After a long flight from Australia I was glad to be off the plane and able to walk around. Hilary, our group leader met me at the arrival gates, I was one of the first to arrive. We loaded my bags into the van then I was free to walk around the airport for a while as we had to wait for more people to arrive. The next people through were Madeleine and Luke so we went for ice cream together upstairs in the airport.
We found this lovely ice cream parlor and I had lemon and lime sorbet, it was nice and refreshing. Even though it was midnight and we were in the airport you could still feel the heat.
Once the rest of the group arrived we bundled up into the van and set off through the city. None of us really chatted, we were too busy looking out the window at our new surroundings. Bangkok didn't look too bad, from what we were seeing so far. It looked quite modern and busy. After half an hour or so we pulled up down a small side street and took our bags into our guesthouse where more of our group were waiting or sleeping. It was late now around 2 am. I had my own room because I was waiting for Anna to arrive the next day. I put my bags in the room and asked anyone if they fancied a pint. All the girls looked at me like I was crazy wanted a nice cold pint at 2 am in a strange, scary city. Whats wrong with that ? Nothing. Luke jumped to the occasion so out we popped for a nice pint. We found a small street bar just a few minutes away. Our hotel was in the heart of Bangkok, so it was a real eye opener. We didn't stay out long as we had both had long flights and it was late but that beer was definitely needed !
The next day was a 'free day' while we waited for everyone to arrive, we would have our meeting that evening. The guest house did wonderful omelettes, pretty much all of us had an omlette that morning. I had a fresh coconut with mine too. As it was a free day we could do what we wanted, so a few of us headed out to the main tourist strip of Bangkok, Khaosan road. The strip was a long wide road that was pedestrianized and just full of stalls selling hippy, cotton clothes, hand made jewellery, t shirts with funny slogans on them or stalls with Thai food.
It was a whole new world. The stalls weren't selling burgers and fries, they had big bubbling pots of curry, chicken stir fry, grilled vegetables and even deep fried bugs. I wasn't brave enough to try any deep friend cockroaches yet but I did have a nice big bowl of thai green curry. It was bloody spicy so I had to ask for lots of extra rice to try and take the spice away. I totally failed and my eyes filled with tears on the street. The poor man probably thought I hated his food.
We all spent a few hours wondering around the street and split up, all wanting to go in different directions. I was waiting for Anna to arrive in a few hours before I had any massages, I thought we could go together. On the way to Khaosan road we got lost. We found our self at the end of an ally with no way out when a small man pointed at the door and hinted that we should go through it.We weren't quite sure we should but we did anyway, turned out, we walked through a kitchen, then a dorm, then we ended up in this little hippy bar / cafe / hostel thing that sold the most amazing lemon and lime ice shakes and had lots of comfy cushions and chill out music. On the way back to the hotel, as we didnt know any other way, we headed back from the bar, dorm and kitchen. No one seemed to mind so the whole time we were in Bangkok and each time we went back this became our little routine.
Once I got back to the hotel Anna had arrived from London. She was starving so dumped her bags and we headed out to get some street food. There was a row of 4 stalls just by our hotel that had been smelling great all day so I suggested we try them. I settled on the garlic chicken and rice while Anna had pad thai. The person serving us was very funny, kept on touching us and saying we were very pretty. They had long hair and large hands and a strange voice, we soon realized it was a lady boy. She/he was so friendly we ate their every day, and guess what, every day I ate the garlic chicken and I became addicted !
That evening we had a group meeting and I realized I was going to be travelling with a bunch of nutters. One girl explained, in her southern trailer trash accent, how she had bought a knife with her to asia for her trip. Why, you may ask ? Because her boyfriend told her too, because he told her asia was dangerous. Yeah, that girl barely lasted two weeks, she buggered off home. I made another girl cry. She had become a Facebook friend a few months before the trip started and had blogged about how Asia was going to change her life and how she wouldn't be so 'high so' any more. Bullshit. She said in her blog she wouldn't be bringing any make up with her to Asia, she wasn't going to wear any and she was going to be a different girl, a new person by the end of the trip. In the meeting I simply asked her why she had put so much make up on with a trowel when in was boiling hot and she said she wasn't going to wear any in her blog. She cried. Friendship started off on the right foot eh ?
After our meeting, Luke, Anna, Brent and I decided to go explore Bangkok by night, have a foot massage and a few beers. Just down the road from our Lady boy friend we saw a really cool looking bar. Not a traditional bar, not a building with walls and toilets and fancy shit like that. No, a camper van that was made into a bar. Pretty cool, we stopped and had a few cocktails there and chatted with the locals. Our next 'bar' was just over the road. It was a car boot, that had disco lights coming from it and disco balls playing trance music. There was a few tables set up with colorful table clothes that had what you needed on, There was no alcohol for sale. Only mushrooms and acid. We stopped and watched how everyone danced in the street with no care in the world then we made our way to the kitchen to the dorm to the bar. The rest of our night we spent on Khaosan road, buying hippy casual clothes for the rest of the trip and drinking very cheap beer. I had come from Australia where drinking was damn expensive to asia where I could have a pint for less than £1
and the night goes on....
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