Melanie and Gavin's Travels

Sweet, sweet Bangkok

We made it! I think we are in a state of shock here in Bangkok. It's clean, people are wearing shorts and tank tops, there are real lights everywhere and NO power outages. I usually carried my head light with me in Nepal and India.

The last few days have had their ups and downs though. First Gavin was sick, then I was sick. In fact I spent most of the flight here in the toilet nearly throwing up, only to get off the plane and within 20 feet have a good go at it. Good thing I had that plastic bag with me. Hopefully that is the last of our random tummy aches etc now that we have left India, you can pick up anything there and never know how you got it. Yuck. We did enjoy some last minute shopping in Mumbai and I feel like I am a lady again with Lee jeans for $25 and lipstick.

The taxi ride from the airport to Khao San Road (the main backpacker street) was awesome - no honking, we drove 100km on the highway (the average speed in Mumbai is 12km/hr i read. It took us 2hrs to drive 30km to the airport yesterday), everyone stayed in their lanes AND we had no worries about being taken to where we needed to go!

I must add here that I did not dislike all of India and I am definitely glad I went. I loved Goa and had such a great time in Benaulim and met some lovely locals. Overall it was just a hard country and I didn't like it. The things some people find charming I found annoying and hard day after day. We might have had a better time if we did the South first and then the North, but still I wouldn't have liked it much.

As for Nepal, well I would say it's one of my favourite countries. I loved it, it was amazing, inspiring, beautiful, life changing and the kind of place that I just have to go back to one day or my heart won't be content. I miss the mountains but can cope since in the spring I will be moving back to an equally beautiful but different version in Banff.

We have over a week in Bangkok. We are in a nice room with a tv and our bathroom and it's right on Khaosan Road, Khaosan Palace I think it's called. Most of you by now would have heard about the bombings in Bangkok on New Years Day. Strangely I was worried about that happening while we were in Goa and it happened here. Since Khaosan is a busy area with tourists everywhere the street has been blocked off to cars and to get on the street you have to pass through a bag check. The check wasn't there in the morning mind you when i brought my big pack here, but still it's reassuring.

I will probably stuff my bag more with things here, so much shopping to do and so little room (and okay, money...). But in the meantime we will enjoy taking it all in, listening to Western music again, and generally being back in the Western World as I guess you would call Thailand.

It's so clean and this is probably the biggest and best thing for Gavin and I after India and parts of Nepal. This bring a smile to my face, nearly as big as the one I had when I finally crawled into bed at noon today after 2 nights of travelling to get here from Goa. Wow was I shattered. I slept for 5 hours this afternoon and I'm sure will have a great sleep tonight. I'll get some photos of Bangkok and post those this week for you guys.

posted by melaniewilkes @ 11:49 PM