I've only been in Thailand for five days but it feels like ten. Hopefully I can add some photos to this entry unlike the last one, we'll see how it goes.
So, I took off on Thursday morning on Etihad Airlines which is like, the nicest airline ever! Very plush seats, lots of leg room, almost 70 movies to choose from, plus albums and tv shows. Food was okay too. Also I'd like to thank them as I've taken their comfy pillow for all of my upcoming bus rides. Abu Dhabi airport seemed nice but I only saw it for about 5 seconds so hopefully I'll see it more on my way back.
I arrived on Friday morning and met Laura, Lucy, and Mairead at the airport as they'd just flown back from some of the islands. We went to our guesthouse on Khao San Road which looks kind of like a super busy Chinatown full of backpackers. Bangkok stinks! And I mean stinks as in smells, reaks, pewwy yucky, vomitous, blaghy odor.
Of all places to go to first, we ate at Swensons. For those of you who don't know, Swensons was an ice cream place in the U.S. that as far as I know closed down years ago. We had some early morning ice cream, then took a tuk tuk (mini taxi on three wheels) to some temples during the day. I can't remember the names of them cause there were so many but they were amazing {annoyed I can't upload photos right now.}
We were exhausted at night, so we just went for drinks at one bar while Laura got her hair braided and then retired to bed.
We had arranged a tour at a travel place in Bangkok, so on Saturday we took a minibus to the floating market about an hour and a half from the city. First you get in this motor boat that holds about 8-10 people that takes you to the market itself. Then you hire a row boat with a driver that takes you around this river market where people are selling stuff from boats (hot foods, exotic fruits, hats.) It's cool at first but I think the novelty wears off after about five minutes.
After that we stopped at the Kanchaburi War Cemetary, had lunch on a floating restaurant, then we were off to the Jeath Museum and the Bridge Over River Kwai. The musuem basically explained the Japanese enforcement of building the bridge and the Thai-Burma railway by primarily Austrailian, English, and Dutch POWS during WWII and how they suffered when building it. I attempted to cross the bridge but there were hug gaps all along the sides with nothing to save you if you fall into the river so I turned and went back.
Next we took this wacky train (which I have a video of) to Nam Tok. This train was the most primitive train I've ever been on. It just had two rows of seats facing each other and it was bouncing the whole way like we were on a roller coaster. There were 13 year old school children in our car who asked to practice their English with us which was cute. My girl gave me a grasshopper made out of bamboo which was nice but I couldn't carry it for the whole trip so I gave it to another kid when I got to Nam Tok, hopefully she won't see him with it!
When we arrived, we were taken by pick-up truck (meaning you sit in the back of a covered pick-up truck on a bench - literally), to Somnuk Elephant Camp. It was basically a floating hostel in the middle of the jungle/mountains with nothing around. It seriously looked like we were on Survivor, that's the only way I could describe it. We had to walk across these tiny planks to get to our rooms (with our huge backpacks on, I thought I was going to fall into the river.) The bathrooms were pretty buggy which grossed me out but I managed to handle it. We had dinner upstairs and then drank afterwards with fellow travelers (about 12 of us.)
The next morning we woke up at 6:30 am to do elephant bathing. I was shitting myself when I saw the elephants, they are huge!!! I climbed onto one and held onto the trainer for dear life, that thing had to have been at least 9 feet tall. We went down this muddy hill (again fearing for my life) until we reached the bathing area in the river next to our rooms. We scrubbed the elephants while sitting on them, and the trainers had us stand on the elephants and make embarassing glamour poses with them. It was definitely the best part of the trip so far.
After that we took proper elephant rides. Mairead and I sat on a seat that was propped on the elephant and walked around for a bit. I refused to get on the front of the elephant but Mairead did, and she looked like my servant which I'll show you in the photos when I post them. We then went on a bamboo raft which was very peaceful but pretty boring. Basically you just ride slowly down the river on a raft made of bamboo.
We then took a pick-up truck to Elwin Waterfalls which is a waterfall park with 7 levels. You can go swimming in each level but you can only go sliding down rocks/jumping at the 4th level. I was a complete chicken about getting in the water because there are tons of fish ranging from an inch in size to a foot and a half swimming all around you and nipping you. I jumped right out of the water as soon as I got in, but got myself back in by trying to maneuver myself into a tube but falling in the water by accident. It was fine with the fish after a while because if you keep moving they won't bother you. I didn't slide down the smooth rocks though because I was being too much of a coward for that.
We climbed so many dirty, muddy, rocky hills to each level of the falls that our legs were killing us by the end of the day. We went to Hellfire Pass after that (busy day!!) which was an area of the railway where the POWs had to dig through rock to build it. We walked down and then up the 250+ steps (that's right after our waterfall trekking) and saw some of the original rails. We checked out the museum for a bit before heading back to Bangkok on a minibus.
I can't write anymore because my brain is on overload, and this was all just from the first three days. Tomorrow I'm going on a 3 day trek through the jungle near Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, eek!
