Day 12: Leaving the islands, back to Bangkok

Our morning in Ko Samui was a tranquil one. We had a great breakfast (interrupted briefly by a giant wasp which flew under our table and stuffed a large caterpillar into its nest). Nicole took a dip in the water, which now appeared to be jellyfish-free. We soaked in some sun and decided it was time to move on.

We hailed a taxi back to the pier and tried to get combined ferry/bus tickets at the main counter. The price was expensive and did not include a bus combo, so we headed back to the pierside town and asked around at some travel agencies. We found one that offered the combo trip for about half the price we'd found elsewhere, so we sprang for it. In the meantime, we grabbed some drinks at a coffee shop while we waited. It was some of the best coffee I've ever had, Nicole had a delicious coconut shake. There was also a crazy bulbous-headed fish in a tank.

We boarded the ferry and, since Samui is the closest island to the mainland, it was not very long before we were on our bus back to the airport. We ate a late lunch while waiting for our flight, since we had a few hours to kill in the Surat Thani airport. We watched some tv showing footage of the protests in Bangkok, which had turned violent only a couple days earlier. We were glad we did not see any of it, and hoped on our return we wouldn't catch any violence. Interesting to see similar discontent as we had witnessed in Cambodia about a week prior. I wondered if Southeast Asia might see an arab-spring type of moment in which discontent manifested throughout the region in protests against their regimes. Our last hotel of the trip was closer to the shopping malls and Sukhumvit. It was a five star hotel called The Sukosol and was booked through my credit card rewards. It was one of the fanciest hotels I've been in. The staff were hand over foot friendly and we had a sweet room with a view of the Bangkok high-rises. It was just what we needed to rest up for the next day and our long flight ahead. Since it was getting late, we ordered room-service for a decent price and talked about our plans to squeeze every last drop out of our trip. The goal was to visit the Grand Palace first thing in the morning before checking out of the hotel!

- C

Day 6: Return to Bangkok, Sukhumvit

We left Siem Reap early to catch a direct bus to Bangkok. It was supposedly the only one in town according to many of the travel websites, though many other agencies in town were advertising similar trips. It was a bit pricey and they told us it should take about 6 hours. We enjoyed some of the Western Cambodian countryside before arriving a couple hours later in the border town of Poipet.

Neither of us could remember the last time we did a land border crossing. It was odd walking through the small town, trudging up some stairs to the border office, and waiting in line for over an hour just to climb down another flight of stairs into Thailand. As we waited for the bus to proceed, we chatted with a British man and marveled at the two wheeled carts, piled to the sky with goods, crossing the border with just one or two people pulling them by hand. There was almost a slow-motion accident involving one.

Finally, we were on our way again, for not 4, not 5, but about 6 MORE hours. All in all, we agreed, we would not have done that again. We lost a good part of the day to travel when a bit of money more would have bought us a quick hop by plane.

Tired from the ride, we checked into the Phachara Suites, which is an outstanding modern hotel in a ritzy area of Bangkok known as Sukhumvit. It seemed to be geared towards business travelers with extended stay, as it was essentially an apartment complete with stove and washer/dryer. Hooray Wells Fargo rewards points. We ventured out for some dinner at a Chinese noodle shop in the heart of town. The meal was spicy, but delicious.

Walking through Sukhumvit is like a strange science-fiction version of the future, where every imaginable culture is represented in some small way, crammed into neon-lit streets. A bit what I imagine Hong Kong to look like. A predominant influence was muslim Arabs, some of the women wore a full niqab. Nicole was greeted by a man, saying "Welcome madam" in a sultry voice. We saw a couple of women wearing what we later found out to be called a batula/batoola: a gold face mask covering the nose area as a kind of "veil", similar to this one:

We stumbled onto an area that we had heard about as being the "red light district" of Bangkok known as Soi Cowboy. The bars, bathed in red neon light, were filled with scantily dressed women (and a few ladyboys) beckoning businessmen and tourist-looking single men in to play pool, have a drink, etc... They didn't seem to quite know what to do with Nicole and I, so we just strolled through. These startling contrasts to the women a few streets over decreed by their religion to cover head to toe, were interesting to see.

The night took a turn for the worse as I came down with a case of food poisoning. Damn that cheap, delicious Chinese food. I slumped into bed as Nicole tended to me.

 

- C