I am glad I got to spend a bit of time in Thailand, a very little bit compared to a lot of folks, because if my impressions were limited to Bangkok, I would have really missed out. My two weeks in Thailand were split into The City (Bangkok), The Jungle (Khao Sok), and The Beach (Krabi).
Bangkok
A bit warm in Bangkok.
Bangkok transitioned me from the Philippines were everything is stupid cheap to a more standard pricing scale making the shock and horror of New Zealand slightly tolerable. Rachel and I stayed in a swanky apartment one minute from a monorail station with two swimming pools and two gyms which only set us back $35 a night. I love AirBnB. Now, we spent way more time shopping and eating and being inside than I would usually do cause Rachel hates the heat more than the average duck, but it was still amusing enough. Bangkok, in my head, is a collection of malls and stores filling in the empty spaces around temples like plaque around teeth. If I ever go back, there are many temples and sights I'd like to see still. Instead of sightseeing, Rachel and I were social creatures making friends with old hippies with cool stories from their travels in the seventies and getting to hang out with one of my friends from Japan.
Khao Sok
A bit over a mile from my hotel room by trail!
Rachel and I parted ways in Bangkok for a few days. I got to spend a week being my usual antisocial self in the great outdoors. I did some research about the basics but didn't have a plan for Khao Sok nor did I have a firm how to get to my two-hour-away resort from the Surat Thani airport. At one point as I found my options slightly lacking, I was considering the old hitchhiking standby, but by wonderful coincidence a van taking two families and some mail was heading that way! 300 baht/$5 and 3 hours later, I was dropped off a couple of miles from the resort only to have a nice woman in a truck immediately offer me a ride the rest of the way! Yay!
This place was great! Staff was friendly without being obtrusive or hovery. Food and drinks on-site were priced fair and enjoyable. The front desk, like every flat surface in Thailand, offered tour information. I took them up on a couple of options (river tubing, night safari, and lake trip) but skipped all the elephant stuff. They weren't big on the elephant tourism either. Tubing was fun; glad I did it when I did 'cause the next day the rains made the previously clear waters brown and mucky. I actually did two tubing trips, one solo and one much, much, much further down the river with two other girls. The lake trip was alright, big groups are rarely epic, but the night safari kinda pissed me off 'cause the guide was all, "I dunno why people keep reccomending these night safaris. They are never good. I keep saying to push the early morning ones if people wanna see animals." We did see lots of spiders, a few large lizards, a porcupine (cool!), and fireflies that were smaller and light up differently than ones I grew up seeing in Virgina. Those were more of a slow pulse of light and these were more of a glitter-in-the-sky effect.
More pics of Khao Sok without a lot of superfluous narration.
More lake!
I would love to spend more time just hiking in Khao Sok National Park. Only spent one day actually in the park proper before it was time to hop on a minibus down to Krabi in just POUR-A-BUCKET-ON-YOUR-HEAD rain the whole way down.
Krabi
Down in Krabi I had a place on the main road directly between the two main beaches, Ao Nang and Napparat Beaches. Krabi was interesting because I spent everyday at a different kind of beach.
Private beach (?) near not-my-hotel but no one called me on it.
Yep. How was Krabi in the rainy season? Just fine, Sir or M'am. Just fine.
It was hard to leave Thailand especially since Thailand marks the start of the end. Also, Thailand proceeded New Zealand where everything is outrageously expensive ($4.50 for a Diet Coke, the standard unit of measurement) and its dancing just above freezing tonight.
Hmmm... I am tempted to try to improve the overall lackluster feel of this blog but... It's cold. I'm tired. The screen on this iPod is broken and hard to type on, but all the Thailand photos are on here so...
Good enough.
I went to Thailand. It was great.
Comments
Post a Comment