Most travellers we have met say the same thing about Bangkok….you either love it or you hate it. After spending four or five days there, I can safely say that we are…undecided.
We were visiting Thailand smack-dab in the middle of the tourist high season, so we expected there to be a lot of backpackers around, but were shocked at how many travelers we saw. Our guesthouse was located in the infamous Koh San Road area, a street that is lined with backpacker guest houses, travel agencies, bars, clubs, t-shirt booths, and food carts. Other than the tuk-tuk drivers and food cart vendors, there were no Thai people in sight…just tourists. I had heard that the ‘real’ Bangkok was more modern and filled with nice malls and shops, but after Hong Kong, Kelly and I had no desire to wander around another shopping complex.
Koh San Road
Our first full day, we sorted out our bus tickets to get out of Bangkok and spent time exploring the Royal Palace and Wat Pho, home of the world’s biggest reclining Buddha statue. The palace and temples were absolutely breathtaking, but the heat forced us to head back to our guesthouse soon afterwards for some A/C.
The Grand Palace
Reclining Buddha
The next couple of days were spent wandering around ‘The Old City’, looking at temples and strolling through street markets. From our observations, Bangkok is noisy, polluted, smelly, and fairy difficult to navigate…the street signs are very confusing here, and although close to a lot of tourist sights, our part of town was pretty isolated from the main modes of public transport. Needless to say, we were ready to get out of the city.
We did love one thing about Bangkok…the food, of course! There are tons of street food vendors selling delicious pad-thai, barbecue meat sticks, fried rice, fresh fruit and other fried goodies for ridiculously cheap. One night for dinner we scarfed down all of the above for the insane price of $3 TOTAL.
Meat Sticks!
We just couldn't bring ourselves to eat one
In all fairness, Kelly and I only saw a smidgen of the city, so we can’t really pass judgment. We will say that it has not been our favorite place and leave it at that.
After the hustle and bustle of Bangkok, we were looking forward to boarding a bus twelve hours south to Phuket, one of Thailand’s popular beach destinations. Our plan was to check out the craziness of Patong Beach for a couple of days and then do some island hopping on the Andaman coast.
Not surprisingly, Phuket turned out to not really be our cup of tea either. Patong Beach was pretty, but super packed with endless rows of lounge chairs, umbrellas, and a few old topless ladies. At night we checked out the party street, Bangla Road, which is like an even tackier sixth street in Austin. We saw our fair share of lady-boys and had about 30 different Thai guys approach us and ask if we wanted to see a ping-pong show. For those of you that don’t know what that is, google ‘ping-pong show Thailand’. Tempting, but…no. There is also a lot of prostitution in Phuket and I can’t tell you how many older men in their sixties we saw with very young Thai women…pretty disgusting. We were glad to only be spending a couple of days here.
Patong Beach
At Sunset
Other than lying on the beach, we took a day tour out to Ko Tapu, otherwise known as James Bond Island…it’s where parts of ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’ were filmed. The island itself was lovely, but the amount of souvenir stalls covering the entire beach and the boatloads of tourists really turned us off of the whole thing. I realize that Kelly and I are tourists as well…I guess I just didn’t expect for there to be so many of us in one place at one time!
This one's for you, Sarah H. - James Bond Island
Based on our experiences in Bangkok and Phuket, Thailand was not living up to the beautiful, relaxing paradise we had envisioned. On top of that, Kelly and I were starting to feel a little travel fatigue. I know it’s hard to believe, but living out of a backpack every day, constantly figuring out how to get from Point A to Point B, finding a place to sleep, a place to eat…these simple tasks become quite tedious and can start to wear you down after awhile. Poor us, right?
Hopefully our time on the island of Ko Phi Phi would get us back on track…
Sisters Astray 
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