2014

April 30, 2014

Barfight in Bangkok

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Asia, Bangkok, fight, khao san road, Sara's birthday, thailand

It’s official: leggings are not pants. I learn that the hard way, standing outside The Grand Palace, hoping to get some pictures with my fancy DSLR without having to pay the entrance fee. Not wanting to put in a 200 baht deposit for cover-up, when I’m not going to pay the entrance fee, I have to leave, disappointed by my lack of pants and willingness to be a proper tourist. I’ll have to do a rain check on the whole meeting the King and planning our joint birthday party.

Dizzy from a few ballons and rough dancing on Khao San Road the night before, we head towards the pier through the street markets. One of the markets, the Tatien market, is the most stinking and disgusting market I’ve ever seen. Everything is fish scales and rotten stuff. Yikes.

We take a boat to Wat Arun, or Temple of Dawn, but once again, none of us want to pay entrance. I am getting increasingly upset about half-assing and rushing it, rather than enjoying it.

At least we took one of these photos at Wat Arun, and then a lady came running and wanted 40 baht from us

Our next, and unfortunately final stop, is Wat Pho, wherein you can see the Reclining Buddha.

It’s impossible taking pictures with Buddha, gosh…

…Except I got all 43 m of him squeezed in on this photo

Then we take a Skytrain from MBK to Terminal 21. It’s a massive shopping mall, where every floor is a famous big city, like Paris, Tokyo and San Fransisco. Pretty cool, actually. We have fish and chips on Henry’s insistence, and take a look at all the pretty things we can’t buy.

Kirstin really likes this handbag

At night, we do some shopping on Khao San Road, before grabbing some drinks and a hookah at a bar. Here, we meet a group of people from England, and together we go to a smaller bar with great music, so we can dance.

Hours and hours later, we end up in a nightclub with expensive drinks and horrible music. Here, we meet guy X, who like Sara is celebrating his birthday that night. As they start talking, a girl goes between them and starts making out with X. According to Sara, he asks her to shake this girl off, so she keeps talking to him, and suddenly there is punching and hair pulling on the dancefloor. Sara is gone, and I confront the girl I think is to blame, but she points at her friend, who is the real culprit. Some friend, hey? I tell her – in an angry tone obviously – that she can’t punch people, and our discussion is brief, as she throws an ice cube at my eye, and I am being pushed away from her by three other people as I try to regain my sight. Suddenly, she is standing right in front of me, her back turned to me, and I punch her. In the head, with my fist. I have never hit anyone before, and I probably don’t do it rihgt, but I hit a girl while she isn’t looking, and I run away. I am a coward. As I try to find Sara and Kirstin, I see the girl and her friends pulling at Kirstin’s hair. We separate them and get them kicked out, but soon after the security guard kicks us out too, since the girls outside keep complaining. I am livid and not in the mood for more partying, so I am in bed by 3.30. On my way home, I see the girls we have been fighting at McDonald’s, so my midnight snack plans are ruined and I just head straight to the hostel. Less than an hour later, Sara comes into the room, covered in scratches and crying. The girls have attacked her while she was on her way home. And they stole her cheesesburger. Those bastards. The next day, she has a vertical red line under her eye, and Kirstin has a black eye (she punched the girls back though, I should add).

All in all, succesful night, I guess.

April 30, 2014

That one time I went to Burma

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Asia, Burma, myanmar, visa run

It’s that time of the month – time for a visa run, I mean. An 11 hour journey to Burma and back to the mainland for about 1200 baht. Sara and I get the night ferry from the pier to Chumpon, then a mini bus that is freezing cold to Ranong, where we go through a series of immiagration stuff like filling out forms and so on. Then we hop on a small boat to Burma. 5 minutes after I get on, I realise I have forgotten my fanny pack with my cellphone and credit card back at the immigration office, and I have to jump off the boat on to several other tiny boats and nearly fall into the water (OK, maybe not, but it sure feels that way), so I can run back to retrieve it. Thank God it’s still there!

We sail to Kawthaung, where we spend less than 15 minutes getting stamps in our passports and walking around. On the pier, we see lots of monks just hanging out. It looks really beautiful there, and I would love to explore more of Burma someday.

After sailing back to Ranong and going through immigration yet again, we get on the freezing minibus to Chumpon. Once there, we check into Salsa Hostel, where Kirstin and Henry (roommate at Jizo’s) are staying. We end up having pizza, beers and a Hunger Games marathon at night.

Next morning, after a great complimentary breakfast, we take a VIP bus to Bangkok, and get free food and drinks. Love it!

April 22, 2014

Koh Tao

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Asia, Drinking, koh tao, pubcrawl, snorkelling, thailand

Blogging is hard when you’re bored, and hard when you’re busy living life. People who read my last post, might have noticed that I have been half-assing it lately, and it’s been a combination of boredom and being busy. Until I went to Koh Tao.

As I get off the ferry, I have to find my hostel, Jizo’s, which James told me would be like a 3 minute drive away. I decide I didn’t want to pay for a taxi then, and start walking.

30 minutes later, I have carried all my luggage up a long, steep road, and still no sign of a hostel – or civilisation. I ask every person I see for directions, and locals will tell me the hostel is 100 meters away no matter where I am, and taxi drivers will say “very far – 200 baht”. Who to believe? In the end, I see a 7-11 and go in to ask for direction, when a Thai guy offers to give me a ride on his scooter. He is my hero.

I check in to my hostel, go for a walk on the beach, and end up meeting Kirstin and then John for a few drinks and buckets. It has turned my day around completely.

I’ve got a bucket, got a bucket full of sunshine

I meet Dylan, who is doing a diving course with Kirstin, and we all go out to dinner together. I’ve decided against doing a diving course, as I don’t even like deep waters that much. As we are eating dinner at this restaurant facing the beach, we see local women walking around, trying to sell massive paper lanterns. We decide to buy one together, which we send up in the air, racing the other people. We win, of course.

We do some ballons, watch a fire show on the beach, try fire limbo(!) and then pass out. Before that, John decides to try to jump over the fire limbo pole instead of going under it, so he gets a massive burn on his stomach, and I drag him to the pharmacy, and a bunch of drunk Danish guys throw iodine on his wound and tell me to stop being such a mom.

The next day John is leaving us (sad face), and I move into Kirstins bungalow for free(!). During the day, she does her diving course and I sleep or go sit at the nearby resaturant and enjoy the Wi-Fi. At night, we just drink on the beach with Dylan and Patrick, who’s also doing the diving course with Kirstin.

When her course is done, we need to find a new place to stay, so we go back to Jizo’s. I even get the same bed as the one I was in when I arrived on this island! F6 rules. Slowly but surely, Kirstin and I are the only girls in our 10 bed room, and we have a blast with our room mates.

We end up doing the Koh Tao pubcrawl twice, both times going as Jenna and Talia (sounds like genitalia, get it?). We check out the draq queen show which has just re-opened and we are amazed by how awesome it is. We are practically screaming and giving standing ovations during the entire show, both times. We are like the most excited people on the island.

The rest is pretty much a blur, but we did get to enjoy the beautiful beach, take a night trip to High Bar, where we sat on top of a small mountain, smoking weed, snorkel by Shark Island, eaten street food (pad thai) three times a day and lots of other things. I love Koh Tao.

April 18, 2014

Thonsala

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Asia, koh phangan, thailand

Mandatory butt shot

In Thonsala, we’re staying at Beach Village Resort. It has a pool and a nightclub and it’s actually very nice – if you’re into that kind of thing. I personally don’t like lounging by the pool or on the beach for more than 20 minutes.

The beach looks killer, though

3 minutes from the resort, there is a massive supermarket called The Big C. LOL. Inside, they have a food court, clothes, and a Dunkin’ Donuts. So much for my diet. We go there several times a day, and I’ll eat a noodle duck soup and we’ll buy some beers.

It’s as if nothing ever happens here. My days are long, but I can’t recall doing anything. We go to the beach, drink beers and pretend to be zombies to scare John. He’s such a virgin. Kirstin and I try to go exploring a bit, and end up at a food market amongst other things, but Thonsala doesn’t have much to offer compared to Haad Rin.

On our second day, Kirstin and I do shopping and take pictures wearing her taco outfit. We then do our madnatory butt photo and walk around to explore the beach, when we meet a family consisting of a young-ish couple and their baby. The woman is sitting on the sand, topless, posing seductively for the camera her partner is holding. It’s kinda awkward doing that in front of your kid. At night, we do a barbecue on the beach. We have corn, red snapper and chicken. It’s quite the disappointment, even though it sounds like heaven (right?).

Kirstin and John go to Koh Tao, while I stay here for an extra night with Aylin, James and Sara. I was going to come with them, but could tell that wasn’t gonna fly with Sara, so I stay. I do nothing at all the day they leave us, but at night we go to a hotpan buffet. All you can eat for 160 baht. It reminds me a bit of New Years Eve with my parents back in the day, but with better food.

You fry the meat on top, and boil the vegetables around the edges. When you’re done, the water has turned into an awesome soup! I definitely recommend this.

April 16, 2014

“Another!”

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Asia, balloons, Drinking, koh phangan, thailand

Haad Rin is crazy. In between buckets, we do multiple 7-11 runs for amazing toasties (yes, really) and accidentally stealing Chang beers. Yes, Kirstin and Sara walked out of 7-11 without paying for their beers, and it didn’t occur to them that they had just stolen beer. We randomly burst into song, mostly Beyoncé – Drunk In Love, all the time. Like, if we’re having dinner on the beach and one of the bars play the song (which they often do), we’ll knock over our chairs and dance like crazy people. Whereever you are in Haad Rin, you’ll be able to hear “WE BE ALL NIGHT! LOOOVE” constantly. We do this so much, we one night decide to get rings for our middle fingers as a reminder.

“Drunk in Love ♥”

For some reason, we end up hanging out with some douche from Canada. A real know-it-all, who doesn’t want to leave Kirstin alone, so we keep trying to escape him. He even follows us to Cactus bar to do laughing gas.

Laughing gas is fun! We stand in a circle, inhaling and breathing into a balloon until we’re too dizzy to stand, and we can’t feel our tongues. We laugh for a minute and then scream “Another!” and immeditaly head back to the annoyed bartender. About 4 balloons each later, we decide we’ve finally had enough – or don’t have enough money.

At one point, we go to the beach and have our tarot cards done. The man basically tells Kirstin and I the same thing: if we drink hot water and eat a potato every morning, we’ll live till we’re 80. We’ll meet a gentleman. We should stop smoking and drinking. Our parents have problems. Oh well.

We get some corn on the cob on the way home, while the douche follows us to our hostel. At least he’s handing out Oreos. He’s still talking shit about how he can’t join the Army for some lame reason and it’s killing him, and I look at him and think oh really? He doesn’t seem like the type that wants to move his ass at all. So I start fake-crying and telling my fake war story, because he is annoying me and he shouldn’t say those things to sound more noble than he is, when he’s full of bullcrap. Fighting a war is not a joke. So I take a piss at him, which I guess makes me the bad guy, but I just want him to shut up and think before he speaks.

As I go to the bathroom to pee and finish fake-crying, Kirstin jumps into the booth and suddenly smashes the corn into the wall, so there’s corn everwhere. Ratchet ass ho.

The day after, we decide to rent scooters and explore, for once. James and Aylin on one scooter, Sara and John on another, and lastly, Kirstin and I on the very last one. We are always soo behind everyone, that we think we have to go solo for the rest of the day. We scream out “DRUNK IN LOVE” and “WIIIEEENEEERRRR” (like Rachel does in F.R.I.E.N.D.S.) while we are driving around, admiring the beaches and palmtrees around us.

This is us at 1:20

We go to a beach, the hostel we want to book for the next day, and Thonsala. Then we go to Amsterdam Bar, where we watch the sunset in the pool.

On the way back, James’ and Aylin’s scooter gets a flat tire, so the rest of us go off road to find some help. And then we crash. Kirstin loses control of the scooter, so we fall off the side of the scooter, and land on the dirt. It doesn’t hurt, until we clean our wounds and start driving to get iodine. Then it starts to sting like a mother! This is what my leg looks like now:

We decide to head back home by ourselves, in the dark. It takes us hours. By the time we get home, I realize that I have lost my key, steal a room mate’s, and run out to get a new ribbon and a sharpie to write my bedname on it; as if it was mine. Then Sara shows up holding my key, that was hanging around my neck until I fell off the scooter. Thank God! We eat loads of food, Kirstin and I angrily pay 3500 baht for the scooter, that apparently needs a lot of repairing (there’s some mud and a few scratches on it), and then we all pass out.

«< 5 6 7 8 9 >»