Bangkok & Krabi, Thailand

The song, "One Night in Bangkok", can't describe our time in Bangkok - it was more like TWO nights in Bangkok. Maybe it was the bats we encountered in Indonesia, but we became like vampires in the night - choosing to spend the days in the comfort of our nice hotel room and the nights out on the town. We arrived on Sunday, July 27th in the evening after a 4 1/2 hour flight from Indonesia. We somehow missed our complimentary limo pick up and ended up taking a taxi into the city to the Imperial Queen's Park Hotel. Our dear friend, Roger, gave us two nights free in the hotel and we were meeting up with friends from Herbalife (who just finished working three weeks straight with events). As soon as we walked into the hotel, we were greeted with familiar and friendly faces. We checked into our posh hotel room, quickly changed and headed downstairs to catch up with old friends. After a few drinks with our good friend, Lisa, we headed out to meet the rest of the crew at an Irish bar in the Pat-Pong district for a post-Herbalife event party. The drinks were flowing as well as many hugs and catching up with my old co-workers. Once we closed the bar, we wanted the party and good times to continue, so a group of about 20 of us hit the shady streets of Pat-Pong looking to extend the evening. Before we knew it, we were all escorted into a famous "Ping Pong show" of Bangkok. It is a nasty but one time experience in Bangkok - Thai girls demonstrating many "skills" including shooting ping pong balls at the guests, blowing out birthday candles, flying bananas, shooting darts at balloons and pulling razor blades all from places that should be left UNSEEN! It only took one beer in for us to have our fill of the experience and call it a night! We jumped in a local taxi, the tuk tuk (taxi in the form of a motor bike with a cart attached) back to the hotel.





We woke in time to take advantage of the huge buffet breakfast included in our room then we decided we hadn't had our fill of the luxurious hotel room after our backpacking experiences, so we crawled back into bed and spent the rest of the morning and afternoon watching tv (a rare commodity when backpacking) and ordered room service. Around 4pm, we decided to get out and about and walked about 2 minutes down the street to a massage parlor for a duel traditional Thai massage. Many massage parlors were targeting our business as we walked by but we finally chose one offering massages for $6 and were escorted to our curtained double room to change into our pink pajamas. We were twisted and buckled for the better part of an hour. At one point I looked at Jacques lying next to me and the small Thai girl was walking over his back and legs! We were thoroughly relaxed and nothing left to do but go back to the hotel for some more time in the comfy bed and another movie. Later in the evening, we met up with friends for another night out. First, we went shopping at the night market looking for deals. The night market has the best knock offs for everything and it was hard not to buy up the entire place so we just settled for a few things. After shopping, we met Roger at a local Jazz club, Saxophone, for a late Thai dinner (we didn't eat till midnight) and music till the early hours of the morning. We finally called it a night and headed back to the hotel.







The next morning we enjoyed another full breakfast spread and had good intentions of seeing the light of day in Bangkok, but the draw of the comfy room kept us in bed again. We had a late check out of 4pm and we were taking an all night bus south to Krabi so decided to take full advantage of the relaxing setting. Down to the wire, we finally checked out at 4pm on the dot and put our big bags in storage, only taking what we needed for the next few days in our small day packs. We caught a cab to the bus terminal and with Bangkok traffic, it took nearly 2 hours. The bus departed at 8pm on a surprisingly nice bus for the 11 hour journey to Krabi - nothing that a sleeping pill can't fix. They offered snacks and played Thai news but after an hour we were asleep and woke the next morning in Krabi.

Upon arrival at the Krabi bus terminal, we caught a smaller bus (an open air back of a truck) to the beach town of Ao Nang. We arrived before anything was really open at 8am and met up with a friendly travel agent who pointed us in the direction of a near by hotel and activities in the area. Before we knew it, we had accommodation and were booked on an all day island excursion for the day. To our surprise and disappointment, Krabi wasn't the dream Thai beach town we envisioned and to reach any true beautiful beaches, a boat must be taken to the outlying islands. We quickly checked in to our simple (but with a nice pool) hotel and departed for the 4-island hopping trip for the day. We boarded a traditional long boat and headed away from mainland to the many small islands. First, we stopped at Railay Beach for 40 minutes and walked around the soft sand island. We couldn't even dock at the next island, Chicken Island, and snorkeled off the boat instead. We had a box lunch on the third island and took advantage of the sun and the soft sand. On the final island, we watched monkeys steal the tourist's food out of their bags and swim in the ocean! Lucky for us, it was a beautiful and sunny day despite visiting the area in the rainy season. On the trip, we decided 5 days in this area would be too much with the lack of beaches to lounge on (and our dwindling funds) so back in Ao Nang, we contacted the airlines and changed our flight to depart Thailand early for South Africa - flying out 3 days early. We were excited for the changed plans as the South Africa trip is non-stop and we will need the extra rest before embarking on the African safaris. We celebrated the night with tropical drinks ocean side with a delicious Thai dinner. We had another big activity scheduled for the next day, so back to the hotel for a good night's rest.





















We woke Thursday morning bright and early for our pick up for our all day, highly anticipated activity - sea kayaking and elephant trekking. We were driven an hour outside of town to the north for our kayaking adventure through the Thai jungle mangroves. We teamed up in our kayak and set out to the jungle covered mountains in search of monkeys. The venture took about two hours and took us through a maze of jungle trees growing out of the swamp where we encountered giant lizards, snakes and monkeys jumping on our kayak. We were drenched with sweat and swarming mosquitoes as we maneuvered through the narrow channels but it was well worth the unexpected adventure! We returned to the main land for a Thai lunch over the water then off again for the second adventure of the day - riding elephants! We climbed a bamboo structure to board the giant and head out into another jungle for our hour ride. We were seated in a chair on his back and felt every heavy step the massive animal took through the rivers and up the hills of the mountain. Our guide let us ride on his neck and guide the elephant through the trees using his ears to steer him. Out of the jungle, we had another amazing seafood dinner overlooking the islands in the distance and listening to the crashing waves below.

























Our final day in Krabi was spent in our air conditioned room till about noon, the last possible time to check out. We spent the next few hours soaking the last bits of sun poolside and eating before the long journey ahead of us. At 3:00pm, another truck bus picked up at our hotel and took us back to Krabi town where we were catching an all-night bus to Bangkok. The bus service was different than the one we came on and filled with other backpackers and took several stops along the way to Bangkok. We did, however, get English movies and our favorite seats in the top front of the double-decker bus. We finally arrived in Bangkok at 5:45am and were dropped in the middle of downtown in a tourist district. Since it was so early, the bus company recommended we find the local police station and set up camp there till daylight came, but we found a nice coffee shop and settled in there for the next 3 hours. After breakfast, we set out on foot for the Grand Palace. We planned on visiting this famous temple in our first visit to Bangkok but our laziness held us indoors so we saved it for our return trip. The walk wasn't a long one but the humidity and heat started to turn up as the day went on. Unfortunately, we weren't dressed appropriately and had to rent pants, a sarong skirt and a shirt to make the tour which made it all the hotter. We spent the better part of 2 hours strolling the magnificent grounds with thousands of other tourists. The highlight of our visit was seeing the Emerald Buddha sitting high upon his gold throne in his very own temple. Well... the highlight of Jacques' visit was the Asian girl tourists asking him to pose for pictures and sign autographs! Once we had seen the ornate grounds, we returned our clothing and found the pier for a boat ride down the river in the direction of the hotel where our bags were waiting for us. We strolled a shopping mall (finally buying Jacques new headphones) and ate our last bit of Thai food (quite a disappointment after the delicious food in Krabi) then bargained a tuk tuk to deliver us back to the hotel for one last joy ride through the dirty streets of Bangkok. We discovered we had just enough Baht and all the time in the world before our flight, so we treated ourselves to a final Thai massage after our long bus ride the night before and the long flight to South Africa tonight. Relaxed and feeling satisfied with our time in Thailand, we departed for the airport to take advantage of lounge life (our second to last opportunity) again. The flight departs at 12:15am and arrives at 6:25am - Africa here we come!