Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Thailand. The land of smiles

During this entire time, I have really been wanting to go to Thailand. Why you may ask? Well ask anyone who has been here. It's a beautiful place with wonderful people. Sure you get some scamming schmucks once and a while, but that usually in Bangkok. It's a major metropolitan, of course there are gonna be some, but what major city doesn't have them?

We started our journey there, in Bangkok. After arriving to the airport and catching a taxi from departures (no taxi fee!), we headed to Phaya Thaisky train station. Our driver was kind enough to drop us off right on front of the road we needed, not just the station. We would have been completely lost if he hadn't. So we walked down the road and looking like two lost backpackers (again) some woman laughed when she saw us and told us "go that way, turn left, you will see it." Obviously we weren't the first lost looking backpackers to be seen in these parts.

We found our hostel relatively quickly after and were greeted warmly by a very enthusiastic Thai girl named Geng. She helps run the place. She showed us the place (it's 3 floors. A bottom common room, toilets/showers rooms, and a fridge; middle is the sleeping room (10beds total), third has her room and the volunteers rooms plus a small outdoor patio).

We put our bags down and realized we were starving. A girl named Shannon was there and said she would show us food street and we could find food there. And boy did we find food! Stalls with fried corn balls, vegetarian galore, curries, BBQ meats, green papaya salad and more! Tom and I realized we hit the jackpot, big time.

We found a place that had food spread out, so we could see what she had, for 30 baht (about 1 USD) we had a full portion of rice and green curry. The food was so good that Tom and I came back later at the end of the night to get more food! And if you become a regular or if someone remembers you, expect to be treated well, our plates this tine around was 25 baht.

**Fast forward**

Just a side note, everything in Thailand is reliant on faith. I know people who don't believe in faith, but when you hand someone a ticket, you hope that they will bring you to the right place. You need faith when the taxi looks full and people are standing off the end that you won't die during your ride. Just now, a taxi was "full" so this couple did not want to get on. There would be no more taxis for the next hour but they said they would wait. With some shifting around, they both ending up joining the taxi and they were sitting. Sure the taxi was sinking in the back, almost dragging on the ground but these taxi drivers know why their doing and how many people it can hold. My ride was 2 seconds to the end of the pier since my minibus was there, but, still, you have to have a little faith.