Thailand

Dec 23- Christi writes:

After our achy, tiring, horrible China airlines flight, we arrived into Immigration and Customs at 1:50am. At customs, my agent flipped through my entire passport, looking at each stamp and country I've ever been to, while he grills Hassan with all sorts of questions: "Where did you come from? What flight did you last take? What is your purpose in Thailand?" etc,etc. We finally made it through, got our backpacks, and changed our first $100 USD into Thai Baht, which equaled to 3,600 BHT. We are rich! We get to Nan's house and H falls asleep, while I doze in and out.

Three hours later, the noise of the city, the new environment and the stuffy air got to me, and I awoke at 5:40am. While H was snoring away with his mouthguard, I happened to spy a monk below walking barefoot in the dirty streets of Thanon Chan (Chan Road) in the saffron garb donned by monks, probably making his way to the Temple. I thought it amazing that even so early into the day, the streets of Bangkok is already alive, and I feel as if I'm being let in on a little secret, observing from the third story window as I am doing.

At 9am, after another cold shower (the water heater hasn't been turned on in the third floor yet), H and I got directions from Nan to go to Kao San Road, or better known as 'Backpacker's Haven'. Two reasons we are heading to Kao San: 1) I need to buy a new battery charger and an SD memory card
2) We need to get lodging and transportation down to Phuket tonight

With insistence from Wynn's dad, a very nice and gracious man, we ate a Thai breakfast of congee with ground pork, Chinese fried donut, and a fried egg and Thai "spam" sandwich, our bellies were satisfied and off we went. The taxi to Kao San was amazingly cheap, just 65 BHT ($1.80) for a 30 minute taxi ride (there were tons of traffic!)

At Kao San Rd, I bought a charger and an SD card-- super expensive by the way as electronics are all imported, and we booked a night bus to Phuket (15 hours!) for 750 BHT and 2 nights at luxury resorts in Patong Beach. The first night at Poppa's Palace; the second night at Deevana Patong. After walking around and searching for the best package deals, talking to many agents and getting the best rates, calling all the hotels in Phuket to find out most of them were booked for the Christmas holidays, H and I were exhausted and starving, so we sampled our first food stall in Bangkok.

At Kao San Rd, H was the main attraction of the Thais, the Thai men, that is! They would either grab him by the arm, run their hands over their chins to mime a goatee and say 'You! You with the (insert mime of goatee here)', and they all loved to say the phrase 'Tuk tuk for you'. I guess to them, H looks like a walking dollar sign, and I, probably as an Asian woman dependent on her 'farang' to buy her things. As if!

After buying a cute brown and white polka-dotted bandeau bikini for $5, my first attempt at bartering with the Thais, H and I went to see our first Wat, Wat Chanasongkhram, one of the 9 sacred temples which means 'Conquer all obstacles'.

After burning incense to the Buddha (mom, who's a devout Christian, would kill me if she knew!), H and I taxied it to the jewel of Bangkok, The Grand Palace and Wat Phrao Kaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha).

The first thing we see when we get to the Grand Palace-- a huge mob of people, we are inappropriately dressed for the Wat, and this sign below:

H and I make a 100 BHT deposit for some of the Temple's more appropriate attire: me in a Thai sarong; H in the traditional Thai pants

We walk around The Grand Palace and enter into Wat Phrao Kaew, and it is as they say, simply AMAZING. The pictures will tell you much more than I can.

Being at Wat Phrao Kaew was literally, just having eye candy everywhere you looked. Each step you took led you to something even more fascinating than the last. H and I must've lost each other about a hundred times because we kept being magnetically drawn to all the attractions the Temple had to offer, opposite the direction of each other.

With such an amazing, jewel-adorned Temple dedicated to the Emerald Buddha, the suspense of seeing the Buddha was killing me.

After walking around the grounds of the Wat and entering to pay homage to the Buddha, H and I found ourselves in front of The Grand Palace.

Contrary to belief, the King does not reside here, but in a huge estate not too far off on Rama IV and King's Road.

As H and I were walking out of the Palace, we discovered an area filled with canons and canon balls.

As it neared 4pm, H and I were in a hurry to take the water taxi back to Nan's, shower, pack up and head over to the Southern Bus Terminal for our overnight ride down to Phuket.

As we are arranging for our transporation to Phuket, we run into a minor snag that could've caused some serious problems for us. Some words of advice, always have the agents write names and destinations down in Thai! We heard the agent telling us "Meet at 6:30pm in front of the 'Sathorn Bus Terminal'", but what he actually meant was, "Meet at 6:30pm in front of the 'Southern Bus Terminal'". We of course, don't find this out til its about 5:30pm and there is no such thing as the Sathorn Bus Terminal, but that there was a Southern Bus Terminal. Sigh. Luckily, Wynn's uncle knows his spots and even tells the taxi driver in Thai to rush us to our destination. I felt like the contestants on 'The Amazing Race'. Once the bus leaves, that's it-- no refunds, no waiting for passengers, no transportation down to Phuket for us. Let me tell you, the taxi driver was in a bigger rush than we were, as he's cruising through traffic and cursing under his breath at every motorist there is. We were in a hurry, but not in THAT big of a hurry. The backseats of all the taxi cabs for some reason, don't have any seat belts either, so we were fearful for our lives. He did get us safely there so we gave him a nice big tip, well what's considered big for the Thais.

We make it to our VIP bus! Whew. When they said it was A/C, they weren't kidding! They blasted that thing on high for the next 15 hours. Every passenger on the bus was freezing! The VIP bus seats reclined, so we actually got more sleep on that thing than we did on our flight. They even give you blankets, bottled water and a pillow. I was so cold that I put on my jacket and took out the other blanket that I brought with me. The lights were kept off the entire time so I couldn't even read or write in my journal when I was awake. I just watched the roads and all the other VIP buses swerving in front of us instead.

After my first (and last) attempt at using the bus toilet, I was glad they had a midnight pit stop for the restroom and grub. At the stop, all the Thais got off and used the restroom. Now I knew why no one used the toilet on the bus. With all the shaking and moving the bus does, its really hard not to fall in; secondly, they were stinky. We've been really lucky to come across nothing but Westernized toilets, but I knew somewhere along our trip, we'd encounter one of those Thai toilets everyone talks about. At the pit stop, we encounter our first one.

After using the toilet, I ordered a Thai dish of ground chicken, with basil, mint leaves and lime, and a fried egg on top. I asked the lady "How much?" "20 Baht", she replies. I give her a 100 baht note and she gives me 70 baht back. I said to her "Its 20 baht, you gave me 70 baht back". She points at the chopsticks though I am clearly holding out the change for her to see. She gives me some chopsticks and a napkin and says "I don't understand". This was not the first time they've done this to H and I. As soon as we get incorrect change, they seem to not understand us anymore. Even though its mere cents, pennies, if you will, the principle of feeling a little cheated leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I give the lady a glare, and I take more napkins than I should to make up for the lost change.

It is 5am! Two more hours before we arrive to Phuket! We've endured our overnight bus adventure and after that midnight stop, I pretty much refused to use the restroom again. So, I was super elated when we finally arrived to Phuket.