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| at the grand palace |
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| cool looking fort thingy near my favourite cafe place |
So I thought I better write about my time in Thailand so far as I'm about to head off to koh Tao, an island that comes highly recommended by everyone that's been there. This may be a little slap dash as I've not been writing in my diary as regularly as usual -I'm distracted by my new toy...
I don't know why but I didn't expect to like Thailand and I wasn't particularly looking forward to arriving. I enjoyed my flight as much as ever, and was pretty sure India would have lost my luggage (no offence) and I was trying to think buddhistly about it... After waiting half an hour in immigration, which I actually secretly wanted to take longer so that dawn would break and I wouldn't have to use a cab or something in a strange country while it was still dark, I saw my luggage rotating towards me in the conveyor belt as though it knew... Spooky, I've never had so little hassle when arriving at an international airport! Next I found the information desk where a very helpful lady told me my cheapest option to for getting to where the hotels were was to hop on a train, she told me which train to get, how much it would cost, and then said to get a taxi from there. The train was a delightful experience, so clean and not remotely crowded, probably in part due to how early it was, but still, such a change from India! It was lovely seeing the sun come up as we passed between skyscrapers and other buildings. The city is a lot bigger than I expected; I say that, although I'm not sure I did actually expect anything... I guess in my mind a city is just as big as it looks on the map...
I shared a cab with another white person I just met as we came down the station steps, his name was Tom and he was from Germany and had been to Thailand 4 times, we also hotel hunted together. Eventually found one, which is where I have stayed for the past 5 nights or so. It does what it says on the tin. I am still impressed with the cleanliness of the country thus far, and the reasonable number of people, and the male to female ratio...
This is where it starts to get a bit tricky, can't recall much of what I've done... I might just write bullets of things I can remember...
I don't have the bullet point option on my iPad... Ridiculous!
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| food at the joy luck club |
-the girls here are all really pristine and pretty, when I was on the train after arriving and not having washed for a day or so, this really skinny girl with perfectly manicured hands sat down next to me with her neat clothes and smart handbag and busied herself on her tidy phone in its sensible case. I looked in my reflection in the window, a fat, scruffy, slightly spotty, tired looking me felt a little inadequate and out of place in this land of clean and tidy perfection.-I went to the national art gallery, the young artist award work was particularly spectacular, I loved it. One girl had entered her 5 photos for the competition and they were of road kill - she stole my idea! Also some good pictures of cats, almost bought one...
-went to the national museum as I know nothing of thai history. I learnt: they have had a lot of kings and a lot of wars and had an iron age too! They like gold things and have a rich Buddhist history.
-went to a big IT mall to look for a laptop of sorts to write stories on... Bought an ipad2 and have felt very extravagant since, and also a little paranoid... Is it still in my bag? I used the train and boat to get there and back, and also had a short tuk tuk ride to the station. The tuk tuks are a lot more comfy here than in India...
-done a lot of shopping, it's like they know me! All the cutesy rabbit stuff is awesome, I have bought many rabbit related products... I do not need any more pens or pencils with rabbits on...
-shopped in Chinatown, that was busy. Lots of cutesy stuff though.
-went to the grand palace and saw the emerald Buddha because I felt like I ought to rather than because I wanted to... Yeah it's nice buildings and what not... But... I don't know, I think I've just had enough of buildings now... I don't want to see any more buildings except for my windmill...
-I've been practically robbed by a pigeon lady!! I guess you need to be ripped off at least once in every country, plus I've had a lot of good stuff happen, it needs balancing out... She was just there feeding the pigeons and I smiled - as is the done thing in Thailand, she cleared some pigeons away for me, I thanked her, then she stuffed some corn in my hand and said 'good luck' I thought she meant it was good luck for her to give me free corn to feed the pigeons... She then gave me three more bags, I just thought ok, they won't be more than tuppence... 150 baht a bag... I was like'no!!' then thought I'd pay her 150 in total, and she grabbed the 1000 baht note out my purse and gave me 50 baht change! Which isn't even good maths anyway! I gave up after getting 400 baht back and decided it could be like a charity donation as Im not supporting any charities at the mo... Although shes possibly the most undeserving charity I've ever given to...
-I've posted some stuff, and I have to say the postal service here is an absolute delight to use, I'd even go so far as to say I enjoy the process. Although I do quite enjoy it in England too... If there aren't queues... Maybe I should become a post woman, I've often thought I'd enjoy it.
- The weather has been balmy! It's like a lovely summer in England. There was a thunderstorm the other night which was possibly one of the loudest I've ever heard, I felt scared, and then a little pathetic after that... the next day it rained a fair bit, but was still warm. It's much warmer than the parts of India I visited.
That's about it then, I'm off to go and beach myself for a few weeks now. I don't really know where I'll go after koh Tao, Its nice just asking people you meet where to go... Planning huh? What is it good for?
Love you all!
Photos to come later...
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