Monday, January 10, 2005
Thailand: Bangkok and around
Sun and warm weather at last! After an interesting flight with Ethiopian Airlines (good food, great music channels, funny passengers returning to Africa with huge luggage), we landed with a 3 hours delay in Bangkok's sticky and hot evening.
We passed the first days in slow motion, based in a nice guesthouse with a swimming pool to cool down. It took some time for the overhead: organising visas for Laos, getting student cards, summer clothes, masks and snorkels, sending our winter clothes off to Brunei...
In between, we enjoyed some of the many attractions of the city: the richly decorated palaces and temples, the national museum, thai boxing, a powerful thai massage and backpacker-watching while sipping a beer near Kao San Road! All together, a very different atmosphere from our trip so far...
...fighting the palace guard:
In order to relax fully, we spent 4 days at the beach on the tiny rocky island of Ko Sichang, just 80km south of Bangkok.
We were almost alone on the only beach of the island: during the day, there were just a handful of tourists, and at night, not more than 4 other bungalow guests and a colony of geckos. No bar, no music, no shop, but plenty of time to read and test our new snorkeling equipment (even though the water was not very clear and the marine life quite unspectacular).
We passed the first days in slow motion, based in a nice guesthouse with a swimming pool to cool down. It took some time for the overhead: organising visas for Laos, getting student cards, summer clothes, masks and snorkels, sending our winter clothes off to Brunei...
In between, we enjoyed some of the many attractions of the city: the richly decorated palaces and temples, the national museum, thai boxing, a powerful thai massage and backpacker-watching while sipping a beer near Kao San Road! All together, a very different atmosphere from our trip so far...
...fighting the palace guard:
In order to relax fully, we spent 4 days at the beach on the tiny rocky island of Ko Sichang, just 80km south of Bangkok.
We were almost alone on the only beach of the island: during the day, there were just a handful of tourists, and at night, not more than 4 other bungalow guests and a colony of geckos. No bar, no music, no shop, but plenty of time to read and test our new snorkeling equipment (even though the water was not very clear and the marine life quite unspectacular).
