Belated Thailand holiday update :)

I have been pretty lazy with updating this blog, but I feel I need to do the honours now and describe my Christmas & New Year holidays.... After a long half term of 10 weeks at school, everyone at school (including the kids) really needed a holiday!! What with Christmas performances and the like thrown in as well!! So as you can imagine when it finally got to the last day of term and i was sat on the train to Hong Kong I was pretty pleased to say the least. The first weekend was to be spent with Jessica in Hong Kong before flying on to Thailand on the Monday. Jessica and I stayed in a nice boutique hotel which was on the MTR, close to Victoria Park. As I was with a woman, you can imagine that we spent most of the weekend wandering around shopping malls.... not exactly the best experience for someone needing to relax, but I endured it (as long as Jessica promised to let me have pit stops for cake and coffee now and then). The food in HK is pretty nice, but after living in China it seems SO expensive. Basically, I want to go there again and this time force Jessica to for-go the shopping for a bit more sightseeing!! So not that much to say about HK this time really :)

Jessica flew back to Taipei on Monday, and I flew on to Bangkok. I had gotten a cheap flight for about 100 pounds on Gulf Air return, so at the airport I was wondering what this experience might be like. I had down all the research online and Gulf Air infact did have a good safety record, but I had to see it first hand to be happy....... anyway, the flight was spot on and included food and everything. The only downside being that the service was a little slow - but hey for the price I paid I am not complaining!! Anyway, I was meeting a good friend of mine from Taiwan in Bangkok, a Canadian guy called Paul. The arrangement was to meet him in a bar on KhaoSan road and take it from there. The whole process was so simple... I got to Bangkok (I almost looked like a backpacker with my rucksack and all.... although I would like to hope I looked like a more stylish version of.... :)). I hopped in a Taxi and fought my way through the traffic for one hour before arriving at the said road, found the bar and found the familiar face I was looking for. So let the holiday begin!! I was rather sad to hear that a fellow Canadian friend of ours (Mike) had tried and failed to make this holiday as well... although when 3 boys of that calibre get together things tend to get a bit blurry and bloodshot, so it was probably just as well he didn't make it. Anyway, we had a few beers and then lugged my rucksack back to the hotel, which was closeby. I have to say I was pretty impressed with the hotel. The room was clean and pretty well furnished and presented; and they had a kind of courtyard area with decking and loads of plants. The price was 750 baht a night, which I thought was pretty reasonable considering it was the high season. After a quick change we started as we meant to go on and cracked open a couple of beers in the decked area (this area was to see many a Chang beer drained during our stay). It was so nice to see Paul again and catch up with whats been going on... he is what I would call a sound guy. After this we went out and hit the town, catching a tuk tuk to get to our first destination. This would be a pattern that would be repeated over the next 4 days in Bangkok. There was also a really nice small massage place down the soi that our hotel was on, and I was determined that I would break my massage duck. I had always had this hang up with people I dont know touching my body!! I had a couple of Thai massages during our stay, a kinda of pleasure vs pain experience that leaves the body feeling warm and very manipulated. Having a small Thai woman kneeling on your body as if it were a bag snatchers neck was actually quite a pleasant experience.... although I think I will stick to having Thai massages in Thailand, I can imagine if you get a dodgy Thai massage it could leave you crippled for life :) So after 4 days of beer, chatting, massages and the like it was time to move on to even more relaxing times. We caught a bus to an Island called Koh Samet (well a bus and a boat to be precise). Paul had been here several years ago and of course it had changed and the development had made it slightly less of an idealic paridise, but for me it would more than do. After seeing a couple of truelly crappy bungalows at silly prices, I got slightly worried. I mean these places were like boxes with no windows at the back of complexes, that someone had dolled up to make up for the fact that they had NO view!! But my fears were misplaced as we found one place that had basic bungalows spread over a hill overlooking the sea. To be honest at first I wasn't as enthusiastic about this place but followed Paul as he had experience of Thailand and seemed pretty chuffed with this find. And he couldn't have been more spot on; OK the room was basic and the bathroom had a cold shower and a bucket flush toilet... but all this meant nothing when you were sat on the awesome wooden balcony, sitting in an easy chair looking out on the sea, or reading a book.....oh, and drinking Chang beers!! The 4 days we spent here were so relaxing, and I enjoyed it so much.... the pace of life slowed right down. OK, the food, the massages and everything else were so overpriced that it made you wince from time to time, but it was totally worth it to be near the sea. I had first hand experience of the devastation caused by one of Thailand's infamous drinks - the bucket. This is a small bottle of Thai whisky, red bull and other alcohol mixed together in a small child's plastic beach bucket, several straws stick out the top and you basically suck your way to total anihilation!! I found out during this time that Paul and buckets don't mix very well - one night we were in a bar near our place. We started on regular drinks then Paul made the mistake of saying that the next round was my choice..... I came back with a bucket of Long Island iced tea for us to share.... this clearly got Paul in bucket mode as he then ordered a more traditional thai whisky bucket next. The bucket was nearly finished when Paul got up, I presumed to go to the toilet. But then I quickly realised that the bucket had gone with him.... when I got out onto the street (dirt track) he was long gone... i waited in the bar for a while drinking a bit more but he didn't return. I went back to the bungalow expecting him to be there already, but no sight or sound of him...and he had the key to the bunglow. I sat on the balcony and tried to sleep on one of the easy chairs. He appeared bleary eyed and back at the bungalow at 8am... it turned out he had, in his "bucket" state, decided to go for a spontaneus jungle trek and had ended up in a different part of the island. Having slept it off a little, he managed to navigate his way back to our place with the help of a few locals :) He had lost his flip flops somewhere on this adventure, but wasn't sure how... so from that day on, I decided to keep that boy away from the buckets :) All in all Koh Samet was a great experience, and relaxing on the balcony was one of the highlights of this trip.

With Paul only having 4 days left in Thailand we headed back to Bangkok, and what followed was an almost exact replica of the first 4 days there.... just the way it should be!! The food in Thailand was awesome, by the way. So spicy and so cheap... I was loving it. Paul left and then I flew out to Phuket on the same day. I flew on a Thai budget airline called 1-2-GO, it was 40 quid for the single ticket. Everything was fine and I arrived in Phuket at around 11pm. The taxi driver advised me time and again that it was near impossible for me to get a room anywhere near the beach, as it was high season. He let me phone a few places on his mobile to help me realise that everything was full, which it was. He laughed and my plight and offered me a hotel in Phuket town!! I balked at the idea of being so far away from the beach and felt determined to get into somewhere near the beach.... I felt like my mission was set and I needed to proove this guy wrong, so I kindly asked him to take me to Patong beach, the craziest beach town I had ever seen. Basically like a costa del... in Thailand. But I had had my relaxation, and was now looking for something a bit more insane, and boy had I come to the right place. A million bars, a million foreigners, a million girls and a million more "girls" (ladyboys to the like of you and me). A mix of hedonistic craziness basically. Anyway, when I arrived in Patong the taxi driver wished me luck and I set out upon my quest. I walked around for about 30 mins and everything was fully booked... I heard the word "full" way too many times and suddenly realised that I could end up sleeping under the stars hugging my rucksack for dear life. But then a ray of life... a room... infact this guesthouses last room I was informed. I viewed the room and my worst fears were realised, this place was worn, dirty, badly furnished and very expensive considering it only had one crusty fan!! But what could I do, the hour was late and I swallowed my pride and took the room. Realising my plight I could remember that one of the nice guesthouses had said they had a room available for the following day, so I rushed through the ordeal of a shower, and marched over there to book my way out of this hell hole; thank goodness it worked!! I was to be in an air-conditioned, cheap (for Patong in high season) and nice room for the rest of my stay :) I hadn't planned to stay in Patong Beach for so long, as I was planning at least a few days on Phi Phi Island, which is only a few hours away by boat. However, the UK banking system was conspiring against me and after a few days in Patong I discovered its full force..... I had happily been living off my Chinese ATM card since I arrived in Thailand, but with half the holiday gone you can imagine that that vein of funds was becoming a little low and in need of topping up. Easy, I thought, I will get out my Natwest ATM and carry on the fun and frolics; but alas no, life was not as simple as that. When I tried the said ATM card the machine flashed up "Selected Account invalid"... oh, it must be the ATM I thought, so I tried another, and another and another- all with the same result. It now dawned on me that I had better sort this situation out pretty quick as my other funds would probably get me by, but only if I undertook a "backpacker" regime, something I winced at the thought of!! So I bought an international phone card and began the quest of releasing my UK funds. And if I thought all it would require was a simple phonecall I was wrong. I phoned up the Natwest call centre, and was told by a woman that my card was fine and it might be a problem with the Thai ATM's, her exact words were "we get a lot of people phoning with this problem from Thailand, but there is nothing we can do. Your account seems fine". She then says she will put me through to my local branch and they can scrutinise my situation further. After being on hold for what seemed like ages I gave up and put the phone down. I phone the call centre again and this time get a man - he, thank god, was making me feel better by at least trying to do different things to my card to get it to work... however, all without success.  So I had spent one evening and quite a bit of money in international phonecalls trying to solve the situation. I went to bed feeling physically sick and tired..... imagine being in the land of plenty with the prospect of living like a pauper... and actually having ample money available back home but just not accesible... I felt at a low point and the dull banging of the music outside seemed to be teasing me with every beat. I woke up in the morning with fresh viguour, determined to get back to the good times that I had earlier enjoyed on this holiday. This is the modern age I thought, where there is a will there must be a way. My thoughts turned to somehow getting someone back home to transfer money across for me to pick up, and pay back when I got back to China. I went to an internet cafe to research this and came out convinced 
that this was my only option. Well I phoned up my mother's house and it turned out to be about 4 in the morning there!! My panick and delusion wasn't exactly helping my ability to think straight!! Well to cut the story short my sister let me know that the Natwest fraud people had been on the phone yesterday trying to get hold of me because of unauthorised usage on my card..... well you can imagine my annoyance. I had been on the phone to the Natwest call centre for some time and they had neglected to mention anything regarding the fraud department. Well I phoned up the fraud department and got it all (FINALLY) sorted... using up a lot of time and international phone cards on the way :( Well, I felt phyically shattered and retreated to my hotel room... it was lunch time and I just lay in bed thanking my lucky stars; all the pressure in my body had been released and all I could do now was sleep. Well lets just say that on that evening I made up for not going out the following night by going totally crazy. I was ready to rage and spend as much money as possible, I had become so thankful of having money after seemingly having none!! Well the rest of my holiday in Patong could be summed up in one sentence - lots of crazy evenings, days lazing by the beach and books read, MP3 players listened to. And then it was time to leave and fly back to Bangkok to catch my flight. As it was peak season I struggled to get a flight and had to take a late night flight that landed at about 11pm; the problem was I had to fly back to China (via Hong Kong) the next day at around 10am!! So I had a night to kill in Bangkok.... I was deep in thought on the flight over... what should i do?? Be a good boy and have an early night in a hotel near the airport, or go into town and have one last night of living it up. By the time I had landed I had made up my mind to be a good boy :) I had no idea what hotels were near the airport, so I just went to ask at a couple of the hotel desks in the airport. Well to my dismay I was quoted prices that ranged from 2700 baht to 4000 baht a night for the "posh" Novotel nearby. Then my mind switched to other possibilities.... I thought "I could get a taxi into town, a cheap hotel room and a taxi back the next day (with beers, etc. included) for about the same as a night in one of these hotels near the hotel." So all my good intentions were laid to waste as I said my final goodbye to Thailand with a night out in Bangkok. In fact it wasn't too crazy, but it felt good to kick it back with some Chang beers and experience some Bangkok nightlife once more. By 6am the next morning I was up (all bleary eyed) and eating my breakfast at the hotel ready to trek back to the airport for my flight home. And I will tell you what - it was totally worth it :) I will go back to Thailand again someday - the people, the massages, the beaches, the awesome food are just a few of the many reasons to go back :)