After spending six weeks in Thailand, I had a new appreciation for how Asians like to dine. My boyfriend and I didn’t get sick (at least not from the food), and we enjoyed all manner of Thai eateries. Here are some highlights (and otherwise) of our culinary adventures
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I had two days before my flight from Krabi to Bangkok. Air Asia fly for twenty five pounds, much preferable to paying twenty pounds for the shitty journey we had on the way down. Koh Lanta was not doing it for us as there was no life there so we got a ferry to Koh Phi Phi.

After getting ripped off again by the shitty tour operators in Krabi we arrived after a one and a half hour journey sat in the sun, on the roof of the boat.

Koh Phi Phi was no disappointment. The islands are breathtakingly beautiful. Stunning in fact, all your dreams of tropical islands rolled into one.

On 26th December, 2004 a tsunami hit the island. The island is isthmus in the middle with two large limestone mountains either side. The highest point of the isthmus is six feet so when the tsunami hit, huge waves came from both sides and over the middle, devastating everything in it’s path. Over 2,000 people were killed here, many of them foreigners and seventy per cent of the island’s building were destroyed.

With the help of the government, local Thais and volunteer backpackers, Koh Phi Phi has been rebuilt and you would never know the Tsunami had happened apart from the Tsunami Early Warning System and evacuation route signs the litter the island.

All the businesses and dive schools run by the survivors are back up and running and the devastation cleared.

Even with the early warning system in place it is still unnerving being somewhere where so many people died and so many locals lost part or all of their family.

Last night we went out looking for some action but due to it being Buddha day a lot of the bars were shut. We did however find a beach bar which served our purpose and ended up playing football in the sea at 2am.

Today myself, Damon and Tanya hired a long boat for the day which took up out to Phi Phi Don, an adjacent island next to the main island. This is where ‘The Beach’ with Leonardo Di Caprio was filmed. Maya Beach.

The long boat took us over some choppy waters and deposited us in a beautiful bay surrounded with high limestone cliffs where the snorkeling and the fish were very cool.

From there we had to swim to shore, walk through a cave and through some jungle and out into an instantly recognisable beach. It looked smaller than the one on the film but I guess that is just a trick of the camera.

It was lush, the water was crystal clear and warm and there were shoals of millions of small fish making the turquoise water turn black.

We spent some time swimming in the waters with the fish and headed back, arriving on the main island through very choppy water just before a storm broke. Due to it being low tide the cheery driver could only get his boat halfway into the bay so we had a ten minute walk though the shallow waters to the shore.

Absolute paradise.

Tonight there is a full moon party on the beach. I can’t have too many buckets as I have to check out at midday, get a ferry to Krabi at 2am and then a flight to Bangkok at 6.40pm.

Two more days in Thailand before home, I am going to make sure I make the most of them and want to thank Damon and Tanya for making my last day with them so cool.

Photo “Maya Bay on Koh Phi Phi Leh (2007-03-057)” by Argenberg on Flickr

You can come to Bangkok a hundred or more times and your senses with still be hit by the sights and smells, good and bad. Bangkok is a melting pot of everything Asian you can think of from the monks walking the streets in their saffron robes to street vendors selling delicious food along the side of the road.

The humid sticky air hits you as soon as you get off the plane and you know you have just arrived in a city as unique as can be.
Yes, I was here eighteen months ago and whenever you are travelling around Asia your road will inevitably lead to Bangkok.
Myself, Elaine and Danni took the ferry from Hong Kong to Macau to catch our late afternoon flight to Bangers. Flights from Macau with Air Asia (The Easyjet of this continent) are a lot cheaper and it is only a forty five minute fast ferry trip.
Bangkok’s new Suvarnabhuni airport, despite early teething troubles due to opening prematurely, is a vast improvement on Don Muang.

Gone are the posters warning of death to drug traffickers and the intimidating grey and dingy booths where you passport is scrutinised and stamped, to be replaced with bright and airy desks under parasols complete with smiley and friendly officials.
I said my farewells to Elaine as she caught her onward flight to India. We had both decided to go our own ways and will be both the better for it after spending nearly two months, 24/7 in each other company.
Danni caught a taxi to her apartment on the outskirts of the city. She has lived here in Bangkok for two years teaching English and loves it here. I caught the 2A bus for the one hour journey to Koh San Road and booked into the D&D hostel where the Swedish girls, Stephanie and Linnea, I met on the Trans Siberian were staying.

I was lucky, I got the last room. It was big and plush with a huge bed but came in at a rather expensive 1100 Baht a night. After roughing it in Mirador and Chunking Mansions I decided I deserved a bit of luxury for a couple of nights and it was right in the thick of the action.
The first two night were spent drinking gin the make shift bucket bars by the side of the road. Buckets are of the beach variety containing ‘Very Strong Cocktail’ made with a full bottle of Samsong (Thai Whiskey), extra potent Red Bull and Coca Cola and topped up with ice. Straws are added to make them communal. They are best sipped by the side of the road with a group of your mates or anyone who is sat nearby whilst you watch the mentalness that is Koh San Road unfold as night pushes out day.

After two big nights of bucket action I fell ill. I had either picked up the bug Linnea was suffering from or I had got dehydration or a bit of both. I had a couple of days hiding in my room sweating hot and cold and panic attacks. It was very similar to how I felt in Koh Tao when I convinced myself I had caught a dose of Denge fever from the local mozzie population.
After two days of inaction and no buckets I came back from the dead and the grim reaper was no longer rattling my door handle.

I felt more fortunate when I met a Canadian guy who had just come out of the hospital that morning. The previous night was his first night of his travels. He had got straight into the bucket scene and can remember nothing about the previous night. From what he was told he crashed into a display stand in a shop, the local owner got angry and tried to extort huge amounts of Baht for broken goods from said hapless Canadian.

Allegedly a bit of pushing and shoving ensued and the police turned up and promptly hit him over the head with a baton, cutting his forehead up. He was whisked down the nick at the end of the road and locked up over night. In the morning the police were all nice and smiley and he was sent on his way after paying an 8000 Baht fine and the hire fee of an expensive bent lawyer. Of course he will never really know what happened and the lawyer was probably a friend of the police officer.

Buckets, physical abuse, outrageous prices, prison time, bent lawyers, what a start to his trip!
The next few days were spent rattling around the local area on my own and the nights with random people whose name I can’t and never will remember and Gord the Canadian I met in Hong Kong.

A couple of days ago disaster struck (as if there has not been enough disaster in this sad and sorrow filled diary). The backlight on my laptop screen died and it is only now viewable in direct sunlight (yes , that is a backwards one) so a shopping trip to Pantip Plaza was called for. I purchased myself a nice new Sony Vaio from a Lady Boy who owned the shop and it is sexy as fuck. (the Laptop not the Lady Boy).

Last night I met up with Danny and we cruised the mayhem of the local streets armed with litre bottles of Singa beer and spent the back end of the night drinking on the front terrace of a bar, watching the world go by. Tonight Danny is taking me to the seedy area to see the sex tourism in all it’s glory. I have so far avoided that area on both of my trips here but it has to be seen I guess.

Tomorrow I am off to Phon Phen, Cambodia with Danni to blow up some cars with rocket propelled grenade launchers and check out the killing fields and on the 24th, to Siem Riep to meet my old London Flatmate, Canadian Lisa, to check out Ankor Wat.

Koh San Road has been fun though after a while to gets too hectic. By day the streets are lined with shops selling DVDs, Hats, Bikinis, Sunglasses, t-shirts, watches etc etc and by night throngs of hedonistic westerners and lady boys take over to party all night to the sounds of the local Thaiboy rock bands and brain numbing, soul destroying, Hip Hop.

Some things have not changed here, a few of the same faces are still around. I drank buckets with a Thai guy who looked and dressed like Johnny Depp’s character in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ last time I was here. He recognised me and even remembered my name.

A cute little Soi Dog I temporarily adopted and fed last time I was here was still hanging around. He didn’t recognise me as he was pre-occupied with trying to get a leg over with a scruffy local poodle. He has gone upmarket somewhat and has moved himself into the lobby of a local hotel and seems to be getting overweight from the guests feeding him.

There seems to be a lot more Lady Boys moving around in hoards, either that or I am getting better at spotting them. It is funny to sit outside a bucket bar and watch an unwitting Western boy go home with one. Part of me wants to shout ‘hey be careful there mate’, the other part of me thinks it is funny and they will find out soon enough in the morning with a Samsong clouded head and a tongue as dry as a slice of toast.

Every visit to Koh San Road is different but some things will never change. As they say here in the Land of Smiles, ‘same same but different’

Photo “Bangkok backstreet” by Ahron de Leeuw on Flickr