27-30 November 2011
After waiting at the guesthouse for over an hour and a half to be picked up for the bus to Bangkok from Siem Reap ($12USD), I discovered that there was an Irish girl (Orlaith) who was taking the same bus. Finally arriving at the bus, it appeared that we were the last ones to be picked up, and both of the buses seemed to be full. After a lot of back and forth between the 2 buses, the bus driver exclaimed "it's ok, we have plastic seat for you. Only hour and half to border, new bus after that". We then got the joy of carrying our little plastic seats on to the bus and wedge them in the aisle. Not only did it take closer to 4 hours than the original hour and a half, but they decided to stop 3 times, so we would have to carry our seats off for people to get out, and then wait for everyone to file back on so we could carry our seats back down to our positions.
Finally reaching the border, after glaring at people sleeping in their seats for hours, it was time to drag my 24kgs of luggage between Cambodia and Thailand. The line up on the Cambodian side was very hot and sweaty, standing out in the direct heat with no air con or fans. A 10 minute walk down to the Thailand border and I was ready to just turn around and stay in Cambodia for the rest of my life. The wait outside didn't take too long, but then there was about an hour wait inside, thank goodness for the air con.
We made our way to the vans that were to take us the rest of the way to Bangkok, and surprise surprise, we had another food stop. Giving in to my food strike on buses, I got some delicious pad thai. Only fitting to get some pad thai on first arrival to Thailand. Orlaith and I got bundled in to the front of another mini van and we were finally heading towards Bangkok, discovering on the way that we were both staying at NapPark Hostel.
I had originally thought that I wouldn't like Bangkok, but how wrong I was! We checked in to our backpackers (my first dorm room!) and showered and met back up to get some dinner. More street food, from Khao San Road and we found a pub to eat it at with some Singha's and buckets of mojitos. Of course there had been flooding the previous week, with shops still having sandbags out the front of them, and with that, we decided we should sneak in to the closed off river to check it out. To much disappointment the river wasn't even breaching it's banks and the only evidence of flooding was the fast flowing water. The hours flew by and before I knew it, it was way past my bedtime as I had a 10am transfer to the airport so I could get to Patong for some quality beach time.
After some luggage rearranging to get the check in to 20kgs, I was finally sitting at the airport gate to get to the beach. It was kind of awkward sitting at the airport not knowing where to look with numerous couples consisting of grey haired gentlemen with young thai girls. Hmmm.
Patong was nice with relaxing on the beach, getting served beers (as well as being asked if you wanted to buy everything else under the sun) as you lay there in the sun. After contemplating whether to go to Ko Phi Phi for a day, I decided to save that for next time, and just made the most of the beach and the street food.
Finally reaching the border, after glaring at people sleeping in their seats for hours, it was time to drag my 24kgs of luggage between Cambodia and Thailand. The line up on the Cambodian side was very hot and sweaty, standing out in the direct heat with no air con or fans. A 10 minute walk down to the Thailand border and I was ready to just turn around and stay in Cambodia for the rest of my life. The wait outside didn't take too long, but then there was about an hour wait inside, thank goodness for the air con.
We made our way to the vans that were to take us the rest of the way to Bangkok, and surprise surprise, we had another food stop. Giving in to my food strike on buses, I got some delicious pad thai. Only fitting to get some pad thai on first arrival to Thailand. Orlaith and I got bundled in to the front of another mini van and we were finally heading towards Bangkok, discovering on the way that we were both staying at NapPark Hostel.
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| Our crew at Khao San Road |
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| Sandbagged shops |
I had originally thought that I wouldn't like Bangkok, but how wrong I was! We checked in to our backpackers (my first dorm room!) and showered and met back up to get some dinner. More street food, from Khao San Road and we found a pub to eat it at with some Singha's and buckets of mojitos. Of course there had been flooding the previous week, with shops still having sandbags out the front of them, and with that, we decided we should sneak in to the closed off river to check it out. To much disappointment the river wasn't even breaching it's banks and the only evidence of flooding was the fast flowing water. The hours flew by and before I knew it, it was way past my bedtime as I had a 10am transfer to the airport so I could get to Patong for some quality beach time.
After some luggage rearranging to get the check in to 20kgs, I was finally sitting at the airport gate to get to the beach. It was kind of awkward sitting at the airport not knowing where to look with numerous couples consisting of grey haired gentlemen with young thai girls. Hmmm.
Patong was nice with relaxing on the beach, getting served beers (as well as being asked if you wanted to buy everything else under the sun) as you lay there in the sun. After contemplating whether to go to Ko Phi Phi for a day, I decided to save that for next time, and just made the most of the beach and the street food.
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| More street food! |
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| Patong Beach |
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