Last day in Bangkok today and it's been more than a little bit stressful. Tom and I had obviously left it until the last day to get our money sorted for Burma, which we probably shouldn't have done; not only do we need to take all of our money with us in cash to Burma as there are no ATMs in the country, but we also needed to take crisp, clean absolutely immaculate US dollars with not a crease on them or they won't be accepted. The other slight spanner in the works was that Tom's bank card had been swallowed by the ATM, so I needed to get out enough money for both of us. We first realised we were going to struggle when I took out some money from my Australian account, to discover that I couldn't withdraw more than $1000 Aussie dollars per day (we wanted $1000 each). After quite a lot of stressing on my part, not even slightly helped by the 38 degree heat, I eventually had to get dad to come to the rescue and woke him up to request an emergency cash transfer into another account (thanks dad). Thinking we were all sorted we went to the ATM again and then I remembered that I could only get 300 out on that account per day. So back to the internet cafe we went so I could transfer some of that money into a different account, unfortunately remembering then that I didn't know the pin number for the card for that account. Another call to home it was, this time waking up mum who luckily had my pin numbers written down (thanks mum), and I was able to get the rest of the money out. Next we had the fun challenge of walking up and down Khao San road in the unbearable heat, ignoring all the men asking if we wanted to buy suits, have our palms read, get a tuk tuk etc etc to find an exchange place that would give us a good rate, and also provide us with notes that would be accepted in Burma. We found one eventually, and made very sure to check each note carefully, rejecting each one that had even a tiny crease in it. So about 6 hours after we set off that morning, with over $1,800 dollars in cash neatly flattened between the pages of my book we hightailed it back to the hotel hoping not to get mugged on the way!
Off to Burma at 7.15am tomorrow morning and I can't wait to get out of Bangkok. That's not to say it hasn't been without it's share of amusement this time - Songkran festival was definitely a highlight, as was walking down the street to discover a man hand feeding a teeny tiny baby squirrel...
I've been told that internet availability is almost non existant in Burma, so I might not update this until I'm back. I'll be flying into Kuala Lumpur on 18th May.
Bye for now!
Saturday, 21 April 2012
Thursday, 19 April 2012
Back in Bangkok...
Hello friends,
So I seem to have found myself back in Bangkok, which was definitely not part of the original plan. I had intended to travel up the east coast of Australia after my trip to Tasmania, but a yearning for Asia in all it's hot, cheap chaoticness combined with the persuasiveness of Tom, a friend I made in Melbourne, found me on a flight back here on 12th April. I arrived here with the intention of spending a couple of days in Bangkok whilst sorting out a visa before flying to Burma, but when I arrived I discovered that I had come in the middle of Songkran, the Thai New Year festival. I didn't have the best start to Bangkok round three, as not only did the taxi driver run over my foot as he was driving off, but I also found myself in the middle of a huge waterfight on Khao San road, which I had to push my way through loaded with all my bags to find Tom, trying desperately to keep my bags dry as people fired water pistols at me. I eventually made it to the end of Khao San road to where I was supposed to be meeting Tom, to find that he wasn't there (admittedly I had arrived about two hours later than the time we'd arranged),and after logging on to my email I discovered that he was in fact waiting for me at the other end of the street, so I had to endure a second round of getting soaked. I managed to find him in the end, and we spent the next few days while the festival was on waking up to club music blaring out on the streets from about 8am, and joining in the huge three day water fight, which was a lot of fun. It did get quite tiring not being able to leave the room and walk down the street without someone throwing an ice cold bucket of water at you or covering your face in a disgusting flour and water concoction, so as fun as it was I was quite pleased when Bangkok returned to its normal level of chaos.
The day after the festival finished Tom and I set off with what we thought would be the fairly simple plan of going to the Burmese embassy to apply for our visas. After arguing with a few taxi drivers who were trying to overcharge us for the journey, we got dropped off at the completely wrong address, and then spent the next hour wandering around lost and asking for directions, and occasionally popping into the 7 eleven to get some air conditioned relief from the 36 degree heat. Eventually we found a tuk tuk driver who knew where the embassy was, but he wanted a massive 100 baht (two pounds) for the fare which we decided was far too much. Instead we struck a deal with him, for 20 baht he would take us to the embassy, provided we stopped off at a tailor shop on the way and pretended to be interested in buying a suit, which would mean he would get some free fuel vouchers from the shop. We thought he was a nice guy so decided to go along with it, and put on a great show of umming and aahing about a tie before deciding not to buy anything. When we eventually got to the embassy we discovered that it was closed, so struck another deal with the tuk tuk driver to pay him an extra 60 baht to take us back to the guest house, provided we went to another tailor shop and a jewellery shop on the way home. Since we now had nothing else to do with our day we agreed, and I put on another top performance pretending to be interested in sapphire rings before abruptly changing my mind. We eventually managed to make it to the embassy the next day and put in our application forms. I was quite amused that one of the questions on the form was 'complexion', and even more amused to see that most of the Asian applicants had put down 'yellow' as their answer!
It is now day seven in Bangkok and I must say although I have thoroughly enjoyed indulging in cheap massages/manicures/pedicures and eating out three times a day the delights of Bangkok have now well and truly worn off. Thankfully we are picking up our passports tomorrow and flying to Burma on Sunday which I am very excited about. Not sure how often I'll be able to get on the internet there, if at all, but I shall be updating my blog as often as possible.
Anyone interested enough to read this do get in touch and tell me what's going on at home! xxx
So I seem to have found myself back in Bangkok, which was definitely not part of the original plan. I had intended to travel up the east coast of Australia after my trip to Tasmania, but a yearning for Asia in all it's hot, cheap chaoticness combined with the persuasiveness of Tom, a friend I made in Melbourne, found me on a flight back here on 12th April. I arrived here with the intention of spending a couple of days in Bangkok whilst sorting out a visa before flying to Burma, but when I arrived I discovered that I had come in the middle of Songkran, the Thai New Year festival. I didn't have the best start to Bangkok round three, as not only did the taxi driver run over my foot as he was driving off, but I also found myself in the middle of a huge waterfight on Khao San road, which I had to push my way through loaded with all my bags to find Tom, trying desperately to keep my bags dry as people fired water pistols at me. I eventually made it to the end of Khao San road to where I was supposed to be meeting Tom, to find that he wasn't there (admittedly I had arrived about two hours later than the time we'd arranged),and after logging on to my email I discovered that he was in fact waiting for me at the other end of the street, so I had to endure a second round of getting soaked. I managed to find him in the end, and we spent the next few days while the festival was on waking up to club music blaring out on the streets from about 8am, and joining in the huge three day water fight, which was a lot of fun. It did get quite tiring not being able to leave the room and walk down the street without someone throwing an ice cold bucket of water at you or covering your face in a disgusting flour and water concoction, so as fun as it was I was quite pleased when Bangkok returned to its normal level of chaos.
The day after the festival finished Tom and I set off with what we thought would be the fairly simple plan of going to the Burmese embassy to apply for our visas. After arguing with a few taxi drivers who were trying to overcharge us for the journey, we got dropped off at the completely wrong address, and then spent the next hour wandering around lost and asking for directions, and occasionally popping into the 7 eleven to get some air conditioned relief from the 36 degree heat. Eventually we found a tuk tuk driver who knew where the embassy was, but he wanted a massive 100 baht (two pounds) for the fare which we decided was far too much. Instead we struck a deal with him, for 20 baht he would take us to the embassy, provided we stopped off at a tailor shop on the way and pretended to be interested in buying a suit, which would mean he would get some free fuel vouchers from the shop. We thought he was a nice guy so decided to go along with it, and put on a great show of umming and aahing about a tie before deciding not to buy anything. When we eventually got to the embassy we discovered that it was closed, so struck another deal with the tuk tuk driver to pay him an extra 60 baht to take us back to the guest house, provided we went to another tailor shop and a jewellery shop on the way home. Since we now had nothing else to do with our day we agreed, and I put on another top performance pretending to be interested in sapphire rings before abruptly changing my mind. We eventually managed to make it to the embassy the next day and put in our application forms. I was quite amused that one of the questions on the form was 'complexion', and even more amused to see that most of the Asian applicants had put down 'yellow' as their answer!
It is now day seven in Bangkok and I must say although I have thoroughly enjoyed indulging in cheap massages/manicures/pedicures and eating out three times a day the delights of Bangkok have now well and truly worn off. Thankfully we are picking up our passports tomorrow and flying to Burma on Sunday which I am very excited about. Not sure how often I'll be able to get on the internet there, if at all, but I shall be updating my blog as often as possible.
Anyone interested enough to read this do get in touch and tell me what's going on at home! xxx
A summary of the last 5 months!
So needless to say I haven't exactly kept on top of my blogging but I'll do a little summary of the last 5 months to make up for lost blogs.
After my last installment I did indeed make my way to Siem Reap, where I spent a few days shopping at the night market, getting massages, visiting floating villages, getting up at 4.30am to see the sun rise over Angkor Wat, and motorbike taxi-ing to some of the other temples of Angkor. All of which was amazing. After that I hopped on a bus to Bangkok for Thailand round two. The first leg of the journey took hours longer than it should have on account of the numerous food stops, including a two hour lunch stop. We then got transferred to a mini bus where the driver made up for lost time with his insanely reckless driving, which involved a lot of swerving and dangerous overtaking, pulling out in front of lorries and driving the wrong way down a dual carriageway to avoid toll road fees, which turned a 4 hour journey into a 2 and half hour journey. I was quite used to terrifying Asian bus journeys by this point so I wasn't too worried, but I was sat next to a woman who had recently been in a car accident, so her frequent screaming and jumpiness didn't really make for a very relaxing trip. When I arrived in Bangkok I got dropped off at another bus stop headed for the islands in the south of Thailand. At the bus stop I got talking to an English guy called Dan, who was just at the start of a four month trip, and it turned out we were both going to Ko Tao. We got the bus together to Chumphon overnight, and then got dropped off at a ferry point in the middle of the night, where we had to sit in a waiting room for about three hours. I went to sleep with my head on a table for a few hours before boarding the boat which took another couple of hours before finally arriving in Ko Tao where unfortunately it was raining. We checked into a dorm where we met an English girl called Helen and a Dutch girl called Sanne, both of whom were lovely. The four of us ended up spending about 10 days together in Ko Tao, Ko Phangan and Railay island where we spent most of our nights enjoying more whisky buckets and fire shows, and our days sleeping it off, lying on the beach, visiting waterfalls and kayaking, all of which was a lot of fun.
At some point during my trip I had made the decision not to get my flight home at the end of November, but to go to Melbourne instead for an Australian adventure, so I paid for a working holiday visa, bought a flight and flew there on 25th November where I met up again with Alan and some of his friends (refer back to 'amusing group of Irish guys' in the Perhentian islands entry). I got a job after a couple of weeks as an Admin Assistant for an engineering company which was lucky as I had well and truly run out of money by the time I got to Melbourne, and stayed at Alan's for about a month, then with a friend from work for about 2 months, and then rented a room with another friend for the final month. Despite living rent free for the majority of my time in Melbourne I still managed to save very little money, possibly on account of it having recently been listed as 8th most expensive city in the world. After four months of cheap living in Southeast Asia this was particularly painful. Melbourne was a lot of fun, but after a few months (particularly once the weather starting getting dangerously similar to English weather), I decided it was high time for me to leave so I booked a flight to Tasmania to visit Andy, another friend I met back in August whilst in Malaysia, and left at the beginning of April.
Andy picked me up from the airport in Launceston and I stayed with him for a few days, exploring the cute seaside town of Ulverstone and renting a car to visit canyons, white sandy beaches and mountains, all of which was really beautiful. I spent Good Friday having an absolute feast with Andy's family and huge group of family friends from the neighbourhood which was lovely, and then managed to get a free ride with one of Andy's friends to Hobart, the capital which was three hours away. I stayed in a hostel there and wandered around the city, visited Mona, a very cool art gallery, and did a couple of tours to Port Arthur, a former prison site for all the convicts that were shipped over from England, and to Freycinet Peninsular on the east coast which has amazing beaches. After Hobart I got a bus back to Launceston, before flying to Bangkok the next day for Southeast Asian adventure round two....
After my last installment I did indeed make my way to Siem Reap, where I spent a few days shopping at the night market, getting massages, visiting floating villages, getting up at 4.30am to see the sun rise over Angkor Wat, and motorbike taxi-ing to some of the other temples of Angkor. All of which was amazing. After that I hopped on a bus to Bangkok for Thailand round two. The first leg of the journey took hours longer than it should have on account of the numerous food stops, including a two hour lunch stop. We then got transferred to a mini bus where the driver made up for lost time with his insanely reckless driving, which involved a lot of swerving and dangerous overtaking, pulling out in front of lorries and driving the wrong way down a dual carriageway to avoid toll road fees, which turned a 4 hour journey into a 2 and half hour journey. I was quite used to terrifying Asian bus journeys by this point so I wasn't too worried, but I was sat next to a woman who had recently been in a car accident, so her frequent screaming and jumpiness didn't really make for a very relaxing trip. When I arrived in Bangkok I got dropped off at another bus stop headed for the islands in the south of Thailand. At the bus stop I got talking to an English guy called Dan, who was just at the start of a four month trip, and it turned out we were both going to Ko Tao. We got the bus together to Chumphon overnight, and then got dropped off at a ferry point in the middle of the night, where we had to sit in a waiting room for about three hours. I went to sleep with my head on a table for a few hours before boarding the boat which took another couple of hours before finally arriving in Ko Tao where unfortunately it was raining. We checked into a dorm where we met an English girl called Helen and a Dutch girl called Sanne, both of whom were lovely. The four of us ended up spending about 10 days together in Ko Tao, Ko Phangan and Railay island where we spent most of our nights enjoying more whisky buckets and fire shows, and our days sleeping it off, lying on the beach, visiting waterfalls and kayaking, all of which was a lot of fun.
At some point during my trip I had made the decision not to get my flight home at the end of November, but to go to Melbourne instead for an Australian adventure, so I paid for a working holiday visa, bought a flight and flew there on 25th November where I met up again with Alan and some of his friends (refer back to 'amusing group of Irish guys' in the Perhentian islands entry). I got a job after a couple of weeks as an Admin Assistant for an engineering company which was lucky as I had well and truly run out of money by the time I got to Melbourne, and stayed at Alan's for about a month, then with a friend from work for about 2 months, and then rented a room with another friend for the final month. Despite living rent free for the majority of my time in Melbourne I still managed to save very little money, possibly on account of it having recently been listed as 8th most expensive city in the world. After four months of cheap living in Southeast Asia this was particularly painful. Melbourne was a lot of fun, but after a few months (particularly once the weather starting getting dangerously similar to English weather), I decided it was high time for me to leave so I booked a flight to Tasmania to visit Andy, another friend I met back in August whilst in Malaysia, and left at the beginning of April.
Andy picked me up from the airport in Launceston and I stayed with him for a few days, exploring the cute seaside town of Ulverstone and renting a car to visit canyons, white sandy beaches and mountains, all of which was really beautiful. I spent Good Friday having an absolute feast with Andy's family and huge group of family friends from the neighbourhood which was lovely, and then managed to get a free ride with one of Andy's friends to Hobart, the capital which was three hours away. I stayed in a hostel there and wandered around the city, visited Mona, a very cool art gallery, and did a couple of tours to Port Arthur, a former prison site for all the convicts that were shipped over from England, and to Freycinet Peninsular on the east coast which has amazing beaches. After Hobart I got a bus back to Launceston, before flying to Bangkok the next day for Southeast Asian adventure round two....
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