Sitting here in the Thai Noodle restaurant at the Bangkok Airport (I’m here because they give free wifi for customers) I have very little time to do a reflection on my time in Bangkok and Thailand as a whole. So you will get this crappy one with a promise of a better version in the very near future.

I really loved the islands in the south of Thailand. In fact I really really want to go back. Bangkok on the other hand I am tired of and I am really ready to leave and never come back. This place could be very enjoyable for some but not me. It is just too crazy. Too crowded and too dangerous, just crossing the street in some places is risky business.

The picture below is in a Chinatown night market. This picture, I am assuming, is an example of a light crowd since it was taken early in the day and the place doesn’t get good until 6PM according to the shifty tuk tuk driver that was trying to convince us to go later.

The taxi drivers drive like maniacs and the seatbelts in their cars do not work properly. On the way over here the taxi driver was weaving in and out of traffic at 150kph (~96mph or something I dunno) and my girlfriend sitting next to me had no seatbelt! Ridiculous right?

The tuk tuk drivers NEVER leave you alone, and I have learned that if a random person is nice to you, telling where you should go and things you should see they are a tuk tuk driver or in league with a tuk tuk driver or association of tuk tuk drivers. If you do not sere a tuk tuk you can be sure there is one around the corner. They will also tell you lies to get you to jump in the tuk tuk. If a tuk tuk driver ever tells you that the place you are going is closed they are LYING!

At least most of the salespeople were not that bad. Some never give up but that was only a few. But wow the river here is a stark contrast to the pristine waters of the islands. The river and canals are just brown. Period. No clean looking blue water anywhere in sight. I have yet to figure out why it is brown though, since brown water isn’t necessarily polluted.

Here is a picture of the water in the river. All of the water looked like this:

For comparison here is what the water around Koh Phi Phi looked like":

But anyways, I digress. Back to the topic at hand!

I think the worst part of the 7 days here was the pollution. Smog, weird smells, and smoking. That sums up most of what you will experience walking around Bangkok during the day. I seriously feel like I cut about 20 years off of my life after all the time we spent walking around out there. Smog laws seemingly are not even a suggestion here.

But truthfully the city does have a wonderful nightlife, lots of bright lights and things to do. We went and saw a movie at the Paragon Cinemas and I can almost guarantee that you will not have a better cinematic experience anywhere in the entire world. We paid 700 Baht (~$24 USD) and we got an entire couch in the back of the theater it was WONDERFUL. And the malls here are absolutely amazing. On the Siam stop on the skytrain, as soon as you step out there are malls for days.

Also as with the other places in Thailand the food was good and inexpensive. I think that if I was more of an extrovert and liked busy places I would have loved Bangkok. But alas, I am not.

Goodbye Bangkok, you seem like a wonderful city may your next tourists love you! I sure didn’t!

we have actually been doing quite a lot in the last few days. We have been able to see all the places where Thailands post card photos are taken. These islands in Thailand are really some beautiful places. The places have in my opinion gotten progressively better as we went along.

in Pa Tong the vendors practically attack you and really try to rip you off. I found out today that any price that a vendor quotes you is about 400%  of what you actually should pay. Sort of ridiculous, but that’s how it is. But in Ao Nang and Koh Phi Phi the salespeople have really chilled out, they won’t try so hard to get you to buy stuff. Maybe they have figure out how annoying a hardcore persistent salesperson can be.

unfortunately I am writing this on my Kindle so I can’t show the pictures of the amazing things that I have had the chance to see over the last few weeks. I will add pictures when I have internet again.

If you do one thing in Thailand make sure you come to Koh Phi Phi.  James Bond Island sort of sucks, and the sales people will try to sell you junk, like malformed pearls. The best part of the tour that took us to James Bond Island was the opportunity to go sea canoeing. We get to actually go inside the islands around Phuket, which are really gargantuan rock formations. The name of the company was Phuket Siam Sea Canoe and in my opinion they were really good. Just be careful of the cookies that they leave out on the table they are ADDICTIVE.

In Koh Phi Phi we paid 350 Baht each at our hotel, the Ivory Hotel, to go on a tour to Maya Bay,  it was the most amazing beach experience of my lifetime.

Imagine a beach with perfect white sand, pristine azure water, mostly untouched by mankind, with wonderfully warm water. Then imagine a beach that is three times better than what you just imagined and then you will start to understand how great Maya Bay is. I really didn’t want to leave when it was time to go.

after the tour we came back to Koh Phi Phi and had dinner at Papaya Restaurant. This is the best place on the island according to the two Irish women who sat next to us. It actually was really good, their Pad Thai was made in a completely different way from any Pad Thai that I have ever had. It was reddish and tasted like there might have been ketchup, among other things, mixed in. Whatever was in it it was good.

After a long conversation with the Irish women who sat with us, who happened to live in England, we went to Stones Bar where we watched some fire twirling. We did this until a fire twirler threw his metal burning stick in the air and nearly burned us. He threw that burning metal rod so high that it angled over to our table. It then hit the chair and proceeded to bounce over at us. Luckily we moved out of the way in time and neither of us was hurt but my lovely girlfriend still wanted to leave. eh. I thought it was fun! But what can you do!

Anyways if you ever get a chance to go to Thailand make sure you take a trip down to Koh Phi Phi and Maya bay it will be 100% worth it!

oh I almost forgot, there is now a fee to enter Koh Phi Phi. Its only 20 baht but still a little weird. But I think it is a good thing because they are using the money from the fee to try and keep the beach and water clean.

Anyways, now that I have some ok-ish internet, here are some pictures from the Maya Bay Tour. The last one is a picture of a monkey at Monkey Beach. That guy seemed to love the camera!