The Farang Way

When I arrived in Bangkok during the weekend of elections therefore so establishments weren't serving alcohol. Little drinking occurred in those first couple of days but there was lots of city exploration. Haven and I took a ferry down the river and walked around back-alleyways. One night we even ended up hanging out with some Vietnamese people who had been living in Thailand for awhile. It was a funny interaction with Haven speaking broken Thai and me trying to remember Vietnamese.

On Tuesday we caught a minibus to the coastal city of Sri Racha and from there took a ferry to the island of Koh Si Chang. Ko Si Chang is a small, quiet, and beautiful island. There's no nightlife to speak of but that was fine with me. The landscape is incredible, the people are very friendly, and there are few farangs (foreigners). Haven and I spent most of our time eating awesome food and riding on motorbikes shooting videos (Haven was also a film major).

Haven's former English teaching partner/roommate and fellow Goshenite, Julian works at a resort on the island along with his girlfriend Vaughn. Julian was gone most of the time we were there but he returned on our last day on the island. He showed us around the resort where he works. It's an amazing secluded place with bungalows, zip-lines, cave exploration, and cliff jumping. And it's nearly empty. We saw very few guests there which was honestly nice for me but probably bad for business. Part of Julian and Vaughn's work at the resort is to help promotion and marketing so maybe soon it will be less vacant.

The only sore spot about the island is that it's surrounded by what appears to be one hundred or more huge cargo ships. It gives the island a somewhat erie feeling. It's tropical paradise engulfed by monstrous industrial machines. At night when the ships' lights are on it seems like the island is in a constant threat of siege.

Haven and I took a bus back to Bangkok. My last night in Bangkok was spent on Khaosan Road, known as the "backpacker ghetto". The street is filled with cheap accommodations and lots of pubs. I wanted to experience it just once because it seemed like a backpacker hub I should at least know about.  It's basically a bunch of street vendors, some young, hip Thai people, some beggars, and a butt-load of drunk farangs running into each other and creating sometimes interesting and sometimes painful (and many times both) interactions.  I did talk to a lot of cool people that night but I was happy when I finally escaped the madness.

This next morning I left Bangkok for Cambodia via train. It was great hanging out with Haven in Thailand. I'll be seeing him again in little over a week when we embark on a motorbike trip in Northern Vietnam.