This post was accidentaly saved as a draft while I was in Thailand.
I am in Thailand now, but there is much to fill in so I will start with Penang.
After we left Singapore, we caught an overnight bus from Larkin terminal in JB to Penang. It was the usual fare, a nice super VIP bus with too much air con. Unfortunately for us, the bus terminal in Penang has moved in the past year from its former spot in the middle of the old city to its new spot in the suburbs. After realising that it was not realistic to find a city bus, we caught a cab into Chinatown. There, after some searching, we found nice clean hotel with a nice, (exclisively) Hokkien-speaking manager. We slept most of the rest of the day away. When we finally got up, we walked around the old section of the city and explored the pleasant streets full of Chinese/colonial style shop houses.
We spent the next few days doing much the same thing. Lots of walking, lots of eating great Straits-Chinese food, and lots of chances to practice my Chinese with the locals. Soon, we grew bored with the city and we caught some cheap Air Asia flights up to Bangkok.
Through a booking error, Rae and I caught different flights to Bangkok. As a result, on my flight I sat next to a middle aged Brittish English teacher who has been living in Thailiand for about a year. We had a good time exchangeing stories about the good and bad sides of living in Asia and the troubles with teaching English to ESL students. When we landed, we went our seperate ways- him with his Thai girlfriend and me to the backpaker districs around Kao San road.
The next morning I woke up early to go meet Rae at the airport. To my surprise, the traffic getting out there was passable and I arrived with some time to spare so I picked up a copy of the Economist and kept myself busy. When Rae arrived some time later, we took an airport bus in to the centre of town and began to walk around, asking the prices of hotels.
My original plan was, as this was our anniversary, to stay in the tallest building in Bangkok, a 60+ floor hotel near the centre of town. However, when we went in to look around, we decided that it was not nice enough to justify us spending twice our daily budget on one night. From there we got into a taxi and asked him if he could help us find a nice hotel. Of course he was only too happy to oblige. He took us on a round about route to some crummy and ridiculously overpriced hotel out towards the airport. When we told him that it would not do, he proceded to take us to three more equally overpriced hotels in the area. We soon realised that our taxi driver was taking us for a ride in more ways that one. In every hotel we went into, he would get out of the taxi first and say a few sentences to the hotel workers in Thai. These workers would then be the ones who would quote us the absurd prices. Realising that we could not expect to find good value this way, we told him to go on his way and we started looking at hotels in the area on our own. While significantly cheaper and similar or better quality than the ones he had shown us, these hotels were still too expensive and too far from the city's centre so we decided to take another cab back in. Eventually, we found ourselves a hotel that was quite nice and at a reasonable price.
The next day was our one year anniversary commemorating the first day that we were boyfriend and girlfriend (a rather subjective classification, and one that she chose by herself). We marked the occasion by spending most of the day in the hotel relaxing and having a great dinner, also at the hotel, while watching some traditional Thai dancing.
The rest of the time in Thailand was spent between walking through the markets, visiting the palace, and hanging out around Kao San road where we stayed the last night. One very intersting thing which we found was that around our hotel was a huge market area that catered to wholesale clothing, footware and accessories buyers from Africa, India and the Middle East. There were stores full of traditional African clothing, of hip hop clothing, of saris, etc... and the lanes were filled with people from more countries than I could recognise. I was surprised that so much business could go on on such a small scale with small time traders and small time producers but yet be so international in scope. I also could not help but wonder how long this business would last with the fast expansion that we saw of China's textile sector, especially around Hangzhou and Shaoxing.
Now, Rae and I have come to the beach as a nice relaxing and beautiful way to end our six or so weeks of traveling. We have found ourselves a bungalow on the beach in Koh Samui from which we can look out on the different shades of blue in the South China Sea. The only problem with this place is money. Everyone here wants much more of it than they do in Bangkok or anywhere else we have been on this trip. Rather than explain all of the reasons why I don't like Thaliand as much as I used to, I will just write one story.
Last night we went to an internet cafe. Our internet bill was 58 Baht. I paid with a B1000 note. The girl working there gave me B442 as change. Unfortunately for me, I neglected to count my change and just walked out of the store. It was only later when I went to buy some fruit that I notices that the B500 note which I had assumed was in my wallet was not there. We quickly realised that there was something wrong so we went back to the internet cafe which was closed by then. Luckily, we saw the girl who worked there on the street about 100m down the street from the store. When she noticed us, she turned so that her back was to us. We thought it was her but we were not sure so we walked on by. Then, we looked back again to check. Her back was again turned to us. So we walked by again, this time looking at her. This whole time she was very careful not to look at us. When we finally confronted her about this short changing, she was all smiles and apologies and quickly gave us the B500 note that had "somehow" ended up in her purse. The people here are not honest. They are not fair. I like this place less than I did the first time.
Marc
I am in Thailand now, but there is much to fill in so I will start with Penang.
After we left Singapore, we caught an overnight bus from Larkin terminal in JB to Penang. It was the usual fare, a nice super VIP bus with too much air con. Unfortunately for us, the bus terminal in Penang has moved in the past year from its former spot in the middle of the old city to its new spot in the suburbs. After realising that it was not realistic to find a city bus, we caught a cab into Chinatown. There, after some searching, we found nice clean hotel with a nice, (exclisively) Hokkien-speaking manager. We slept most of the rest of the day away. When we finally got up, we walked around the old section of the city and explored the pleasant streets full of Chinese/colonial style shop houses.
We spent the next few days doing much the same thing. Lots of walking, lots of eating great Straits-Chinese food, and lots of chances to practice my Chinese with the locals. Soon, we grew bored with the city and we caught some cheap Air Asia flights up to Bangkok.
Through a booking error, Rae and I caught different flights to Bangkok. As a result, on my flight I sat next to a middle aged Brittish English teacher who has been living in Thailiand for about a year. We had a good time exchangeing stories about the good and bad sides of living in Asia and the troubles with teaching English to ESL students. When we landed, we went our seperate ways- him with his Thai girlfriend and me to the backpaker districs around Kao San road.
The next morning I woke up early to go meet Rae at the airport. To my surprise, the traffic getting out there was passable and I arrived with some time to spare so I picked up a copy of the Economist and kept myself busy. When Rae arrived some time later, we took an airport bus in to the centre of town and began to walk around, asking the prices of hotels.
My original plan was, as this was our anniversary, to stay in the tallest building in Bangkok, a 60+ floor hotel near the centre of town. However, when we went in to look around, we decided that it was not nice enough to justify us spending twice our daily budget on one night. From there we got into a taxi and asked him if he could help us find a nice hotel. Of course he was only too happy to oblige. He took us on a round about route to some crummy and ridiculously overpriced hotel out towards the airport. When we told him that it would not do, he proceded to take us to three more equally overpriced hotels in the area. We soon realised that our taxi driver was taking us for a ride in more ways that one. In every hotel we went into, he would get out of the taxi first and say a few sentences to the hotel workers in Thai. These workers would then be the ones who would quote us the absurd prices. Realising that we could not expect to find good value this way, we told him to go on his way and we started looking at hotels in the area on our own. While significantly cheaper and similar or better quality than the ones he had shown us, these hotels were still too expensive and too far from the city's centre so we decided to take another cab back in. Eventually, we found ourselves a hotel that was quite nice and at a reasonable price.
The next day was our one year anniversary commemorating the first day that we were boyfriend and girlfriend (a rather subjective classification, and one that she chose by herself). We marked the occasion by spending most of the day in the hotel relaxing and having a great dinner, also at the hotel, while watching some traditional Thai dancing.
The rest of the time in Thailand was spent between walking through the markets, visiting the palace, and hanging out around Kao San road where we stayed the last night. One very intersting thing which we found was that around our hotel was a huge market area that catered to wholesale clothing, footware and accessories buyers from Africa, India and the Middle East. There were stores full of traditional African clothing, of hip hop clothing, of saris, etc... and the lanes were filled with people from more countries than I could recognise. I was surprised that so much business could go on on such a small scale with small time traders and small time producers but yet be so international in scope. I also could not help but wonder how long this business would last with the fast expansion that we saw of China's textile sector, especially around Hangzhou and Shaoxing.
Now, Rae and I have come to the beach as a nice relaxing and beautiful way to end our six or so weeks of traveling. We have found ourselves a bungalow on the beach in Koh Samui from which we can look out on the different shades of blue in the South China Sea. The only problem with this place is money. Everyone here wants much more of it than they do in Bangkok or anywhere else we have been on this trip. Rather than explain all of the reasons why I don't like Thaliand as much as I used to, I will just write one story.
Last night we went to an internet cafe. Our internet bill was 58 Baht. I paid with a B1000 note. The girl working there gave me B442 as change. Unfortunately for me, I neglected to count my change and just walked out of the store. It was only later when I went to buy some fruit that I notices that the B500 note which I had assumed was in my wallet was not there. We quickly realised that there was something wrong so we went back to the internet cafe which was closed by then. Luckily, we saw the girl who worked there on the street about 100m down the street from the store. When she noticed us, she turned so that her back was to us. We thought it was her but we were not sure so we walked on by. Then, we looked back again to check. Her back was again turned to us. So we walked by again, this time looking at her. This whole time she was very careful not to look at us. When we finally confronted her about this short changing, she was all smiles and apologies and quickly gave us the B500 note that had "somehow" ended up in her purse. The people here are not honest. They are not fair. I like this place less than I did the first time.
Marc
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