2nd chance for bangkok. thai islands plus singapore

Yet again, we found ourselves on another bus! We kept on stopping, they made us get off knowing that everyone would buy from their shops. Finally made it to the boarder, when we crossed we had to get into a tiny van with everyones luggage – it was cramped, no room to move. The driver was crazy – 30 minutes outside of arriving to bangkok, the van breaks down!!! We all had to get off and wait for 2 hours in the heat for another van to come get us! We could have paid for a taxi, but it would have cost the same as what we had paid to get from cambodia – so we waited it out. We made it – checked into a hotel, it was lush, we had a pool on the rooftop, what more could we need, we were on a quiet road with all the markets just 2 minutes away.

In the evening we got talking to a young lad from america in subways who had been living in the area for 3 years. He told us of all the areas to avoid because of the protesting. He played a guitar in a 2 piece band for a bar the next street away – so we dropped by and watched his one hour set. We had such a fab evening – they played all sing a long songs, real upbeat too. Grant got drunk and ended up buying me a rose off a little girl, lol, bless!

The next day we had to get up and make our way to the airline office to sort out our flights to get out of bangkok, but the receptionist told us not to go to the office as it was a protest area. We were then turned to plan B, phoning the office. We ended up calling london, got it sorted in one hour and it didn’t cost as much as we thought. We then took some time to relax in the pool on the rooftop, then spent the afternoon browsing through all the market stalls and drinking thai iced tea. Woke up to a crazy storm – had to walk out in the pouring rain to get to the pick up point, we got drenched! When we got to the lobby – the floor was marble and soaking, I ended up slipping everywhere with everyone watching. It was funny! When we arrived at the airport, we checked in and went straight to the food court. Where supprisingly grant had a burger king for breaky. We walked to our gate and watched the planes landing and taking off. Then spent nearly 2 hours whilst waiting to board browsing the internet for free. We spent what seemed like 10 minutes on the plane and then was getting off at the next destination – Ko Samui. When we got to the luggage collection point we passed what to me looked like this beautiful, georgous – heavenly thai woman, dressed extremly well and was just stunning. I thought to myself – skinny cow lol. Grant on the other hand thought ‘lady boy!’ but questioned it as he aslo thought “it” was to skinny!! All the way through our journey on the ferry we were scanning it. When we got to the isalnd it turned out that “it” was on our mini bus that would take us to a hotel, and it spoke like a man that was trying its best to sound like a woman, it was cringe worthy. When we were hunting for a place to stay me and grant sat next to it and had a conversation with her, it was very strange. After seeing a few hotels we picked one where we had a deluxe pool view room, it was expensive but we also had a private beach.

The next morning we were up bright and early, to make use of the facilites before we had to check out, we got breaky, a help yourself buffet, chilled out at the beach then finished the morning off at the pool. The rain came too, but it was fun swimming out in it when it was hammering it down. We check out then walked to the main part of the town looking for somewhere cheap to stay. Once again we spent a lot as the room was amazing, no joke…it was like a palace! We stopped in an internet café where we tried to find out how much a flight was to singapore. Didn’t book anything though as we werent too sure what we wanted to do. Spend the entire afternoong in the 3 pools, then got ready for the evening. We got a tuktuk to take us to a different part of town, (well, that’s what we thought) we ended up getting dropped off a little further down the road from our hotel. We were in search for a bloody thai iced tea for grant, he was obbsessed. Then once we found the tea we couldt finally eat! Everywhere was expensice so we walked for ages to try to find a cheap place, then we came across a 50% off restaurant. It was heaven! We had a lovely meal then took a stroll back and crashed when we got into bed. I worried over packing, so began to gather everything so I wouldn’t have to do it all in the morning. I asked grant where my debit card was – up he got off the bed! “I’VE LEFT THE CAMERA BAG IN THAT RESTAURANT – WITH EVERYTHING IN!!!” we literatly ran out of the hotel room and didn’t stop (well I did) until we got to the resturant. It was further than we remembered. And luckily they were just closing down – so we caught them just in time, when they seen it was us, they gave us the bag back, thank god they’d found it and thank god we didn’t go somewhere that was busy otherwise someone could have taken it. We sat there – beetroot red, sweat pouring off of us, and the heat coming off of our bodys was redicullous, thinking of all the things that we could have lost and all the things that we couldn’t have done without it all got us depressed. Got some cold water down us trying to cool down but couldn’t, baught the manager a drink then got a tuktuk back.

The next morning we woke up and got ready for our journey to Ko Phi Phi. We took 7 different types of transport to get there – 1, mini bus 2, coach 3, boat 4, coach 5, coach 6, tuktuk 7 (finally) ship!!! We were increadibly restless as you could imagine getting on and off all those different vehicles. When we arrived the weather was overcast – the island looked too good to be true, we met a young lad off the baot who took us to look at a hotel, he took us to beach bungalows, but they were expensive so we just stuck with the hotel room. We headed out for a walk – the area where we were staying was so lovely – it felt like a real perfect island. We got called over as we walked passed a dive center, we took a price list and said we would think about it. 2 minutes further down the path we passed another dive shop, and we found ourselves sat inside filling out forms and paying for 2 dives. Later on that night we had an all you can eat buffet at our resort. Only had one plate full though as it wasn’t that good. Later on – walked around the shops where we fell in love with a coconut tree lamp. It was too expensive so left it there sadly! We ended our night on the beach watching a group of lads fire dancing, they were amazing.

The following morning we got our things packed – checked out and were in an internet café rushing to get our flight booked from phuket to singapore (as the site wasn’t working the night before). Got to the dive shop – met our dive master and two girls who were diving with us then headed to the boat. The boat and the scenery on the way to our dive point was fantastic! Our 1st dive was breathtaking, massive corals, thousand of different types of fish swimming around us, it was increadable. Inbetween dives we had lunch served, but grant was feeling ill, then sadly ended up being sick, bless! Our 2nd dive was even better – our dive master had said it was going to be like a garden of flowers, and that’s exactly what it was like – but more exotic. It was amazing to watch the fish swimming along with us. Sadly we had to make out way back to the harbour – to grab our belongings then leave on the next boat. Before we left we made one last barter for that lamp, and got it!

On the next boat trip we had air con which we thought was brill – at first…but 5 minutes just sat there it was freezing, I had to put my jacket on, we both slept through the trip then arrived at Phuket. There isn’t a lot to say about our time in Phuket – we arrived, slept in a hotel, ate then left! Got our flight down to singapore – which the flight was delayed by one hour – singapore was lovely. We left the airport on a skytrain, which saved us a lot of money. It was real cheap, too cheap infact. It made travelling around the city easy for us! Got to a nice area called little india. Walked for miles looking for a place to stay – I got the names of the accomodation mixed up and when we got to one location the buildings had all been knocked down!!! Grant wouldn’t stop laughing at me, so we walked some more and found the 1st place we were origanally looking for. It was so expensive – you wouldn’t believe this – we paid nearly 50 pounds to sleep in a room barely big enough to fit a double bed, all it had was a tiny window, a matress on the floor and a lamp! I was so mad that they had the cheek to take that amount off people. We made use of the internet and got breaky in the morning then got straight from there! We walked back to the train station and our plans were to find a place to stay near the water park (which was also near to the airport). But as usual, nothing ever goes right for us, there was no where to stay in that area, nothing was going to spoil our day at the waterpark – so we rammed our backpacks in the lockers and off we went on all the rides!!! When we were both pruned out after spending the entire day in the water – we headed back in the skytrain to airport. Grant was tempted to sleep at the airport, but I was worried that someone would come and move us – so we looked for accomodation for the night. In the airport we found a lady who booked hotels, so we booked a room at a real expensive hotel with a free shuttle bus there and back.