So the journey began at Birmingham airport. After saying goodbye to my family I went to meet Emilia, another ETA who was on both of my flights which I was very happy about! This is our Emirates plane, nice one Birimingham for the sunset send off!
I'm not normally one to say i'd actually enjoy sitting in one seat with little space to move with strangers in the sky for 6 plus hours, but hats of to Emirates, they hit the nail on the head with comfort and gadgets even in economy. I got a little too over excited about the starry ceiling and the map which shows you where you are flying. The free drinks also don't hurt!
When we got to Dubai it was actually only about a five minute walk to the gate so we grabbed some breakfast in Giraffe and were shortly onto the next plane. The 2 and a half hour stop over was a great decision.
So over the second leg of the journey I attempted to sleep again and failed nearly as miserably as the first flight which wasn't ideal. The other thing that wasn't ideal was my urge to sing along to Frozen for the whole plane to 'enjoy?'. Well I couldn't resist so people around me might have heard me whisper most of the lyrics, the lucky things...
This flight was also exciting because it was a bigger plane and with this came a camera on the tail of the plane which I could look at on my screen. AMAZING.
This flight was also exciting because it was a bigger plane and with this came a camera on the tail of the plane which I could look at on my screen. AMAZING.
Landing in Bangkok was made even more special than the tail camera. Because of time difference (Bangkok being 6 hours ahead of the UK) It was as if we had almost been travelling for 24 hours. Meaning we saw another amazing sunset which I managed to get a photo of that looks like a screensaver, even if I do say so myself! Thank you for the lovely welcome Bangkok!
After being hit by the heat and instantly melting, myself and Emilia met up with Joy in the airport who had arrived an hour before from the Philippines where she had been visiting her sister before the TET program for 2 weeks. We hopped into a big taxi while the taxi men laughed at us for bringing so much luggage, rude. We are here for 3 months! When we arrived on Khao San Road I was majorly overwhelmed and slightly scared. It was so busy, loud, bright with the lights and lets face it, tacky. But this tourist hot spot was to be home for the next 3 nights and the bars did look quite fun. We checked into the D&D Inn with the choice of a noisy room with a window or a quiet room without. We took the windowless cell option and that it was! Although it was clean and importantly cheap so we were happy, we were only going to use it to sleep anyway so who cares?! We got connected onto the wifi and saw that other ETA's at the hotel had posted on the TET Facebook page about meeting up to go for a drink so myself Emilia and Joy went down to 'Lucky Beer' to join the big group of ETA's for a cocktail. This was going to be a night with a couple of drinks before an early ish bed time because of the long flight. But oh no. This is not how Bangkok works. After a crazy tuk tuk ride and 17 of us seeing a ping pong show (bizarre and innocence destroying is the only way I can describe it without going into too much detail) we went back to Khao San Road to a bar where we bought our first cocktail buckets. It turns out that in the day this bar is in fact non existent but is instead a clothes stall. We then ended up at 'The Club', which is probably not 'The' best club to be at but nevertheless it was a pretty good night.
Absolute nutter, tuk tuks or bumper cars?
Obligatory terrified on a tuk tuk selfie
The strongest bucket of alcohol ever
Its safe to say that no one made it down for breakfast the next morning, which may have been because of the effects of the buckets or because in windowless room there is no sunlight to wake you up! We were pretty annoyed that we'd missed most of the day because we were in Bangkok early to see everything! We decided to leave venturing out to the temples until Wednesday and instead cure ourselves with some food and mani-pedis. Who is going to say no to a manicure and a pedicure all for £6?! Not me!
This is my chicken fried rice at Sunrise Taco on Khao San Road which was a good safe bet, didn't feel up to being adventurous or trying any street food at that point.
We ventured up to the roof pool at our hotel and found Jess who will be teaching at a school not far from mine. Then it was dinner time and a group of us found a cute restaurant to get some Thai food.
I'm sure my meal was called Pad Ci Eew (I think that's how you spell it!) and it was delicious. Noodles, chicken and vegetables with a soy sauce flavour. Mmmm :D
We then headed to a bar and tried some of the touristy delights that we later realised no Thai people eat, because they are gross. Say hi to my scorpion friend.
So you can probably guess from my face that scorpion isn't something I'll be trying again!
So we were ready for a change from the bright neon lights of Khao San Road:
When we went back onto Khao San it suddenly felt even tackier and in your face. Regardless we headed back to the pop up bar which has a building site behind it as you can see in my blurry photo of the DJ and digger!
I then bumped into another ETA, Dip who by a great coincidence I actually met 5 years ago on holiday.
We all finished the night with a trip to 'The Club' with entry at 150 Baht (£3) it's not bad seeing as you get a drink as well! Kind of reminds me of Birmingham's Gatecrasher, just a bit shabbier, more Thai and without the brummy accent. Of course we also had to sample some street food..
The best spring rolls in the world
Myself Deeni and Tegan were the quietest we'd been since meeting while eating these!
Freshly cooked chicken skewer (on second thought not actually sure how long the raw chicken had be sitting there but hey go I was fine!). While we were enjoying chicken a street dj started up, here's a snapshot of Harriet and Tegan loving life.
Khao San road leaves no one unscathed
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