Travel accounts; SEA 1

05-03
On the 3rd of May, around 10:30 we departed towards Dusseldorf airport, Puck’s parents and her younger sister dropped us off and after a rather lengthy goodbye (2 minutes) we strutted off to customs. Dusseldorf airport is really more like a train station, the gates are super small and there’s hardly anything to do or eat, get your act together Germans.

The first leg of the trip was from Dusseldorf to Dubai, we flew a new A380, lots of food, snacks, free WiFi and movies, I approve of this. Because we were flying in the afternoon time went really fast, I watched Burnt, The Revenant and bits of Deadpool while enjoying some free red vino. Before we knew it they announced our decent into Dubai airport, you could say time flew by (I can hear you sighing and shaking your heads).

The airport itself is quite nice, loads to do and if you’re willing to pawn off your unborn children, loads to eat. We spent 20 euro on a burger with some chips and two bottles of water, yes one burger to share, the burger was all right, but it left a very scammy aftertaste. This layover was for three or four hours so by now it was 3:00 am, and we were starting to get really groggy. Luckily we got to board the plane, this time an older model A380, no WiFi, no real comfy seats and the entertainment system wasn’t even HD, really. how dare they. They seated us right next to the stewardesses ‘kitchen’ as well as their loud mouths so there was way too much noise to sleep. Needless to say we were pretty wrecked when we finally got to Bangkok.
05-04
Our first inn in Bangkok was near On Nut BTS station, right at the end of Sukhumvit road, the local food markets were real close and there are hardly any tourists there, suited us fine! We indulged ourselves and spent all of 4 euro’s on a feast containing a whole fish, 2 plates of fried rice, some vegetables and some noodles, gotta love that exchange rate. We headed in quite early here because we were both really tired and a good dark sleep was in order.
05-05
On the first real day out, we visited the old house on Soi Lang Suan, lumpini park and I showed her the wretched Central that ate all of our pocket money as we spent it on little dollies. We ate at the Central World, man this place is different from 2 years ago, they’ve made some impressive mall here, very nice. We ate at Din Tai Fung, were very impressed with the dumplings and the relatively cheap prices, for a little less than 20 euro we rounded our otherwise plump bellies. After this we went to the Okura Prestige where we sipped on some beautiful, affordable through the wonderful concept of happy hour, cocktails and ate some stringy fries. The view here is still really amazing, the staff was so nice, they warned us when happy hour was about to be finished and when I noticed a small knick in the glass of my beer they took two of them off the bill, yay free drinks.
05-06
On this day we moved hostels, we moved to within 2.76 kms roughly from Kao San Rd, very close to the BTS again so we were well connected. The hotel was the Aiyapura, this is a very old, very moldy, smelly place. After rejecting the first room for this reason and finding out their replacement had the same problem as well as the replacement after that we decided we wanted to leave. So we hopped down to the lobby bags and all and with one foot out the door they came up with a compensatory upgrade. We got to pick from two suites at the same rate as a standard double room. I chose the one with a balcony and an air conditioner the size of a planet. Overall this place wasn’t too bad, they threw in complementary use of the gym as well as the pool, usually the gym would cost money apparently, as if I would pay to sweat even more. That night we had some pad thai at this local plastic chair establishment and it was the most amazing pad thai we’ve had so far, partly because of the unidentifiable crispy bits inside. You could say we’re living quite dangerously here, trying out different foods and fried things from the street, as long as you drink a can of coke alongside it the rumbly tummies aren’t that bad.
05-07
Today we went to Mo Chit, to the Chatuchak markets to buy some mo chit and eat loads of strange food. After crackling down the street in the intense heat we decided to cool off in the mall and saw the new Jungle Book movie, quite all right. We booked a night bus to depart from Kao San rd and ate at a little place that put a pot of boiling water on your table where you could then throw in bits of things later to be identified by taste and some herbs and spices, this was really amazing.
05-08
This was to be an extremely long and exhausting day, we got up around 9-ish and went exploring Sukhimvit a little, we were supposed to be back at Kao San rd around 19:00 for the bus to Koh Phangan so we had dinner there. The bus people said to be at the check in by 19:30 even though the bus wasn’t going to leave until 20:30, no explanation offered yet we complied. After waiting for TWO FRIKKIN HOURS they said the bus would depart after about 30 mins. So around 22:00 we were finally en-route towards the islands.
05-09
I AM STILL AWAKE
The bus was impossible to sleep in, we were close to the toilets, or as they shoulda called it, the bucket. It didn’t flush, there was no water to help flush anything down, people still used it. Such smell, such disgusting noises, I was getting aggravated.
Around 6 in the morning we arrived at the ferry, we got our passes stamped, drank a sip of what they deceivingly made look like coffee, chucked it, and waited for the boarding process. At 7, still awake btw, no sleep, only death, we finally got onto the ‘high speed catamaran’ this hellish trip took around 4,5 hours to get to Koh Phangan via Koh Tao, one of the engines wasn’t working so it was a slow slow slow ride. Oh and by the way the onboard entertainment was ‘bull fighting gone wrong’ and ‘scare pranks’ so for hours all you heard was screams and yelling, seriously, who made this choice, and moreover WHAT FAILED TO MAKE THE CUT HERE?
12:30, we arrive at the hotel, this was really nice, I am now in a state of being where I literally feel like I could float of only my head wasn’t so goddamned heavy. Because the full moon had just been the entire island was empty of tourists and we got a CRAZY discount. For the hotel that usually charges up to 130 a night we paid a total of 76 for 5 nights. This means this hotel was pretty fancy and they catered to our every needs, this wasn’t too hard as my main need at the time was a bed and AC. After being awake for almost 30 hours I crashed and took a small nap of 4 hours, ate dinner, then slept for another 11 hours.
05-10 through 05-13
All of these days are quite fuzzy as we spent our time on the island like a bunch of sweaty lazy teenagers as Anne would say. Sorry to say this, but we really enjoyed it haha, we didn’t care about time, watches were never on and no alarms were set. We ate when we felt like it, did some snorkeling trip and parked our all to white bums on the beach every evening drinking 60 baht Gin and Tonics. We couldn’t be more rested when we started on our trip back to civilization.
05-14
Got up at 5:30, took a taxi to the pier, got there at 6:30 boat doesn’t leave till 8, we suck at math. Bought some almond croissants at this little bakery near the pier, waited till 8 and then slept a little on the boat. Oh these croissants weren’t bad, nothing close to what the French can conjure but still not bad. After the boat there was a bus trip to Surat Thani airport where we arrived 4 hours before the flight was scheduled to leave, seriously who does our math…?
Watched this movie called ‘Room’, with Brie Larson (got an Oscar for this role), was such a great movie, can really recommend it!
Arrived at Chiang Mai airport at 17:00 and got to the hotel at 17:30, we ate at the local markets and tried various different things there. After getting back to our room puck made a brief call to her friend on skype, this lasted for 50 mins, I didn’t, I went down to the lobby and had a beer with the local people. We had such a great time that after they finished work, they worked at the hotel, they took us to their favorite plastic chair dive and we had 2nd dinner there. Feared for my life on the back of their motorbikes but all in all we had a great time! I sort of made a PUI, or promise under the influence, that night that I would cook for them on Monday so now were going over to their place tomorrow, they’re taking us shopping at the local markets and I’m cooking them all dinner. I guess sometimes PUI’s work out quite fine.

Anyways, I’m at the hotel lobby right now, just typing away, people think I’m working, the fools.