Ten Nights In Bangkok

In choir school as a child we song a compilation of songs from the Musical Saigon. There was one that went…

One night in Bangkok
makes the hard man crumble
I can feel a devil walking next to me...

This song shaped my view of what Bangkok would be like. Our experience of Bangkok were nothing like my visions of wartime brothels and blatant criminal activity, however we did notice you could buy a hand gun and bullets at a booth on the street corner!
In reality Bangkok seemed to be a modern city build on top of its old world self, the gaps between retained some of its rural rustic pre-industrial feel. Nows it’s a Mega city stretching on forever, with narrow busy streets full of traffic jams and toxic air. And what a city to cycle in! We actually enjoyed some of the mad weaving in and out of serious city cycling!
Hilariously we stayed in an area called Tao San. It’s a street that you turn onto that is suddenly cram packed with tourists, tourist restaurants and tourists shops. At night this street is so heaving with partiers its hard to walk, we were happy to have been tucked away a few blocks from the epicentre of noise and madness, with some trees and fresh air.
We happened to be in Bangkok for Thai New Year (April 15) which normally would mean one day of water fights and getting covered in clay. These were traditionally blessings endowed upon the young from the old. However, in the epicentre of party madness we were ‘blessed’ for 4 entire days.We were unable to leave our hotel without being drenched or soiled. We indulged in the fun for a day, buying the big water guns and a big bottle of rum, after that however, we felt mostly trapped in our hotel or tried to be good sports when someone poured ice water down your back when all you wanted was to get some dinner.

The trapped feeling continued as government shut down all services because of the red shirt protestors. We happened upon some of the militarized areas ...these guys weren’t so scary.

Because we came to Thailand by land we were only given a 15 day visa which we had to wait to extend until the offices reopened. Getting out of Thailand became the theme behind our trip.

Time as our new motivator we took a train half way down Thailand and started cycling from there. We were in BLISS as our random choice of destination was amid a national park, a gorgeous place to start cycling. We stopped our iPods and instead listened to hours of birds and humming insects of the jungle.
As it turns out Thailand is excellent for cycling. Every road we’ve been on has an ample marked shoulder! The roads are a far cry from ruff rural Cambodia, with little traffic its all smooooooooth sailing. The landscape is so lush and the air clear and full of oxygen. Even the road kill is good!

List of cool road kill in Thailand:
1. Cobras!
2. BIG Iguana
3. Bat
4. Butterflies
5. Big Beetles
6. Various amphibians
7. Scorpions!!!!!

As you can imagine, where there’s dead animals on the road, there’s lots of live ones! One of the best was this unsquashed scorpion that posed for a photo.

We continued South making good time as enjoying rural Thailand. We headed for he car-free island of Ko Payam which was wonderfully deserted as we neared the end of high season. Our first night involved a beach hut which was very open to the outside. That night our room was alive with large shiny emerald beetles landing heavily on our bug net attracted to our reading light and cute frogs croaked from our outdoor toilet. We opted for a more secure bungalow for the next night and enjoyed the rest of the time on our visa enjoying the fire flies, giant beetles, quiet beaches, fellow travellers and vegetarian food this island had on offer.

The crabs here walk in hoards for safety while relocating at low tide.

After doing so, they’d pattern the beach with little balls of sand which they made while filtering out the nutrients, the balls helped them track what sand they had already filtered.


Even the birds on this island sung in full sentences, as if no one were listening.

When we got to Ranong we were able to do a visa run into Burma to get another 2 week visa. This operation would have been relatively sane except for the weather. We huddled in one of the many small rickety old boats which could hold about 12 persons max and puttered our way out to sea in choppy waves, amid a downpour. I wish we had brought out camera for this one. We looked like refugees covered in plastic ponchos, while a young Burmese boy scooped buckets of water out, we were glad land was always in sight. We brought the Burmese border guards our ironed $10 US which passed as acceptable and returned to Thailand within three hours, wet and glad that we knew how to swim.
We continued on to visit a marine national park of the Surin Islands. There we saw this flying lemur resting on the tree right above its interpretive sign (if only all animals would oblige!). It has a periderm for gliding and is nocturnal. This is the best picture we could get of it.

We heard the feeding screeches of the flying fox at night(a BIG bat that looks like a fox, they use their bigs eyes instead of echolocation). We even encountered a family of shy island monkeys while on a trek.

We witnessed some of the devastation to the coral reef from the Tsunami. Much of it was dead but showing a slow recovery. Many of the fish were still present though!






























At this point we had a deadline to get into Malaysia by May 10th. So off we continued pumping our pedals. We did 409km in 5 days, rested for two and did he last 160km in two. We found the time to rent a moped and visit what seemed like a Buddhist theme park. This Wat was complete with ice cream stands, plastic paraphernalia and Buddha on a plane.
(pic) We made it and hopped a ferry over the Malaysia border!

We were excited to reach Malaysia as Thailand was AMAZING for nature, it was not as culturally stimulating as the rest of our trip thus far. It was almost too easy! Apparently Northern Thailand has more indigenous culture.

It seems more we travel the less we know. Its interesting how we're gaining insight into people from different parts of the world, and different ways of living. Its like, we've seen the origins of ‘the Vancouver special’ in context, and for the first time we really get it. It also lends perspective on ourselves and a view of how people must see US. I’ve decided this experience would not be complete without the writing of a blog apon our return to Vancouver. Seeing it from the other side.

Cheerio....stay tuned for the ever exciting Malaysia blog!

Our Kms in Thailand:

Chumphon to Kuriburi = 58km
to Ranong= 60km (side trip to Koh Payam)
to Kura Buri= 115km
to Ko Lak Si=95km
Phang Nga=98km
to Krabi = 88km
Klong thom= 37km
to Trang 85km
to Thung wa 74km
to Satun 72km
Thailand TOTAL=782km!
(ferry to Malaysia)