Going to Thailand!

Time to leave communistic territory behind, it was a nice time Vietnam but I feel pretty happy to move one. No more communistic propaganda through speakers 3 times a day any more and they didn't even have the courtesy to play some propaganda music or say anything in English, just a long announcement in Vietnamese.

So now we move on to Thailand! The first thing that strikes you is the heat and high humidity. In Bangkok with it's 6 million population there is no public transportation at the early morning hours we arrive. So the only way to go in to the city is to go with taxi. We meet up with an American guy to split the cab, but it didn't matter, they charge per person and not per taxi like they always do. Everything looks really good and well organised, it's more cars then scooters and they have nice vehicles as well.  There is not a trace of the flooding and everyone we talked to in Bangkok tell us that it wasn't a big deal.

This is a pretty rich country and we heard that if you ever get really seek in this world and really need good hospital care go to Thailand, their hospitals has western standards. High standards also means that it will clean out your wallet pretty fast, but still pretty cheap compared to western prices.

So when we leave the airport and reach our bus station it's around 2 am and we have to wait to 5am. There is a little food stall at the side of the road. I ask him what food he makes, and the only dish is Pad Thai and that's is my favourite Thai meal, and it was really good! The best so far! Next to it were seveneleven and I tried to buy a beer, but because of regulation they are not allowed to sell alcohol at certain times.

So after a long wait we are finally on our bus to the islands outside the coast of Bangkok. The bus ride was around 4-5 hours and we got a little bit of sleep. When we reached the bus station we got a taxi ride the ferry station. We taxis around here is pretty dodgy it's small trucks were they put a seat on the back, and it doesn't feel really safe. It was nice with a bit of breeze anyway. On the ferry station we got on a really old rusty ferry and chairs and some other things were broken. It was really low standard! But they takes you from A to B. So finally we reach our tropical island. After 40 minutes of another dodgy taxi ride we reached lonely beach. There was almost no rooms available but after a lot of searching we found some bungalows without air condition were we checked in. The heat this is day was extreme with over 95% humidity and with carrying heavy bags around in the sun, even though I'm just to work inside greenhouses this was a challenge of it's own. In the bungalow it was even hotter. So we went to the beach for a swim, the water was really warm, but nice! But there is no waves on this island, there is to many other islands blocking them from reach. So the waves had the same size or as non existing like we have in Sweden. I was looking forward to learn to surf during this trip, but there was no good waves anywhere we were. So I guess when the right time comes I will learn how to surf!

This couple of days we spent on this island were all about relaxing which was really nice, we been rushing Vietnam so much, travel all around the country in a couple of days. We went an elephant ride, we paid for an hour and we got 45 minutes, but it was very nice. They let the elephant drink and play with some water and it sprayed it self down and a bit on us as well. During the ride we asked if we were going to see any baby elephants and they said yes, but we never did. The only thing we got to see was a pregnant elephant! We paid a dollar for some bananas that we feeding them with. They were eating them whole, they didn't care and they really seem to love their bananas.

We rented a motorbike and took a trip and took a trip around the island, it was really nice and we found a nice little resort with an very nice reggae restaurant, they played good music, they served the best coffee so far and the food was good!

No were sitting on the bus back to Bangkok, it's a couple of more hours before we will arrive.

Over and out