Easily the most you touristic county I’ve visited so far I leave Thailand with slightly mixed feelings. Once again I’ve met so many great new people as well as a couple of more familiar faces. The food has, of course, been sublime, and the scenery exquisite… Yet I couldn’t help but feel for the entirety of my stay that everyone I met was trying to extract as much money out of me as possible…
Arriving in Thailand I knew only that I needed to be in Bangkok in four days time. My plan leaving the Highlands of Malaysia was essentially “go north”; after three minibuses, 14 hours and over 500km I arrived in the port town Surat Thani having arbitrary decided to head towards Koh Tao. When I got to the dock I was told the only ferry leaving that night was to Koh Pha Ngan, home of the (in)famous full moon party. As it was going on for 11pm I figured that was as good a plan as any and hopped on board the slow sleeper ferry.
The next morning I disembarked at six, sleepy, disorientated but still able to marvel at the beauty of the island. I was rapidly approached by a man offering “cheap rooms mister, cheap rooms”. Knowing full well I was about to be ripped off, but lacking the energy to resist I hopped on the back of his bike and was duly dropped off at an upmarket resort. While prices were steep by Thai standards (500 baht; around $15) I did have my own private room for the first time in five months, as well as access to the beautiful private beach. I went for an early morning swim before relaxing on the beach for a few hours.
Despite only staying two nights on the island I fitted in a fair amount. Exploring the winding roads on a moped, completing a Total Wipeout course (including being fired around ten metres into the air by two burly Germans , partying through the early hours (including a swim) and, of course, plenty of food!
Despite wishing I could have stayed at least twice as long I had arranged to meet friends in Bangkok, so was forced to leave. I took the quick ferry this time, completing the journey which previously took seven hours in just three. I’d booked an overnight train to Bangkok, which turned out to be a very good idea! The gentle rocking of the train was very soporific and the small bunks remarkably cosy, even if safety standards left a little to be desired!
To explain how I know the first friend I’d arranged to meet in Bangkok, Luke, requires me to go back around 24 years, to when I was just two years old! We both have an older sister of the same age, and apparently used to wave to each other from our respective push chairs when our parents walked home from school together. We were good friends through primary school, before he moved away and we pretty much lost contact. By coincidence he was also in Thailand so we arranged to meet. The second friend, Holly, I’d met just a few months earlier in St Petersburg, she was en route to Myanmar (Burma), but happy to stay in Bangkok a few days to catch up.
We all met with surprisingly little effort (having agreed on a hostel) and caught up what we’d been doing. We then made our way to the Myanmar embassy; both Holly and I needed a visa so figured we could get them at the same time. There’s a rule of thumb for trying to get anywhere, or achieve anything in Asia: estimate a time, double it, then add some. After waiting for over four hours we finally got our passports submitted, before visiting the reclining Buddha at Wat Pho, then having some dinner and beers.
Luke and I headed north again on a sleeper train. We’d purchased a joint ticket which included the train, transport to the Laos border and a two day boat journey. As we arrived in Chiang Mai at 4am we started looking for our transfer. It was after 20 minutes of searching we became suspicious that perhaps we’d been scammed… While our train tickets looked legitimate our ferry ticket and transfer was just handwritten Thai; after an hour we decided the best thing to do was find a hostel, get some sleep and sort it out later!
After a couple of hours sleep we figured we might as well make the best of the situation and visited the beautiful Doi Suthep, before realising it was probably worth giving the travel agency a call… They apologised for the inconvenience and booked us on for the following day, leaving us with an evening in Chiang Mai to enjoy one last Thai meal.
As I mentioned at the start of this post I’m uncertain exactly how I feel about Thailand. While I really enjoyed the grungy underbelly of Bangkok, Koh Pha Ngan just felt saccharine sweet, an example of how badly managed tourism can strip a place of all local character and crudely paste on top something which panders to the Western ideal of paradise. The less seedy areas of Bangkok were brilliant, speeding through the crowded streets in tuk-tuks was fun, but the constant hassle of people trying to sell things, while entertaining, could be irritating at times.
Of course, in just ten days I can hardly claim to have seen Thailand; if I’d had more time to get a little more off the beaten track I would have a completely different opinion. The places I visited are probably three of the biggest tourist attractions in the country, and have been for years, so it’s hardly surprising they cater exclusively to tourists!
I suppose I’m just going to have to go back and explore more, oh dear!
1unwiseman 