Thailand Trip 2001

7/28/01: Mr Pornchai (sp)?

2001-07-28T12:00:00.000+07:00

Mr. Pornchai was our taxi driver from the airport to our hotel on Samui. He had offered to do a 8 hour taxi tour of the island. We took him up on a half day then a ride to the airport. He took us to a couple temples, showed us a Buddhist ritual, a coconut farm, and a fishery area.

Mark working at coconut farm

Duane and Mark do Buddhist Ritual

Mr Pornchai and Duane at Mummified Buddha

Big Buddha, Koh Samui

Koh Samui Fishermen Working

Abby is back!
We met Scott and Abby in the Khao San Road area after we got back from Bangkok. We stayed at the "Asia Airport Hotel" which had a free 4am shuttle to the airport. By noon on 7/29 we were home! US Customs didn't care about my pirate software, music, and movies I had bought in Bangkok, but they did take away my Chinese throwing star.

Duane, Scott, Mark, Abby at Scott and Abby's "hotel"

Stealing a tuk-tuk

7/27/01: NaMuang Waterfalls

2001-07-27T15:00:00.000+07:00

We checked out two waterfalls, and swam in the pool at the bottom of one. The water was a lot colder than the ocean or our hotel swimming pool. Since it was still so hot this was very refreshing. Just a relaxing day at a beach resort. Koh Samui is very close to Thailand's Ang Thong National Marine Park. where the film "The Beach" was filmed. In the movie they go to Ko Phan-Ngan, which is an island we could have visited by one hour ferry.

Mark at WaterfallDuane at Waterfall

Mark jumping in

7/26/01: Koh Samui

2001-07-26T04:00:00.000+07:00

Mark and I took a flight on Bangkok Airlines to Koh Samui at 8am. Koh Samui is a very nice island with a lot of little resorts that have "bungalows" on the beach. We stayed in a hotel room at "Samui Park Resort". It was obvious we could have found a better deal and had the hotel on a better beach, but oh well, free breakfast, a pool, etc. It was very close to "Grandmother and Grandfather Rock".

Samui Park Resort Pool

Grandfather Rock

Henna, foot scrub
After checking in, we swam in the pool a little, then walked toward a nicer beach. We had pizza at "Pizza Hat" and swam at Lanai beach. These two girls were bugging me to get a fake tattoo painted on. I ended up doing it and getting a foot scrub (feet washed and calluses removed) for 400 Baht total ($9). Not a bad deal.

Hat Lamai

Henna Tattoo

Wrong side of the Road?
We rented a Suzuki truck (basically a Suzuki Samurai but it wasn't labeled that and it was obviously a lot newer). In Thailand they drive on the left hand side of the road and the cars are right hand drive, so it was pretty crazy. The stick shift, signals, mirrors, are all on the wrong side of you, plus you need to stay in your lane. Not an easy drive... I ate spaghetti outside at Chawang Beach, and we had a few beers at a couple bars. It was a lot easier to drive in the wrong lane after a few beers for some reason! One funny thing about renting this was they never asked for ID, I just filled out a form and signed it. The cost was 800 Baht ($18) and the lady said they have insurance. Also, shouldn't I have an International Driver's license? (I don't)

Duane in right-hand-drive Suzuki

7/25/01: Shopping

2001-07-25T22:00:00.000+07:00

We went shopping at MBK and Patpong Market. Scott ran into fellow backpackers from the Netherlands. We ate in Chinatown and finally made it to Wat Pho.

Mark on Motorcycle Taxi

MBK Shopping

Chinatown fountain

Wat Pho - Reclining Buddha

Scott, Duane, Mark at Wat Pho

7/24/01: Let's move yet again!

2001-07-24T19:00:00.000+07:00

Mark and I decided we would go to Koh Samui, an island with beaches and stuff in the Gulf of Thailand. We visited the travel agent in our hotel, who did a good job booking us flights and a hotel there. We asked if she could find us something cheaper for the next couple night instead of staying at Tai-Pan, yet similar quality. She booked us at the Ambassador a few blocks down for 1500 Baht per night ($34) and off we went. We took a taxi from there to the "Shangri La" hotel to take the canal tour Mark's cousin had recommended to us. The taxi driver (Nippon ChitChop) knew pretty good English and said he was recently laid off in Seattle from Seagate. And no, he didn't know Dave Bremer.

How about a little dirty water?
The canal was filthy, and you were scared that when water splashed in your face, it would get in your mouth. The canal tour uses these "long boats" which were weird boats that had huge engines on the back that looked like you just pulled a truck engine out of a Ford F150. It sounded like that too, as there was no muffler on it. Along the way this old lady was waiting in her boat to sell us junk, and tried to talk us into buying a beer for the boat driver. You can't scam a scammer, lady!

Snake Farm
The boat stopped at a snake farm, which we didn't go in, but Mark and Scott got pictures with snakes around their necks for 20 Baht (45 cents).

Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn)
Next canal tour stop was this temple. It was hot as hell there, but we climbed around on it and took pictures. Scott realized he left his sunglasses at the snake farm.

I left my sunglasses at the snake farm, go real fast, 5 minutes...
We got dropped at this Chang Pier, but Scott stayed in the boat, trying to tell our non-English speaking boat driver, that he needed to go back to the snake farm for his sunglasses. Words can't explain how funny this was, as Scott was using his hands to show snakes, sunglasses and go fast. He kept doing it over and over and the guy finally figured it out and said 300 Baht (we paid 550 for all 3 of us on this tour). Scott said no and got off at the pier. At the pier you can also hire boats to do similar canal tours (why you would ever want to do this is beyond me... avoid the canal if ever in Bangkok). So Scott is doing the same stuff (snake farm, sunglasses, go fast there and back) but can't get anyone to do it for less then 350 Baht. Finally he finds a guy to take him for 300, but he had to pay 320, and 2 other girls were with him. They did go straight to the snake farm but Scott jumped ship when they didn't come straight back. He took a motorcycle taxi to get back to the pier to meet Mark and I.

Another Scam
Mark and I were going to check out "Wat Pho", home of the reclining Buddha. This student told us it was closed (which Lonely Planet says is a common scam, telling you stuff is closed). This guy never tried to get us to go look at gems or anything, but we told him we were waiting for Scott, he left his sunglasses, at the snake farm, ...

Lumpinee Muay Thai
This night, we took a cab from our hotel to see Thai kickboxing at Lumpinee Stadium. Pretty cool. They try to scam you into 1000 Baht ringside seats, when the 200 Baht were just as good. I didn't feel well and was really tired so I left Scott and Mark there via motorcycle taxi, which was crazy!

7/23/01: Mail stuff at the Embassy!

2001-07-23T14:00:00.000+07:00

Mark's cousin (who is in the Marines I think) told us to mail stuff home from the US Embassy as it has a Zip Code and is really cheap, fast, etc. We had bought enough junk that we headed for the Embassy to do this. Well, they gave us passes to get to the post office at the Embassy, but they were acting confused when we asked to go there. It ends up that you can't mail from there unless you are Military or a US Government employee. A guy there packaged our stuff really nice and we headed for a Thailand Post Office. $20 later, and the package should arrive in the US within 2 months!

HOT!
Another scorcher, over 95 degrees. Hot as hell, and sweaty! We checked out an Internet cafe that had air conditioning near the post office ($1.35 per hour) and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe at Siam Square.

Scams, scams, scams
We had read in the Lonely Planet about scams in Thailand, especially Gem scams, where locals act like they know a place for you to get a good deal, etc, but really they are just suckering you into buying bad gems for a high price. We didn't fall for it, but we did let 2 women who acted like well-to-do business women take us to one of these. We left right away laughing we let it get so far. Here's a guy trying to scam us at MBK shopping.

Outside MBK Shopping Center, with a scammer trying to tell us where to shop (get scammed?)

Venus Jewelry
We visited a store Mark's cousin told us to go to. Mark had a shopping list of jewelry for friends so we went there. Apparently this guy who owns it deals with mostly military. Mark was thinking we might have to be military to get the deals so before we decided we would say we are in the Marines like his cousin.

Where in Okinawa?
So the owner right away asks if we're military, and Mark says, yep Marines. He asks where we are stationed and Mark replied Okinawa (like his cousin is). We shop; Mark picks out stuff; I bought a pewter flask for a gift and the lady asks (in a broken English, sort of) where at Okinawa I'm stationed. LIKE I HAVE ANY IDEA! I acted like I couldn't understand her so maybe she would give up, but she persisted. Finally, she said again, you're at Okinawa, right, and I said no, I'm just visiting from the USA, and MARK is from Okinawa. She then asked him but gave him two choices: Forrester or something else. Mark answered Forrester and that was over! We didn't need to be military there but you hate to look like an ass after lying. There were photos all over the place with the owner and different military guys when they were in the store. I was hoping we wouldn't have to do a photo... If we did I wanted to be Major Healey and Mark could be Major Nelson (like the characters in I Dream of Jeanie)

Time for a new hotel room, again
I asked at the front desk of the Tai-Pan if we could get a third bed or cot in our room, as Scott Davis was flying in tonight and would be staying with us. The guy said, no, we would need to change rooms, also the price went up to 2850 Baht ($63). Ok, fine. We met Scott in this back-packer area where tons of Americans and Europeans were hanging out called "Khoa San Road". Lots of cheap guest houses there, etc. We sat and had drinks with Scott at the Sidewalk cafe and exchanged stories, etc before heading back to the Tai-Pan.

Mark and Scott buying a map, Khoa San Road (backpacker area)

Duane and Scott on Khoa San Road

7/22/01: Chatachuk Market

2001-07-22T16:00:00.000+07:00

We had free breakfast at our hotel and headed for the Chatachuk market, which is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's biggest market. It was huge, selling everything and anything. I bought shorts, pants, underwear, t-shirts, 2 bags all for less than $40. We used the Bangkok Sky Train to get there for less than $1. The temp this day was 35 Celsius, which is about 95 Fahrenheit I think. HOT HOT HOT!

Chatachuk Market Map

Chatachuk Market

Duane buying ice cream at Chatachuk

Foot Massage, $4
Mark and I got foot massages for $4 US. It was a full hour in an air conditioned store at Chatachuk. It was so damn hot there I would have paid $5 just to sit in the air conditioning.

Emporium Shopping
We went to a shopping mall called "Emporium Shopping" that night, and had pizza at a place called Pomodoro's. Nothing special about this place but now ya know! I did get a full body massage for about $13 that night (2 hours!)

Tai-Pan Hotel, 2nd room
This night, around 11:30pm, something was wrong with the clock/control thing in our hotel room. When you walked in, you had to put your hotel key chain on this thing on the wall so your lights and air conditioning would work. The clock/control thing controlled the lights and it didn't work unless the key chain was on the wall. Well, for whatever reason, the air was on, the light at the front door was on, but we couldn't turn any lights on or off. Mark called the front desk and they sent these guys who didn't seem to know what they were doing and we ended up being told about 12:30 am to pack up our stuff as we're headed for another room. I had stuff all over from Chatachuk, plus everything else. We got all packed and found out they only wanted us to move one room down. Well, there was only one bed there but they said they were full. I said that was OK for a discount, but all of a sudden there was another room for us on another floor. So off we go. End of story is the next room wasn't as nice, didn't have a safe, and it wasted about 2 hours of our time.

Taipan Hotel

7/20/01: FIRST CLASS, BABY!

2001-07-20T15:00:00.000+07:00

Bangkok from Airplane

Mark Swanson and I were able to talk my friend Cheryl out of employee passes (she works for Northwest Airlines). We ended up with first class seats all the way to Bangkok and back! Nothing like fresh shrimp cocktails, movies, Dove ice cream bars, and all you can drink for free!

We left about 3pm on Friday the 20th, connected through Narita airport in Tokyo, Japan and finally arrived at Bangkok at 11pm SATURDAY the 21st. The flights add up to about 18 hours...

We hit Customs and Immigration in Thailand, and off we went. We changed some money into Baht (45 Baht to 1 US Dollar) and grabbed a cab. We showed the cab driver where we wanted to stay on a map, but he took us to some other hotel he probably gets a kick back from. It was named Washington Square Hotel or something like that. We looked at a room, it was bad, and left. The cab driver was still outside and Mark told him to take us to the Tai-Pan hotel, a hotel his cousin had told him about. We were hoping for a better deal, but who wants to screw around? The Tai-Pan was 2200 Baht per night ($49) so we went for it, as it looked nice enough. We changed, and starting walking into the city looked for someplace to eat. We ate Thai rice entrée's at a place for about $7 each, including seafood/shrimp salads and drinks. We walked though Soi Cowboy (adults only link) and waved at all the sex workers yelling "Hello!". We bought some bottled water at 7-11 near our hotel and headed home.

Soi Cowboy

Taipan Business Card