New Year in Bangkok

I arrived at my fancy pants hostel in Bangkok around 13.00pm after 7 hours on two ferries, 5 hours wait at a train station, 12 hours on a train, then a metro, then a skytrain. Easy! It was a pretty cool place, with small, clean, dorm rooms and a couple of communal areas downstairs. It was located in a more central part of the city and when I looked up where the big celebrations were going to be, I found they were only a mile further down the very same road!

I hung around the hostel in the evening until I found a group of people that I could join. I first found myself in a group of around 10 independent travelers, which must have been a first, but when they decided to head over to Khao San road and ignore the big countdown, I switched to another group and persuaded them to go. Or at least i thought I did. We all set off in that direction only for the majority of the group to halt, change their minds, and switch to Khao san road! How boring!!

So, me, Aroo, and Suzanne carried on. The area is called Siam, but would be better named shopping mall world. There is one ridiculously huge glass shopping centre after another. We stopped for a drink at the one that had some live music. I needed the loo, so off I trotted, but when I came to go back I found the crown had grown to epic proportions and that barriers had been drawn between me and the other two. It took me 20min to get back to them by which time it was getting mighty close to the big 12.00.

We hurried (as fast as you can through a sea of people) to the Skytrain and took it one stop down. Then we turned back on ourselves and raced through the crowd to where we could see the big clock ticking down. I was a little tipsy by this point, but I think it said something like 1.24. We had timed it well!

tick....tock....tick....tock....10....9........3....2....1....Whahoo! Boom! Bang! Oooh! Aaah! And it was all over. Then came the stampede......

We were carried along rather than moving by ourselves. Everybody wanted to leave at once and the sheer amount of people was incredible. Eventually we made our way out and found a tuk-tuk to join the others at the infamous Khao San road. When we got there the party was spilling out into the streets. We danced the night away until I hit the point where I had had enough and took a tuk-tuk home with another Liam.

The next day was not a write-off, but a waste of time none the less. I tried to do useful things like post home my diving books and book some transport up North, but it was a national holiday of course and nothing was open. That evening, feeling fed up and frustrated, I met Aroo and John, who were catching a bus to Chiang Mai. I made a spur of the moment decision to jump in the taxi with them and see if I could get a ticket on the same bus. I could, and I did, and there I left Bangkok.