Joachim's Travel Blog
Saturday, January 24, 2004
Bangkok was very nice. My traveling companions were bothered a little by the noise and pollution, I think, but they were so much less than in India I didn't even notice them. Cars don't honk their horns here! The streets, completely clogged with traffic, are eerily quiet. Cars almost always have four wheels here - in fact, they're mostly the same models we have at home, including Honda and Toyota, of course, but also Volvo and Peugot. Honda sells it's cool-looking "City" here, which I also saw in India occasionally.
Bangkok is modern, clean and often beautiful. It has lots of temples and palaces which I did not see because I only spent one day there. Actually I spent the bulk of my free time in a gigantic shopping mall - eight stories of stalls selling everything from fruit to silk sarongs to car stereo systems. The western-style mall across the street looked exactly like one you might see in California, and the prices were just as high.
We left Bangkok and took the night train to Chumphon, the mainland town closest to our destination island, Ko Tao. The train was nice, with a lot more room than Indian trains. The cars were smaller, but much more luxurious: seats were across the car from each other and there were only two beds per berth rather than the eight in Indian sleeper cars. The only problem was that the beds cannot be lowered without a special key carried by the car attendant. This meant we had to wait until all the other beds in the car had been turned (we were at the end) before ours were in place. So we went to sleep at around midnight, needing to wake up at 4.
We got to Chumphon ok, and had a tasty beakfast at the tiny train station. The bus was waiting to take us to the ferry and it did so right after the next train dropped off its passengers. We had been told we would be on the fast ferry but it turned out to be the medium speed boat. Our experience with the hotel travel agent was less than pleasant, especially after she ordered our tickets before we agreed to purchase them, and then told us it would cost 200 baht each to "cancel" them. But I digress. We (did I mention I met up with my friends Sarah and Neal in Bangkok?) went up on the bow and slept, and a few hours later, we watch the hilly outline of Ko Tao grow nearer, and then we watched the corals from the pier. From our first sight of the clear water, I think we knew this would be a good place.
I have left India.
I am still trying to sort out all the different experiences I had in India. I saw many different faces of the country, which just makes the experience that more difficult to sort out. There were beautiful things and horrible things, all mixed up together.
I'm in Thailand now, and things are very different here. I've only seen the touristy areas, of course - I went straight from Bangkok to the island of Ko Tao. Nevertheless, the difference in the level of development is striking, and surprising. All the roads, even in the relatively small port town of Chumphon, seem to be paved, and four-wheeled vehicles, ones that closely resemble the vehicles for sale in the US, outnumber motorcycles. The restaurant food, especially imitation Western food, seems to be a lot better. Street food is worse. I haven't seen any examples yet of the kind of crushing poverty that seemed to be present even in Indian urban centers. Overall, actually, Thailand reminds me more of home than it does of India. Oh, and there are lots of Americans here.
