Elephant Bathing

I started my day with a spot of elephant bathing…what did you do?

We went to the same elephant centre as we went to yesterday which was nice as we got to see the same Thai instructors again. Luckily this time we didn’t have to go down that immensely steep hill on the elephants as I would have definitely fallen head first down the hill into the water.

Riding on Elephants

It is was only us three who took part in the elephant bathing, which meant we had our own elephant to play with.

We climbed onto their backs and had to sit with our legs either side, just behind their heads. You feel like you shouldn’t be doing it because you think it will hurt them, but they hardly even notice you on them.

To begin with we all had an instructor on the back with us, but part way through Bie’s guy left to wash the other elephants, leaving her all alone. She did have a small one though so was easy to get on and off of, not like with me and Nineham.

Our elephants were a lot bigger which meant every time they dipped down into the water we fell off and had to try to climb back onto them which was extremely hard.

Mine had a small piece of rope around it’s neck which made it slightly easier for me to climb back up, but many a time I just got stuck half on/half off which was made more embarrassing by the fact that I was flashing all sorts as my shorts kept falling down, and my top kept going up.

I don’t think my helper expected to be seeing a basically naked English girl first thing in the morning. Oopsy.

Bie kept on getting squirted in the face by her elephant, it was a very playful one. Mine on the other hand seemed to want to get my fat ass off of it, so kept on really quickly dunking its head under the water so I went head first into the water with it. Naughty squid.

The funniest thing Nineham did was hang on the side of her elephant like a very bad spiderman! It was hilarious! She was so exhausted from being chucked in the water so much that she couldn’t pull herself back up, so just hung on the side.

Everyctime I thought about Nineham hanging on for dear life today, I burst into laughter. Too funny for words!

The elephants were amazing though! I can’t describe what its like to be swimming and riding with them, it’s definitely the highlight of my trip so far. It only cost about £10 too! That’s mental.

Now I really want a pet elephant, so it can live in my giant mansion in Abu Dhabi with my pandas and tigers.

Kancharaburi

We planned a two night three day trip to Kancharaburi through a travel agents as it sounded like we got to do a lot for not a lot of money, and we wouldn’t of been able to organise it all alone.　

Floating Market

We got up at 6.30am which really was not ideal as that’s bliming early. We were supposed to be picked up at 7am but had to wait until 7.45am to actually be collected which was annoying.  We then waited on Khao San Road until 9am, so we literally hadn’t gone anywhere in two hours.

We should have realised then that the day was going to be a shambles and bit of waste of time, but we just thought they were running late and everything would get better.

Floating Market

After a hell of a lot of cufuffle, we finally made it to the Floating Market. We were all excited to see it as it’s quite an unusual thing, so decided to pay 150 Baht (£3) to have a ride on one of the little narrow boats so we could float around it.

This was a massive mistake.

We got put with the shittest boat driver ever! He literally stopped our boat at the side of the river and stayed there for about 20minutes. SO many other boats went past us to see the market, but our driver decided he wanted to have a fag instead. An absolute idiot!

When he finally decided he was ready to move on, we went past a few of the market boats then he turned off right away from it all and took us on the longest way back through the houses (literally through the wooden shack houses), so we didn’t ge tto see the market properly at all.

There was also a man stood on the side with a massive snake wrapped around him shouting ‘Hello’ at us loudly to get us to have a photo and give him money. Clearly I would never do that in a million years!

Steel Bridge on the River Kwai

We got off the boat so angry as we paid to see the famous floating market, but saw virtually none of it. We complained to our tour woman who said he wasn’t supose to do that and she’d tell her boss. But that doesn’t change the fact that we missed the floating market.

Next we had to get onto another boat, this one had an engine though and wasn’t driven by an idiot. We cruised through all the local houses, which we had seen a lot off from our tour of the ‘floating market’.

It was weird looking at the river houses on stilts and seeing how shabby some of them were. It’s hard to understand how in this day and age there are still people living in what are basically wooden sheds, with literally the basics of everything. It made me feel like I should be doing something to help them, but what can you do?

Having said that, I did see one man sat on a laptop, another woman talking on a mobile phone and there was a very nice car parked the other side of the house, which made me wonder just how poor some of these people really are, and if they’re happy living the lives they do.

This boat ride ended at a place where they have ‘The Most Exotic and Dangerous Snake Show in the World’. Brilliant, just what I wanted.

I thought it was going on in one of the buildings so I went the other way to avoid it all. Little did I know that the whole place was like a snake centre. There was snakes behind glass, a man with a snake, snake statues…the bloody works! I was desperate for the toilet but I just couldn’t go because I was too scared.

The day was not going well at all!

We had to get into yet another bus (this was about the 10^th throughout the day) to go have lunch at what I presume was a service station. Food was actually really nice, but we had to use the squatter toilet which put another dampener on the day. Trying to hover over a plastic bowl on the floor whilst not touching anything is quite a skill, and one I am still trying to master.

River Kwai

We arrived at The River Kwai  and didn’t have a clue why we were there. We later found out it was built during the Second World War and is one of the most famous railway bridges in Thailand.

Whilst we were there looking around and walking along the track, the strangest thing started happening….loads of Thai people started taking photos of us!

It was like we were celebrities. People were literally walking up to us and taking a picture, and when we asked another tourist to take a photo of us three together, Thai people were standing in front of us and taking photos at the same time. It was very strange. We didn’t know whether to be flattered or scared.

Hanging out of a train!

Drove to ‘The Death Railway’ next, apparently it’s the most dangerous curving bridge in Thailand…oooooooooh.

Once again we didn’t know anything about it, so didn’t know what people were getting excited about. The tour guide woman kept on making us have photos hanging out of the window for some reason. Very odd. After this riveting train journey, we got on yet another minibus to go to our hostel for the night, which was a floating house.

The Floating House

We we’re staying in what looked like a wooden shack which was floating on the river. It was a little scary to think we were actually going to be living there for a couple days as it looked like it was about to collapse at any point.

Our room was absolutely hilarious! There was bamboo/ wicker print lino on the walls, a tin floor in the bathroom, a tap which didn’t ever turn off, a lamp right above my head in bed, a light switch which was hidden in a hole in the wall…the list was endless.

When we were sat on our un-comfy beds, feeling a little sea sick from our room constantly bobbing up and down, bie picked up one of her biscuits to cheer herself up. Two  seconds after she put it in her mouth, she started squalling and leaped up from the bed, she basically ran around the room in panic and then went into the bathroom.

We thought maybe it had vodka on it, but then realised we didn’t have any vodka. She came out of our shed like bathroom looking like she was about to cry, she then told us that the biscuit she had just eaten was covered in ants! She ate ants! How hilarious!

I know we’re in Thailand and some of the food is a bit dodge, but there’s no need to eat ants.

 

‘We’re on a mother bleeping boat’

Thought it was about time we actually saw something, so went on a mission to see a whole load of tourism attractions across Bangkok.  

We paid for an all day travel pass for the ‘Tourist Boat’, which we later found out was a complete rip-off as we could have just paid for each individual journey which would have been way cheaper. The women at the boat place told us we couldn’t, but we could.

Anyway, our first destination on our day of culture was to visit the ‘Wat Phra Kaeo’ which is a massive royal temple. We didn’t bother to pay to go inside as it was quite expensive and there was a big cue. To go in you had to cover up your shoulders and legs too, which is the most annoying thing to do when it’s boiling hot.

I got told to cover up my legs even though I had shorts and leggings on which came down past my knee. Other women who had less clothes on than us weren’t told to cover up. It seemed to be they just told who ever they didn’t like the look of to cover up, rather than it being a set thing for everything. Annoying!

We got back on the boat in search of the giant gold Buddha! We didn’t know where exactly this Buddha was suppose to be, but we wanted to find it.

It turns out it was sneakily hidden away inside a huge building (Grand Palace) and grounds, which is why it was so hard to find. We had to pay 100 Baht to get into the grounds but it was the only way we could see the famous Buddha.

All of the little out-buildings and statues were stunning. Everything was shiny and colourful- absolutely beautiful. We went into the ‘Ordination Hall’ last which is where the massive ‘Reclining Buddha’ lies. It is 46 metres long and all gold!

It is crazy to think somebody made this massive statue. We had many unanswered questions after seeing it…what is it made from? Is it made of gold? Who made it? How old is it? What are the tins along the wall for?…..

Buddha Buddha

It’s annoying when this type of information isn’t anywhere to be found.

After soaking up all this culture, we went to the centre of Bangkok to have lunch. Sadly we couldn’t afford to eat lunch in the 5-star Shangri-La Hotel on the riverfront, so we chose some other place near by. Me and Bie both chose carbonara and garlic bread as we didn’t want to eat rice or noodles again. Surprisingly it was really nice. We walked under the sky-train on the way back to the boat which was cool.

Back at the hostel we just chilled out and booked some other accommodation for later on in our trip, we couldn’t do too much as had an extremely early start the next day.

A Traditional Thai Massage

All three of us decided we wanted to try a Thai Message as they are so incredibly cheap. It works out roughly £3 for the half an hour session.

We were shown a small room with three mattresses on the floor where they told us to take off our clothes. We didn’t know what clothes they meant so just stood there being confused. She then explained everything except knickers.

There were two women and one man who were the masseurs, I unluckily got the man. We were made to lie face down in just our knickers and they put a thin sheet over our bottom halves. I thought they were going to start but then I felt him touch my feet.

I hate people touching my feet.

He was trying to wipe them clean with a cloth but I hate it so much I couldn’t stop moving and kicking. I was laughing because I hated it if that makes sense? He then basically wrestled with me and sat on my legs to hold me down, whilst he wiped my feet. I would of much preferred to have done it myself.

After this horrific experience, they started to massage our backs, I was trying so hard not to laugh but it was really hard. After a while I calmed down and was finding it very relaxing. This relaxation was quickly ended when he told me to turn over. I didn’t know what he meant as the others were still face down. I just lead there confused again, until they explained they meant turn over onto my back. I was only in knickers though, so had to flash everyone my chest which I found a bit odd as it was a man who was massaging me…

Anyway I had to sit up whilst he manoeuvred to sit behind me. He then grabbed backwards so I was basically led on his lap with only a thin pillow separating us. It made me feel very uncomfortable but I just presumed this is what a Thai massage is.

He then rubbed my head and face which made me even more tense. Next he made me sit up again and begun to try to stretch my arms by digging his knee into my back and pulling my arms hard. It hurt a lot. Nobody naturally bends that way.

To end the massage he basically slapped my shoulders and neck hard, and then just told us to get changed but didn

’t shut the door so we had to just stand there basically naked.

I left feeling more tense than when I went in. And the thought of that bloody Thai penis from Chinatown kept on popping into my head to creep me out even more.

It was definitely a new experience.

A Close Encounter

What we thought would be a nice cultural evening in Chinatown turned into one of the most unexpected and random nights I’ve ever had.

Us with Ronald McDonald

We caught a Tut Tut there as we would of got lost trying to find it. As we got off the Tut Tut the driver told a Thai family we wanted to go to Chinatown so they very kindly offered to show us. The only problem was they spoke barely any English.

So off we trotted with our adopted family through the streets of Chinatown, until we came to an extremely busy part where they left us to fend for ourselves. We were absolutely starving so just wanted to eat as quickly as possible. We hadn’t thought of the fact that most of the food wasn’t in English so we literally had no idea what anything was.

We went onto the main parade street as we thought they’d be plenty of choice there, but instead of finding a delicious food vender, me and Nineham had an extremely bizarre penis encounter.

As we were walking through the crowds I felt something soft brush my hand so I looked down to expect to see a scarf or dress or something, but it was a Thai mans penis! He was holding it out through his trousers trying to touch me with it. I was so shocked I grabbed Nineham round the waist and tried to shove her forward and just told her to move quickly. She put her hand backwards as she thought she was reaching for my hand, but instead nearly grabbed his penis. He continued to follow us through the rammed street until we escaped down a side road and ran into the restaurant. He then quickly put it away and disappeared into the crowds again.

I don’t know what he thought was going to happen, but clearly he was absolutely mental! Who walks down a busy street with their peen out, trying to get English girls to touch it? Very strange.

The Chinese restaurant we had gone in was massive. We all tried something new and different as we wanted to experience proper Chinese food, would have been silly not too really. Bie had bright green noodles which looked like apple shoelace sweets, I didn’t fancy them. We tried Pork Cake Dim Sum which tasted like a sausage roll but had the texture of polystyrene and gone off marshmellows. I was not keen.

Getting drunk on Khao San Road

We went back into the main high street to watch the parade. I really wanted to see a Chinese dancing dragon. We stood for about ten minutes and thought it was be about to start as everyone had gone really quiet and nobody was moving about. Then a couple of cars started to drive along with what we guessed was politicians as people were taking photos and being serious.

After about five cars had driven through, they instantly removed the barriers from the side of the road and the massive crowds all started to disperse. We literally stood there and were like what the hell just happened? We couldn’t work out if we had missed the whole parade and caught the final cars going through, or if it simply was just a couple of cars because everyone was stood waiting patiently right until the very end when nothing at all happened.

We left Chinatown on another Tut Tut and headed back to Nappark to carry on the nights activities. Nobody seemed in the mood to go out from the hostel so we went to get a massage (which you can read about here, it was eventful!) then got a couple drinks.

We wanted to see what a Thai nightclub was like so went into ‘The Club’. There was a sign when you walk in saying ‘20 Baht left luggage’ which I thought it meant that you could buy peoples left luggage for 20 Baht.

I thought this was a cracking idea! Imagine all the goodies you could potentially get for the equivalent of about 40p. We joked about it for ages then I realised that you couldn’t buy luggage at all, it meant you could pay 20 Baht to leave your bag there, like a cloakroom.

I think it’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever said! Bie and Nineham found it hilarious and have been taking the piss constantly ever since.

We bumped into a guy we met in the hostel in the club so danced with him for a while then went back to hostel. It was sooooo cold in the room that I was shaking in bed! I had a hoody, socks, and trousers on, as well as laying two towels on top of me, and I was still freezing. It was horrible. I didn’t sleep at all.