The Return to Bangkok
Hi,
We’re currently in Bangkok again. We had to come back to get our visas sorted for South Korea. Rachel and I both loved Koh Tao. It was easily our favourite place. It was super-chilled, reasonably priced and you didn’t have to deal with pain in the backsides trying to sell you something everywhere you go. Our first night there we stayed in a tiny bungalow for 10 pound a night. If it had glass covering the windows and not just mosquito net it would have been ok but from 6pm onwards all the weird animals and creepy crawlies come and take it upon themselves to compete in the ‘let’s keep Jimmy and Rachel awake’ competition. You might think that we’re blowing it out of proportion but we’re genuinely not. There was this one type of animal that made a noise that can only be described as sheer agony. It must have been right next to our wall because every time it screamed we jumped 6 feet in the air with shock. I was praying that some bigger animal was going to come along and eat it.
The next day we decided to change room and go up-market. We were willing to pay 16 pound a night for something better. We really wanted to stay in the same resort because it had a pool and was ideally situated. Unfortunately the next most expensive rooms were 20 pound. This was unacceptable. 4 whole pounds more than we wanted. If you’re not a scrooge before going to Thailand you will be by the time you leave. I’ve always been a scrooge but now I’ve gone super-scrooge level two. I haggled with the nice woman in reception and we managed to get one of the more expensive rooms for 16 pound. The air conditioning in it was broken but the fan worked so we didn’t mind.
After a few days of sunbathing and reading we decided to go snorkeling. Since I’m not a strong swimmer and certain that I will die by shark bite I was fairly terrified. Rachel didn’t seem worried by the idea. I tried some good old common sense reasoning to get me through it. Anyone else going through the same thing should take not of the following points that I jotted down.
Reasons why I wasn’t going to be eaten by a shark.
- There were other people there for him to choose from besides me.
- It’ll probably be too shallow for him to get me.
- I could just shout at him under water and then punch him on the nose.
- I could put my hands on his snout as he went to eat me. That way he’d just be pushing me (probably further out to sea but don’t think about that)
- There are dolphins in the sea. They’ll protect me. I saw it on the tv.
- Why would the shark eat me when I’m really hairy?
- Would they really let us go snorkeling where there are sharks?
Regarding point 7, it turns out they would. First stop on the snorkeling trip-Shark Bay! All my fears presented to me at once. I knew I had to handle it like a man. We pulled up to death/shark bay in the boat and the first thing I saw was some little kid swimming with his parents. And I thought ‘if some little (chubby) kid can do it then so can I.’ But then I started thinking ‘but what if this kid is an exceptional swimmer, specially trained or something?’ After pulling myself together I got my gear on and jumped in. Our instructer said it was up to us if we wanted to put the life jacket on. No one but Rachel and I did. I suspect Rachel just did it to make me feel less stupid. It didn’t work. Surprisingly I actually had a great time. Didn’t see any sharks but plenty of tropical fish. We visited a few different bays around the island and then an island which is classed as a national park. It was very nice with loads of huge multicoloured fish.
The rest of our stay involved lying around, swimming and reading. Rachel is a pure sun worshipper, a professional sunbather who knows exactly what tannage needs to be done and when. She works out the suns trajectory within no time. She knows when to oscillate between pool bed and beach to get just the right rays. I, on the other hand, recoil into the shadows like an albino elephant man every time the sun touches me. The only time I spend in the sun is when I’m swimming. The rest of the time I’m reading in the shade.
Our plans after Koh Tao were to go back to Bangkok on the overnight train on Sunday. This would get us to Bangkok at 9am Monday. Firstly, however, we had to kill 5 and a half hours at Chumpon before the train came. We sauntered around for a while. I managed to trade/buy some books and then we went to the night market which was ok. We went to the train station with a couple of hours to spare. After a while it became apparent that the train, like every other mode of transport in Thailand, was not going to be on time. It was supposed to arrive at 11pm but instead it got there at 2am. During our wait we were befriended by a 73 year old Thai man called Mr Mart who insisted on calling me Jimmy White (snooker fan obviously) and Rachel Princess Diana. He was a really nice fella who taught us some Thai and gave us two hand made back scratching sticks. Despite his age he makes them by the thousand and travels around selling them.
We got on the train feeling very tired. When we got in to Bangkok we went back to the hotel we stayed in the first time. We dropped off our stuff and went in search of the Korea Embassy. We figured out that we could get there by metro so we got a little tuc tuc taxi (see photo) to the metro station and got the metro to Huai Kwang. To get there we were using a map, clearly drawn by a child, that pointed us completely in the wrong direction. We walked for miles in the heat but to no avail. We asked a couple of taxi drivers if they could take us there but they had no clue what we were saying. Fortunately we had the address and number written down and an astute taxi driver took it upon himself to call the embassy for directions. We got there at about 3pm, after using 7 different modes of transport (mini van, boat, train, bus, tuc-tuc, taxi and subway) feeling exhausted and sweaty. But at least we were there. We sat at the window and the first thing the woman said was ‘sorry, visas applications are between 8.30am and 10.30am.’ Internally we were saying ‘You frigging pain in the arse, AAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!’ but being English we smiled and said ‘no problem’.
The next day we went back to hand in the documents and we are proud to say that as of this afternoon we officially have our South Korean visas. After handing in the docs we took the metro to Lumphini park. We sat down next to one of the miniature lakes there to have a picnic only to find ourselves about 20 metres aways from one of these (below) lizard things. Needless to say Rachel was terrified. But superhero me had watched far too many nature shows to be scared of this. I had my plan of action all figured out. After gathering a small team of helpers, I (or preferbaly one of the helpers) would jump on it’s back, pinning it to the ground. I would then wrap a shoe lace around it’s jaw, neutralising the danger. That was before I realised that it wasn’t a crocodile.In fact none of the locals even looked twice at them. Typical bloody tourists!
Sorry about the long post but it had been a while since we last wrote.
Take Care.
