Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand

20th July – 23rd July 2018

Once the bus left Chiang Mai, we were on our way to our final destination, even if it did mean a lengthy ten-hour bus ride. I made the most of my time at the beginning of the journey, by catching up on some writing, and sorting out photos and videos on my laptop. This took me a good few hours, and while I was desperate for sleep, I wanted to get finished.

I eventually finished, as we arrived at our second stop, which was great timing. I got off and had a toilet break, before I knew it was time to nap. It was about 1am at this point and I knew I only had a few hours until we arrived in Bangkok, so I wanted to make the most of the time that we had left.

Buses don’t make for the best beds, but we both managed to get some sleep, before we pulled into the bus station at 6am. When we got off the bus, we collected our bags and knew that we were looking for the local bus station, to get to our hotel. Luckily it wasn’t far to walk, and we found the right bus and boarded. The local bus was unbelievably cheap! We paid 13baht for two of us, which is the same as 28p! I had managed to wake up a bit at this point and was full of energy from somewhere, but I didn’t expect it to last long.

I tracked the route on the phone, so that I knew when to get off. When we arrived at our stop, we only had a short walk to the guest house, but when we got there, there was nobody around. Luckily another guest was there to let us in, so we just sat in the communal area and waited.

Just before 8, the lady arrived and gave us some paperwork to fill in. She then put our bags in storage for us and told us that we could go off and explore. We didn’t leave right away, as we had some things to sort out, before setting off.

At around 10 o’clock, we locked the rest of our things up and went off out for the day. We had been told by various people to visit Chatuchak Market, which is a weekend market and supposedly great, so that was our plan for the day. As we knew where the bus stop was, we got on the same bus back out of the city towards the market.

On the bus, it was a struggle to keep our eyes open and I was scared that we would miss our stop. I knew the energy wouldn’t last long. Luckily we didn’t, and I noticed just in time to get off and walk up to the market.

I’m not sure if we got off a stop too early in the end, as the walk was a bit longer than expected, but we made it there in the end. We walked in and the place was huge! There were rows and rows of stalls leading in every direction and we had no idea where to even start.

Although there were endless choices of stalls, we couldn’t initially see anything that we wanted, so started to wonder if it was a wasted trip. We kind of started to write it off a little too early though, because as we walked, we saw more and more. We didn’t really wander in any particular order, it was too big to try and do that; we would get to the end of a row and look at our options before turning down the next.

Hours went by and we were still trapped in the market bubble. Our energy levels were running very low so we nibbled on some crisps and I grabbed a smoothie in an attempt to boost us. We wandered and wandered, finding a map along the way to help us, before it was finally time to call it a day.

On the way back to the bus stop, I lost my bearings slightly, as we came out from a different place to what I thought we had. We ended up on the wrong street, at the wrong bus stop, but luckily, I realised quite soon. When we found our bus stop, we had to wait a while for the bus to arrive, but when it did, it was an air conditioned one, and more than twice the price – it still didn’t break the bank though.

When we got back, we were able to get the key for our room and chill out a little bit. It was already late afternoon though, so we only spent an hour or so back at the room. We had the chance to shower and freshen up and lie down for a little while, sorting some last bits out.

Time soon passed by and it was already gone 6 o’clock, so it was time to head out for dinner. The tired feeling was making me feel sick and I didn’t have much energy, but we needed to go out. The places that Joe had researched were all about twenty minutes away, so we walked in that general direction.

When we got there, I felt even more sick, so couldn’t think about eating at the time. As Khaosan Road was nearby, we continued to walk there, to see what all of the fuss was about. It was an extremely touristy place with market stalls selling souvenirs and food, there were restaurants, bars and loud music. It was just a typical holiday strip and not where we wanted to spend the evening. We did walk up and down though, to see what was on offer.

After leaving Khaosan Road, we walked back towards the street where Joe had found some restaurants. We couldn’t find one of the places, but found a very cheap little bar instead. We weren’t sure if it would be any good, but it was packed, so we thought we would give it a go. The food wasn’t great, but it filled a hole and cost less than £3 for both meals and a drink each – that’s definitely something I will miss when we get back home.

Once we had paid up, we made our way back to the guest house. It was much later than we wanted to be heading back but the day just seemed to disappear.

When we got back, we made a little start on organising our things. We had made such a mess already but I wanted to sort out my whole bag and only take home the things I wanted to keep. Even though we were so tired, we just wanted a little head start so that we didn’t need to spend the whole of our final day in the room. The energy didn’t last long though and we eventually flopped around midnight.

Waking up on our final full day was pretty surreal. It was strange waking up thinking ‘we’re going home tomorrow’ after a full year of traveling! I was awake before 8 and ready to get organised. We spent a good few hours sorting our things and getting our bags ready so that we didn’t have to worry later in the evening, and we knew we definitely wouldn’t have time the following morning.

While Joe sewed on some patches for me, I sorted through my bits and bobs, ran some errands and tidied up the room. We then swapped and I did some sewing, while Joe packed his bag. We had a mini break at about 10 to go down and have some breakfast in the guest house café. It was a long morning in the room, but it was a productive one, even though we weren’t anywhere near ready when we decided to head out.

Just after midday, we thought it would be a good time for a proper break, so we got ready to go out. We wanted to see the Grand Palace and as it was a forty-five minute walk away, we thought it would be a great opportunity to stretch our legs.

On our way down, we stopped in a few shops, meaning it took us just over an hour to get there. We didn’t know what to expect when we got there, but I had my skirt in the bag, as we expected I would have to cover up. At first, all we could see, were the tops of lots of fancy buildings, surrounded by a big white wall. We started to walk round and saw a few entrances where it said tourists weren’t allowed, so this indicated to us that we would have to pay. We didn’t mind paying but weren’t willing to get more cash out at this late stage, so it had to be in our budget.

To get to the main gate was like a maze. There were so many people and signs which gave conflicting information. We were eventually approached by one man who told us that we needed to cover up (which we knew) and that it would be 500 baht per person for entry an then 300 baht to rent clothes and have a guide. As we had already seen lots of temples in South East Asia and we didn’t have enough cash for that and dinner and transport to the airport, we decided to leave it, but just peaked through the gates instead.

We walked around a little and looked at some market stalls before deciding to walk back up to the guest house as the sky was getting quite black.

On the way back, we decided to stop in a café and treat ourselves to one last ice cream of the trip. We weren’t sure if we should at first because it wasn’t a proper ice creamery, it was the same chain of ice cream restaurants we had previously visited, but it was the closest to real ice cream we had seen, so we did. I got an ice cream bowl and Joe ordered a milkshake and then we shared each other’s.

After our treat, we decided to head back as we still had lots to do. On the way back we looked at some massage places to have a Thai massage to finish our trip off. We had been told to have one as they are meant to be really good, but painful and as we were still a little achy from the waterpark, we had a little money left and it was our last day of the trip, we thought it would be a good idea. We priced up different places and looked at how nice they were, keeping it in mind for later in the day.

When we got back to the room, we did a little more work on the packing. We managed to make it back just in time before the rain came too. Time was getting on and we still had to pack all of my bag, have a massage, shower and get ready and get dinner before going to bed, so we didn’t really have any time to waste.

After both big bags were packed as well as they could be, we set off to get a massage. It was already nearly 6 o’clock and the massage was for an hour so we knew it was going to be late before we ate. We walked to a place we had seen earlier, which was much further than we thought.

When we arrived, we paid upfront and were taken upstairs where we had to get changed into some new clothes, which was good for me as I was a little sweaty. When the massages started I couldn’t stop laughing. They started on our feet and legs and I was so ticklish. It was a strange massage, as they pulled us, poked us and hit us, but it felt good at times. There were a few tender points where it hurt, and Joe’s inflexibility wasn’t in his favour.

Once they had worked on the legs, they massaged our arms and then our backs. The back was my favourite part, as although it was very tender in parts it felt like they were working on it. After the back, they did our necks and heads and then finished off by stretching us. It was a very interesting experience which was both funny and painful in parts, which I think my masseuse was doing on purpose, as she would laugh when I was in pain.

After the massage was finished, we were given tea and biscuits. I’m not sure what the tea was but it smelt a lot nicer than it tasted, but I drank some and ate the biscuits.

Once we were finished, we walked back to the guest house. When we got back, we showered and freshened up, and did some more packing and organising, which we had seemed to have been doing all day and not getting very far!

After we had both showered, we decided to head out for dinner before it got too late. We went to a place that we had seen the night before. We knew it was a little more expensive but we wanted to treat ourselves on our last night. I ordered my final Thai massaman and Joe ordered panang. Both of them tasted very good, but not like they usually do, which was weird.

When the bill arrived, they had added service charge and tax on which was annoying, as we had the exact amount of cash to what was on the menu. We asked for a menu back to check if it told us there was a service charge, and noticed that it only did on the final page. We paid with what we had and when they questioned it, we explained the situation and they were fine with it, luckily, as we had no more cash with us.

From the restaurant, it was straight back to the hotel to complete our packing. When we got back, Joe nipped back out to check the 7/11 across the road to see if they had anything breakfast worthy, but it was an unsuccessful trip unfortunately. We packed up the rest of our things, not worrying too much about the time as we wanted to be able to sleep on our first flight, knowing that it was still the middle of the night at home.

To pass some time, once we were packed up, we played some cards and made sure that everything was in the right place, ready for an early start.

We eventually fell asleep just after midnight, with a strange surreal feeling.

The final alarm of the trip went off at 4.45, giving us enough time to get up and ready and to the bus stop to get to the airport. We had checked on Google maps and it said it would take an hour and a half on public transport, so we gave ourselves plenty of time. We found the bus stop and waited for bus number 72, which then took us to the BTS station, which is a monorail to the airport.

Once we were on the monorail, it was easy enough to find the airport. When we arrived, I put my raincover over my bag and tied it into place, making sure I didn’t lose anymore patches, especially with it being the last journey, with a layover. We checked in and went through to security and passport control, heading straight for the gate!

Bangkok felt like a pitstop, on the way home. While we tried to see and do some things, it was difficult as we wanted to have enough time to pack as well. The things we saw were nice, but as one of my English students told me, Bangkok is more of a city for businesses than culture, and I couldn’t agree more, but there were still things that we missed.

As our trip finally comes to an end, there are mixed emotions. It feels strange to be leaving the traveling life for now but we are excited to get home and catch up with everyone. There are things I will miss so much about traveling and some things I am glad to wave goodbye to for a while. I know that this is not the end of the adventures, it’s just time for a break…

To travel is to live, Katie x