Crazy Bangkok (this is a long one, covers three days!)

Here I am.. at last. Well actually I'm in Chiang Mai now.. Bangkok was so busy I scarcely had time to write my blog!

Flight up from Johor Bahru was uneventful, apart from the fact that I forgot I was only permitted 15kg of checked baggage, and I had 18kg.. cost me a wee bit in extra baggage charges. Oh well. Made my connection through Kuala Lumpur without any trouble. Air Asia was quite pleasant actually.

Got to Bangkok, arriving at their shiny new airport, the name of which I cannot begin to pronounce. Found my way through immigration, picked up my bag and through customs, out into the arrival hall where there were people absolutely everywhere. Passengers, airport staff, 20,000 cab/limo drivers who all wanted your business.. good times. Got some Thai Baht out of the ATM and found a cab driver, and we were off.

There was some drama which included my cab driver yelling into his phone at someone to try to figure out where it was, the Thai language at high volume is not really a pleasant experience, LOL.

He found the hotel in reasonable time, cost me about 350 Baht (about $12) to come all the way from the airport (about 40 min drive), quite cheap really. Got myself checked in, showered, went out for a quick walk in the neighbourhood to have a look around, got some water, a SIM card for my phone, and headed back to the hotel for dinner (pad thai.. mmm) and Singha beer (mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm).

After I got the phone thing figured out.. I waited until about midnight (so it was 10am at home) and got on the horn to Lindsay at my old office to see about changing my flight from Singapore-Sydney.. I've decided to curtail my itinerary after I finish in Vietnam, heading straight for Australia instead of going back to Thailand/Malaysia for 3 more weeks. I just decided it was too long and too complicated. Was super nice to talk to Lindsay, and 2 more phone calls and about an hour later, I had all my flights from Danang-Saigon-Singapore-Sydney all re-arranged. I had one night previously booked in a posh hotel at the Singapore airport, this change could wait until the next day. Off to bed.

Up at 730, out the door to breakfast, immediately after which I was picked up by my day-trip people to head out for my tour. We visited a few sites just outside of Bangkok, including a short river cruise on a traditional Thai boat, a visit to a farm where this yummy sugar candy-type stuff is made (can't remember what it was called), a fantastic cooking course where I got to make Pad Thai (mmmmmm), and a visit to an orchid farm to watch how they grew orchids out of a bottle.. was really cool :)

I met some lovely people from Australia, including one lady who chatted me up all the way back to the city, we ended up exchanging information and hugs at the end of the car ride!

Back to the hotel where I was promptly switched into another room, as I would now have a roommate.. a nice fellow from the UK. I had some things to do, among them getting my US$350 local payment, so off I went.. I found this enormous electronics shopping mall just down the street called 'IT World', I had really been thinking about getting one of those tiny notebook computers that are scaled back basically to do internet only, as practically every place I had stayed so far had wireless set up and I was spending a fortune in internet bills. So after much looking around I picked one up, then went to the bank machine to withdraw enough money to change to US dollars.. by this time I was so close to the time to meet my group that I could only ask one currency exchange place, who would not sell me US dollars. Booo.

Met my group, great bunch, only 8 of us (although this group is three different tours, so we will leave some as we go and probably pick more up). Five Aussies, two Brits, and me. Tour leader is just lovely :)

Went to another currency place as suggested by the tour leader, bought some USD, headed off to dinner, seafood red curry, omg sooooooo yummy, back to hotel and dropped into bed after a couple hours online.

OK this is getting long.. next day.. did the grand palace (sooo fantastic), reclining buddha, took a boat up one of the canals, and vegged out in the hotel the rest of the day, until it was time to head to the train station for our overnight train to Chiang Mai (14 hours). Train ride was fun, didn't sleep a whole lot, such are the joys of sleeper trains... got to our lovely little hotel in Chiang Mai in the morning, myself and one other girl did an elephant ride which was tons of fun.. every 3 steps the elephant went, up it's trunk came for a banana which we had been given to feed him. Was very fun, got lots of good photos, including the one they took of us. Back to hotel, here I am.
Phew. That was a long one..

Tonight doing the night bazaar..

Tomorrow we are off to Chiang Rai by bus.. then crossing into Laos tomorrow afternoon, can't wait!