It rained all night. It’s still raining in the morning. Noone gets up in the dorm. What can you do if it pours? Nothing really. At noon it finally stops and I’m heading out with Clare (UK), Sofi (Sweden) and Sanne (Holland) to have breakfast at the breakfast place that’s a tattoo parlor at the same time. The breakfast is really good here 
Later Gavin (South Africa) and John join us. They are all staying in the dorm and traveling for a few weeks, months or a year. While we’re eating it starts pouring again. As it stops we go to the massage salon next door: Thai massage - 1 hour = 250 baht, oil massage - 1 hour = 300 baht, less than 10 dollars and this is expensive for Thailand! Later it stops raining, so I head for the beach. Before I make it there it starts to rain AGAIN!!! I just make it to a travel agency that also has an internet cafe and update my blog
Posts Tagged ‘monsoon
A rainy day during rainy season
Having stayed in Bangkok at the Rambuttri Village Inn for almost a week now, I’m ready to move on. I checked out at noon and stored some of my luggage that I’m not taking with me next door at the Lamphu House because it’s cheaper there (10 baht per day per piece of luggage instead of 20 baht). I’m leaving my rainjacket, my trekking shoes, and some other stuff that I don’t need in the South (beaches, sun and scuba diving – once the monsoon is over) here in Bangkok. So my backback is already lighter now And I also got rid of a few things… So while I’m sitting at the Lamphu House restaurant a guy joins me, Evan from the East Coast but living in Texas. He’s actually really nice and we talk for a while. (Remember that other American guy I met a few days ago…) After a brief stop at the internet cafe, I’m now about to meet up with Clarissa and Till (check out their website – see blogroll), whom I met the other day, to get some information and stories from their trip – they’re also traveling around the world, but the opposite direction, so I’d like to get some details on traveling in South America.
It’s RAINING for the FOURTH time today, approximately 30 min. each time. It seems to me that the monsoon is getting worse instead of better…
I meet Till at 4:30 pm as Clarissa isn’t feeling too well. He shares with me some useful information about traveling in South America over a beer. At 6 pm I go back to the guesthouse, get my backback and meet a Thai guy at the travel agency who walks me and 4 other travelers whom we pick up from their guesthouses along the way to the bus station. The bus station is well, kind of interesting - I’ll put a picture soon on flickr. There are also 2 Austrian girls from Tyrol taking the same bus and we chat – the usual traveler’s talk:
Where are you going?
Where do you come from?
What’s your name?
How long are you traveling for?
What have you done so far?
At 7 pm we leave Bangkok on the VIP bus (with a/c, reclining seats, and toilet), they show 3 movies before we’re trying to go to sleep on the reclining sleeper seats that the travel agent said were comfortable. Well, they are not really comfortable, but what can you do? I manage to fall asleep on these rather uncomfortable reclining seats although they’re showing Rambo and there’s a LOT of noisy shooting and even more blood and body parts flying around… I must say, I prefer the Thai overnight trains! oh, and the toilet is not ON the bus, it’s toilets at stops along the way – just a tiled whole in the ground. Picture to follow 
By the way, just a brief note on Bangkok and the protests (see also entry from Oct.7): Everything is peaceful and quiet here. No protests, nothing. I asked a number of Thai people and they said the protests were only in a small area of Bangkok. Just wanted to let those of you who were worried about me traveling here know that things are fine.
This is the first time in Thailand that I wake up in the morning and it rains - and it keeps raining, not just for the usual 30 min., NO, for 2 hours! I turn on the TV and BBC WORLD NEWS reports: “After all October is one of the wettest months in Thailand and this year it’s certainly keeping its promise…” Well, I was hoping that by coming to Thailand just BEFORE the peak tourist season starts, I would be lucky and avoid the crowds but still get all the good stuff. Agnes, remember how we had the same idea when traveling to Bulgaria in September. We weren’t as lucky as we had hoped, though, but still had fun ;-) Well, so the rainy season is not over yet, but it will be eventually… And in the meantime I am still enjoying my trip. I guess that’s the thing about going somewhere just before or after peak season: you can get lucky - or not.
I spent the day walking around the neighborhood and later went to the internet cafe to eventually figure out how to download pictures and then upload them onto flickr so you guys can finally not just read what’s going on while I’m traveling, but also SEE! I am glad I took this “USB2.0 All-in-1 Card Reader”, which I bought in NYC in June, with me and although I had never used it before it worked! I downloaded the pictures onto the computer and then uploaded some of them to flickr. It took me a while, also because the computers here are not the fastest. But it worked. So from now onwards you will be able to also SEE some of the pictures I take while I’m traveling around the world
Just click on “flickr photos” – “More Photos” in the bottom right-hand corner of this blog.
My room has a/c and also a TV. In the morning and evening I usually watch “BBC worldwide”. This is a channel showing international news 24/7. This morning I suddenly hear ”In Austria…” and “… issued a statement today that Petzner was not romantically involved with Joerg Haider.” Can you believe this: amongst all the international news THIS is what they report about Austria - by the way, the ONLY thing they have reported about Austria since I got here on Tuesday! This reminds me of Bulgaria. When Agnes and I were in a hotel in Sozopol we also watched TV there, some international news channel, and all they reported about the upcoming elections back then was about Haider, Strache and their right-wing parties. Come on. Why not try to give a more balanced view of the political parties?! It’s kind of disappointing that these newsmakers seem to have a rather onesided view of the Austrian political system. It makes me wonder how much I can trust the news they report from other parts of the world…
I started the day with having breakfast at the Sawasdee Terrace, a place close to my guesthouse. There I noticed for the first time here in Bangkok a traveler (traveller for the British) who was listening to his iPod. It was funny, because in NYC it’s so normal for people to listen to their iPod (it seems like everybody has one there), but here it’s completely different. People were looking at this guy as if he was weird. And it really was a little strange in a place were lots of backpackers were having breakfast and talking to each other. He almost seemed anti-social. After he left another guy sat down at the table next to mine and soon we started talking. His name is John and he is the first American I’ve met so far. He was talking really loud with a thick American (Californian) accent and people started looking at him and then he explained to me that this was his first time traveling abroad and he always sort of knew that people stereotypically think that Americans are “loud, ignorant and a little stupid” (his words!), but he really tries to show people that Americans are better than that. He was a little confused about how negative the perception of Americans is once you get out of the US and he went on and on about this… Poor guy! So today’s conversation was a little different (not as much fun) from the ones I had the last couple of days, but it was still interesting to talk to him after having lived in NYC for the last 6 years.
So after this, having resolved the visa issue (when and where to get which visa for which country), I am checking with a few travel agencies, some specialized in scuba diving, how much liveaboards to the Similan Islands off Thailand’s West coast in the South cost. Once again, the information I get is inconsistent: some say, the SImilan Island Marine National Park is not open yet due to the fact that the monsoon isn’t over yet - lasting longer this year than usual. Aha. Some say, it will open Nov.1, and one travel agent in a scuba diving shop tells me that the Similan Island MNP is already open. But the diving gets better later in the season (which lasts until the middle of May on the West coast). Interesting. Furthermore, as I’m not booking my scuba diving trip here in Bangkok, I am trying to find out where to do that: Krabi, Phutek, or Khao Lak? After having enough varying information, I sit down in a cafe to read, think, and decide what to do. I feel unbelievably free I am so happy that I decided to do this trip around the world – by myself.
Decision making time is over and here’s the result: I’ll be going to Krabi first, to visit Ko Phi Phi (a beautiful island, famous from the movie “The beach” with Lenonardo DiCaprio) and also Phang-Nga. After a few days there, I’ll head a little north on the West coast to Khao Lak; there I’ll book and go on a liveaboard trip to the Similan Islands. By the way, a liveaboard is when you stay on a boat for a few days (and nights obviously) to scuba dive straight from there. I already did that once in Austraila in 1999 when I got my scuba diving certificate with Ulli. It was great – we both liked it so much that we stayed a few more days to get our advanced scuba diving license :) I hope that by going to Krabi first, and then to the Similan Islands MNP, the monsoon will be over by the time I go scuba diving, but I’ll still not be hitting the main tourist season. (According to my guidebook Ko Phi Phi is way too overcrowded from Dec. – March.) After that I’ll be coming back to Bangkok. I’ll skip the East coast in the South of Thailand, as I already went there in 2006. I also will not spend much more time in Thailand (having traveled here for 4 weeks in 2006), but head straight to the very North of Thailand, to the border town Chiang Khong from where I’ll cross over to Laos. There I would like to take a boat down the Mekong river… But that’s enough of a PLAN for now
Now that I know what I’m doing, I head straight to the travel agency next to my guesthouse to book a train to Krabi, well actually a bus. The trains are fully booked until Tuesday and I want to leave on Monday at the latest. So I get the ticket for the VIP bus, leaving Bangkok at 6 pm on Monday, arriving in Krabi at 9 am the next morning. VIP buses come with a/c, reclining seats and toilets. I still would have preferred the train. I love the overnight trains in Thailand! But this way I don’t have to change from the train to a minibus in Surat Thani, so that’s ok and also a little cheaper.
Bianca – hope you had a wonderful wedding! I’m sorry I missed it!!!
Thai store, friends and SKYPE :)
81.5 degree fahrenheit = 27.5 degree celcius – that’s the temperature I wake up to this morning. I turn on the a/c. – It’s the cool season in Bangkok, well actually it’s still the monsoon season as it’s lasting a little longer this year than usual. But any time now the “cool” season will start. But don’t get this wrong, it’s not really cool; I wear shorts and tank tops all day long. It’s actually nice and very warm, almost pleasant – not as hot as it was when I was here the last time in July & August 2006.
Today is a rather boring day. I spend quite some time in the internet cafe – checking websites about visas in SEA (Southeast Asia) and scuba diving (liveaboards – Similan Islands). Then I go to a few more travel agents to gain more insights on the visa situation, which doesn’s really help. Eventually, I end up in a department store off Khao San Road. It has 4 floors and NO tourists; only Thai people shop here. Can you belive that?! It’s only around the corner from the “tourist ghetto” and there are basically no tourists. I buy some really cheap but nice flip-flops (and will throw away my old ones – remember I said I want my backpack to be lighter, not heavier), and a BATH PLUG! That’s one of the few things I still needed so I can wash my clothes in the sink. The people there (at Tang Hua Seng Supermarket & Dept. Store) are really friendly and seem pleasantly surprised to see a foreigner here.
The evening I spend again at the internet cafe next to my guesthouse to update my blog, talk to a German couple from Munich who are also traveling around the world, but in the opposite direction. They’re staying at the same place, we exchange room numbers and plan on meeting up for lunch or dinner within the next couple of days. It’s really nice how easy it is to meet other travellers here. Even though I’m traveling alone, I meet people everyday to have a nice conversation with. Another nice conversation I’m having this evening is with one of my best Austrian friends back in New York City: Veronika. It is wonderful how you can talk through SKYPE and even see each other (they have webcams in this internetcafe) no matter where you are in the world. It feels as if Veronika and I were having one of our weekly conversations back in NYC
This makes me think of my friends in different places of the world and how lucky I am to have met them!
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