Hanna and Dan Adventures: Thailand

Hello all!

Well the beginning of our Thailand adventures did not quite begin as anticipated! We planned to fly into Phuket and then go to Koh Phi Phi (where they filmed The Beach), then to Krabi, then to Bangkok, plus possibly a stop to visit Ulla's friends on the way. But....the night before we flew to Bangkok we discovered that the South of Thailand had received an abnormally high amount of rain and that certain areas were flooded quite badly. Phuket and the west side seemed to be better than the east coast, where tourists had been stranded on Koh Samui and ferries to Koh Tao and Koh Phangan had been temporarily stopped. We arrived and got a place to stay for the night, then checked out the weather forecast...rain for the next 10 days. And Krabi, as it turns out, was also not in the best shape with mudslides and other such fun, so we made the decision to bail before things got worse, and booked an overnight bus for the next evening to Bangkok. Our overnight bus trip...well, it was an overnight bus trip, but the flooding on the roads at certain parts were pretty crazy! We were surprised that the buses were actually going through! There were lots of people with cars stopped at the side of the road who didn't want to, and some even had set up tents! We saw this one guy pushing his motorcycle through and we was chest deep in water! I was pretty sketched out but we made it through safe a sound and only arrived in Bangkok 2 hours late (ahh...Bangkok traffic). We didn't really want to pay for a taxi into town so we asked around which bus to take and somehow ended up on this one that took an hour (which is probably what it would have taken in a cab too 'cause of the traffic), but it was free! I don't know why, 'cause we've taken other buses here since and had to pay for those, but we didn't complain. After a little bit of difficulty we found a decent place to stay with a good price and took a well deserved shower before heading off for some breakfast. We then decided to head off to the Vietnamese Embassy to get our VISA arranged....and were faced with our first tuk-tuk scam. I blame it partially on the fact that we were so tired :>) The driver told us we didn't have to go all the way to the embassy and we could get one at the tourist information office. As soon as we walked in, we both had a feeling something was off and then quickly realized this driver was probably getting commission for the overpriced VISA at this place so we quickly got out, took a taxi to the embassy and have not hopped in a tuk-tuk since :>) The Embassy was a little ridiculous but we got it all organized and picked up our passports today so we are all set to go! Once we got back, took a nap, and got some famous Khao-San street made Phad-Thai and Chang beer into us we felt much much better :>)

Yes, we are staying near Khao-San road, which is pretty much, as Vibe would put it, "tourist hell", but I felt Dan should experience it, and it is conveniently located to many tourist attractions in Bangkok. And it's great to be able to buy Phad-Thai from the street vendors and they make it in front of you for 60 cents! There is also a fresh fruit guy on every corner which pretty much equals heaven for Hanna. That being said, I am VERY much looking forward to heading to Chiang Mai on the overnight train tomorrow night. Over the past few days we have seen Grand Palace, Wat Pho (the giant reclining Buddha)....both of which were just as amazing as I remembered, and taken in the MBK mall (Susan's favorite). We have also been traveling around quite a lot using the river boat, which is actually a lot of fun, and quite convenient, plus it's only 50 cents per ride! So sometimes even though it's a really round-about way, we ride the sky-train and then take the boat home to bypass the traffic instead of taking the bus or a taxi, since, if you didn't pick up on it before, traffic in Bangkok is BRUTAL. We took a bus to a floating market yesterday, which in itself was not the greatest (I was at a better one when I was here 5 years ago), but they had this one area sealed off so the fish couldn't get out and they were selling bread to feed them, and it was just crazy how many there were and how bananas they went over the food! I have a picture of Dan feeding them beside this little kid and I don't know which one was having more fun :>)

Well I am sorry no pictures tonight...too lazy. We are hoping the overnight train will be a step up from the bus as we should actually be able to lie down, not just lean the seat back...we'll let you know. But for now, talk to you later!

Hanna and Dan

Pictures: Grand Palace