help us. He quickly realizes we already have a plan, and do not want an all inclusive trip or anything else. We ask if he will make local phone calls for us, and soon he realizes we are not the money-droppers that usually come in.
We get back into our car, feeling a bit annoyed and odd about what we are doing, and the tour guide says, “Okay now we show you very nice jeweler and stone maker, yes?”. We ask about getting to the train station, and she assures us it is on the way. So we get taken to a jewelry shop. We walk around for a while, but are not in the market (i.e. I left my Tiffany wedding band at home for the exact reason that I do not want us to look like we have any money and would be worth stealing from). After 5 minutes we leave, and our tour guide looks at us and says, “They have very good items, very cheap!”, and I said, “Yea, like how cheap?” and she replies “As low as $800US”. I laugh, and tell her I want to spend $5. She looks at me like oh-crap, these are really not the money dropping tourists they usually get on the tour.
So then she confesses to us that their “sponsors” of the tour are two jewelers, a rug maker, and a tailor. We quickly recognize that this is what paid for the private car, tour guide, etc, because $15US we paid at the airport for two people clearly was not enough. So, she explains she must take us to visit the sponsors and that we need to walk around and at least look. So we go with her to these ridiculously overpriced shops and don’t buy anything.
The train station
Finally, we get dropped off at the train station. It is so late now that most of the tickets to Surat Thani are completely sold out - most notably the first class sleepers which is, unless one wants to die in their sleep of sweat and mosquitoes, the only way to spend the night comfortably on the train. We discover it is a holiday weekend in Thailand, and the train employees in some districts are on strike, so its just a mess.
We book the last two seats on the entire train, second class sleepers, but only as far as Hua Hin. Our Lonely Plant guide tells us this is a quaint fisherman’s town that is up and coming, and a great beach just outside the city of Bangkok. We decide since the train would get us there around 5pm that this would be a great place to stay for the night.
Hua Hin
Well, Hua Hin was not exactly the quaint town Lonely Plant said it was. Instead, it seemed to be where every German in Asia was hanging out. We chose a “budget” place, recommended by LP, for about $12/night. It looked okay, although it didn’t have AC it had a fan and two opposing windows which we figured would provide air circulation. We decided good enough and booked it.
The budget room - never again
After a nice dinner over the water we decided we were rather tired and it was bed time. Well, about one hour after turning off the lights we hear buzzz-buzzzz. A F-ing mosquito. So we get out of bed, turn on the lights, and try to find the little F-er. Well, that proves more difficult that it would seem in a dimly light room. After several more attempts of lights off, dozing off, buzzz-bussstt, lights on, I finally killed it. Now it was almost midnight and we realize the room has not cooled off, not at all. It is hot, everything is hot - the bed it hot, the walls are hot, the floor is hot. The fan just didn’t help. And as for the cross-breeze I was hoping for, well, the window kept closing itself from the outside due to this wonderful cross-breeze, and there was really no way to prop it open.
Then our incredibly loud neighbors decided to come home and party out on the deck right next to our room. I heard (as Griffin was, of course, sound asleep by now) the characteristic sound of bottles clinking in a plastic bag. There people clearly had no concern for anyone else sleeping in the entire 8 room pier-hotel, and proceeded to make noise and party. Normally this might have been fine, maybe we even could have joined them, but as I was still recovering from my mushroom-aversion in Kathmandu I needed the rest and did not feel up for partying.
Needless to say, we got what we paid for and that was the end of “budget” anything. All in all, it was a sweaty, sleepless night for me, plagued by bad dreams of mosquitoes and rowdy neighbors.
Our advice on Thailand (written after our 2 weeks here):
- The islands are amazing. But plan ahead. Last minute bookings online can be a great way to find deals, and you only need to book 2 to 5 days in advance (peak tourist season this may be different).
- -Spend the money to fly when you can, unless you really do not mind sweaty, hot, uncomfortable, and mosquito filled trains (and also are willing to run the risk of getting stranded somewhere should all tickets sell out)
- -You can get by on $30/day per person, but for $40 to $45/day you can get so much more that, in my opinion, it is worth it. Not sure where the $10/day travels are, but we have not found that here.