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Posted by - Garrett on February 20, 2007 at 4:42 am:
Right I was going to chicken out of doing this but I’m going to try and remember. When I was on holidays I was thinking “right I have to say this and I have to remember that to write on the forum” but now it nearly is a blank, a dream that never happened. Before I start I want to apologize if this is boring or my holiday is not suited to your holiday, you have to remember this is my holiday and these are my thoughts so no haters please. Also I hate re-reading my writing so there will be mistakes so apologies.
Where do I start well I suppose I should do an introduction. Wish me luck.
Introduction:
My name is Garrett Vaughan and my girlfriends name is Deirdre. We are in our late twenties and live in Dublin. This is my fourth time in Thailand and is Dee’s third. When we first started going out I brought her and she fell in love with Thailand. Now we have been going every year. We love it, the people, the smell, the food, the scenery, the hotels, the shopping, the landmarks and tours, the weather (well most of the time) and last but not least the bars of all types.
We can’t get enough of the place and I would love to go and sample other countries but it is hard not to go back because you know it is so much fun and the people you meet are great.
We have been saving for a long time so we can get nice hotels, upgrade rooms and so we can dine out in nicer places. Were not rich or pompous we just really wanted to do what ever we wanted really look forward to our holiday.
Off to Bangkok:
We booked through Trailfinders for our flights and received ok prices I think around 750 euros, it might sound expensive but this was the cheapest I could get and I looked through all options because doing the ground work of looking through the internet is half the fun of going away for me. So we flew with Gulf Air.lso booked the hotels online as well.
On the 21st Jan Dee and I left Dublin with Gulf air to Bahrain at 8.55 in the morning. We were so excited. The plane was a new plane with good seat pitch and it had TVs in the seat rest so that was good. They had some good films on but I was tired so I slept a bit on the flight. The flight attendants were attentive and friendly. The food was not bad I think I enjoyed it and they also came around with snacks like hula hoops or chocolate bars, result! We arrived into Bahrain at 18.55 and had 4 hours to kill. I didn’t mind the stopover coz it gives you a little break and because when you’re off to your destination you don’t really care its coming back that it becomes a nuisance.
When we left for Bangkok the second plane was an old plane. It didn’t have TVs in front of you but the big one for the whole plane. This was a bit of a nightmare but what can you do, so I slept to kill some of the time. They were not as attentive as the first flight and when they gave you the food they disappeared for the rest of the flight.
We arrived at 09.10 into the new airport. There is a lot of trouble and problems with this new airport but when we arrived there was no problems. Went straight threw immigration and picked up our bags and I think we were out of there in 1 hour.
The first time I was ever in Thailand back in 1999 Myself and my friend Dave left the airport with two big rucksacks and walked to the taxi rank and the taxi driver had this hugh smile for us and Dave and I thought these people are so friendly, what we didn’t know is he probley charged us a weeks wage. So if you do get a road taxi don’t haggle, make sure he uses his meter he may get a bit grumpy but he will do it.
You learn from these things so instead of going outside and trying to haggle we just went to one on the taxi desks in the airport and got a nice comfortable car with aircon .I think it was 500bht. I know it was a lot more than a taxi but it was nicer and safer (last year I had the taxi from hell, I will explain later).
So our first hotel was the Four Seasons. This was one of the more expensive hotels; I really wanted to look forward to a nice hotel so we booked this. I booked on line with the site Asiarooms. I have read in forums that it is a dodgy site but I used it and there were no problems, they were the cheapest as well. In Dublin the Four Seasons is 400 euros a night and very expensive, in Bangkok it worked out at 140 per room per night. I really wanted to stay in one so I said to hell with it lets do it and so we did. The only problem was it didn’t come with breakfast, how cares we can get a fry any where in Bangkok, Gar you fool no you cant, you live and learn.
So we arrived a bit tired so we orded room service and had a power nap. The weather was not good and rained quite a bit. When we woke we went out to have a bit of crack in Bangkok. The good thing about the FS is it’s next to Siam Paragon so we were a walk from the fun. The first stop was the first of many stops to Starbucks for a kick start. Then on to the Siam Paragon (http://www.siamparagon.co.th/2007/) for a look around the shops and especially to the Ferrari and Lamborghini shops so there are shops for all.
We went for a bite to eat in the Outback restaurant beside the shopping centre. The food there not bad not the best and the price moderate. Had a couple of beers there and then we were in the mood for more booze, tuk tuks and fun.
So it straight for the nearest tuk tuk. “No I don’t want a ping pong show or gems or suit, I been here before I’ve had two beers now drive as fast and as dangerous as you can to the Banyan Tree hotel”
We went to Banyan Tree Vertigo Bar (http://www.banyantree./bangkok/dining_vertigo.htm) up to the 61st floor for a couple of drinks. We ordered a cosmo and a mai tai. The view was amazing and drinks were good also but I paid for the drinks and my change never seemed to come back to me and the waitress that was meant to bring back my change seemed to stay away fro us. This kind of peed me off and tainted my experience. But when I told the manager we were waiting on my change the bill with my change appeared very fast.
So after a photo and a drink (and my change) we left for another tuk tuk. “We’ve had more drink so faster please sir” and off we went to khao San road for some people watching.
In all my time I have never for some reason being here so we were looking forward to it. The first thing I noticed was there was barriers there and the first presence of the army. There is some army there since the bombs from New Years Eve and this is the first I saw. It was meant to be for our protection but it made me feel a bit uncomfortable. When we got on the road there was this preacher dude in a white shirt sweating buckets shouting as loudly as he could about Jesus is going to save us and another guy drunk shouting things back at him to wind him up I thought “I going to like it here”.
We went to two bars here and I can’t remember the name, we got seats beside the street so we could see the goings on and check out the khao san.
After the two bars and a good look around the place we went to the top and took a left and found this really nice bar with funky seats rivers going through it and other crazy stuff so stayed there for one and then decided to get tuk tuk to Patpong.
No matter how far you are away the tuk tuk get your there fast enough. There great fun but a white knuckle ride, magic mountain is nothing because its safe now a tuk tuk ride is scary, the weave in and out of traffic and race other tuk tuk and if they see you smile which I did it encourages them to do more crazy stuff, I can laugh about it now but some times I was quite scared.
Now Patpong, what a place, we were here last year with friends and decided to go to a ping pong show to show our friends what its all about and we got ripped off bad when the charged us some crazy amount for four beers, unfortually we paid and got out of there straight away coz when we argued the Thais started giving us bad stares so we split, and I swore I would never go to Patpong again but some of the other bars are great fun just stay away from the ping pong its quite repulsive actually. The bar we went to by the way is called Super Pu**ys with a name like that what do we expect but we were dragged in by a guy in the street. Anyway we went to a bar beside there and it’s a go go bar. These bars are great fun and because we are a couple the girls don’t go near us at all, I get no attention and the girls talk to Dee and are really nice so I recommend these for good fun. This bar had great music and a good buzz. One of the bar girls was doing card tricks for us and was good fun. When I went to the toilet I got my neck and back messaged, fingers and ears crack and hot towels (by the way these were Thai guys) so they wipe your hands with a hot towel. I wish you got this in Dublin toilets. By the way there are lots of other couples there as well. While we were there Dee reconsied a girl from across the bar but couldn’t place it. So this was really annoying her so I told her to go over and ask her, so when Dee was going to the toilet she asked her where she might of recognize her face and wasn’t she in the finals of Australians next top model. She was really nice and she came over and we had a good laugh how Dee knew her face.
So we went to the bar next to that and then to the Kangaroo bar which wasn’t the nicest of places it was up stairs. If you can see the bar from the street and it looks good go for it, if the bar is upstairs or you can’t see it don’t go this is if you’re looking for good clean fun.
Another thing we always do when in Patpong at the end of the night we have a Burger King. There is something about here and MacyDees in Thailand there so much nicer then Dublin. Then it was off to bed for some shut eye.
Well that’s the first one done don’t worry the rest will be shorter. Better go now my eyes hurt and Lost is on in 20 mins.