A Trip to กรุงเทพประเทศไทย (Bangkok, Thailand)

Bangkok. What a place.

My memory is haziest when it comes to Thailand… I struggle to remember what we actually did other than go to the cinema A LOT, eat some incredible food and ride in a ridiculous amount of tuk tuks. I’m sure we did more; I might check my mementos box to write the rest of this blog.

I found the box and found a ticket stub for the Dusit Zoo, which may have been one of the most depressing experiences I’ve ever had. Every animal looked sick and exhausted from the heat. No fun. Also an aquarium ticket because I have an incessant need to visit an aquarium in every single city or country I visit. Ah and the amazing Siriraj Museum. That was arguably one of the weirder things as it displayed real corpses and dead babies with rare conditions in jars. I’m sure there were ethical barriers crossed but I was quite interested in learning about the medical disfigurements unlike two of my other friends who were trying their best not to pass out in the presence of such things. It was something to say the least. Unlike Vietnam, Bangkok knew how to do the whole museum thing. It was also home to possibly my favourite art gallery I’ve ever visited and was impressed throughout by the national and international art displayed.

However, lets get to the not so good stuff. Koh Samet Island. We took a coach for a few hours to arrive at a port that would then take us by boat over one of the clearest and most beautiful, turquoise waters I’ve ever seen (I’m from Brazil… that’s a big deal) and then we arrived in Koh Samet. Actually, it reminded me a lot of some of the beach towns in Brazil and that made me feel incredibly comfortable- probably the most comfortable I’d felt during our travels. The first day consisted of beach. Same as the second. And third. Then on the fourth, we were supposed to take the boat and coach back to our original hostel in the centre of Bangkok. Unfortunately, due to some hot mayonnaise left in the sun from one of the beach restaurants, me and two friends got possibly the worst case of food poisoning that not only have I experienced, but that I’ve also ever witnessed. Of course I won’t go into details but sharing one toilet for over 18 hours of sickness with two of your friends… Well it really does bring you closer to one another.

We spent quite some time in Bangkok and because of the intense humidity, sometimes we just wanted to escape to somewhere with hardcore air conditioning to relax and we found refuge in the House 2 cinema. I think there was one day in which we watched a film and then stayed an extra hour to catch a second screening. It’s not that Bangkok was boring but the heat exhaustion was taking a toll and also, there was no real desire to visit any other islands after the Koh Samet incident. In fact, I couldn’t eat Thai food for the whole rest of the week. I think actually, even to this day I struggle to think about eating it without a light gag. So instead of having a delicious Thai feast on our last night of travelling, it was steak and chips… with a milkshake of course. Other than that, Bangkok treated us very well.