After a great month, I’m headed out of Bangkok and to southern Thailand – specifically starting with Koh Samui, an island off the east coast.

It’s been great to get out and travel again, but it was also great to veg out for a little while and focus back on my blog and on me. I spent so much time in Albania with the amazing people I made friends with that I put a lot of other things out of my mind and on the backburner. Thailand has been a way to reconnect with traveling and my blog.

I started off in Bangkok with meeting up with a friend of mine that I met in Slovakia. We spent 2 weeks traveling together, though to be honest we only really did things together the first week. During the second week, we were kind of living opposite timelines. He went out and hung out with people he met at night, and I went out and explored during the day. It worked for us. Unfortunately (and fortunately) for him, his flight back to the states was cancelled twice before he was rerouted east due to the conflict in the Middle East. He’s home now though so that’s good!

Getting to Thailand

The trip to Thailand was a long one. I decided that I didn’t want to take two (or really 3) planes to get there, so when I left Albania I decided to take a bus. Plus it saved me quite a lot of money. The flight that I booked left from Athens, Greece so I had to leave Tirana and head to Athens. The bus was scheduled to take about 10-12 hours, it took 16.

There wasn’t anything note worthy that made it take that long except for a combination of some traffic due to some rocks in the road in Albania, switching from a van to an actual bus, picking up additional travelers, and the crazy amount of time it took for the bus to clear customs between the two countries. We all had to get off the bus and go through customs to leave Albania – that took about 15 minutes for all the passengers, then we walked over and were waiting on the other side to be picked up by the bus again. That waiting took about 30-45 minutes, though probably longer. We then all got back onto the bus and drove about 15 minutes down the road before we all had to get off the bus again so that we could go through customs to enter Greece. All the instructions were in Albanian and while I may have picked up on some of the language during my 3 months there, I definitely didn’t pick up enough to understand what the driver kept telling us. Thankfully I could figure out a lot from context clues, following other passengers, and when I was looking particularly lost (I’m assuming) one of the nearby passengers would explain what was happening as his English was miles better than my Albanian.

After 16 hours, I arrived at 2am in Athens, walked 15 minutes to my hostel, and settled in for the short 8 hours I had until checkout. I had most of the next day to explore – but after getting in so late and not a lot of restful sleep, I ended up just hanging out at the hostel. I ate there before I headed to the airport. Thankfully the flights, and connection in Dubai, were uneventful and I missed all of the chaos that is there now.

I booked economy for the flights to Thailand, but it being Emirates means that even economy was really nice. My first flight was mostly empty so I had a row to myself. The second flight didn’t – but that’s okay, it was still a nice flight. 

Finally – I arrived in Bangkok and met up with my friend who had arrived about an hour or so before me.

Bangkok

Bangkok is a sprawling city – there is a lot to it! Like many Asian cities, there is an odd mix of the old and the new. You walk down the street looking at a bunch of different skyscrapers only to see a temple in the courtyard or nestled between two buildings. There are also a lot of residential areas that are mixed in down alleyways and despite it being not far from the main roads – you’ll find that you can’t hear any traffic. It really gives it a surreal feeling at times. 

Honestly, it was a bit difficult to know where to start. It’s a city – and even being in another country it’s still a city. There were definitely places that had been suggested (Chinatown for instance) but overall, a lot of it wasn’t that different from other places. We visited a couple of the malls and it was really cool to see what malls could be – we all know malls in the states are lacking when they even exist. So many have closed down – but that’s not the case in many other countries and the malls here are no exception. It was fun to walk through and see the different small town shops. In some cases the malls are like markets, though there are more American style malls as well. But one thing that all malls in Bangkok have is a huge amount of food!

Food

The food has been amazing. I’ll admit that it is a bit too meat heavy for me – but it’s still really good! You can find different cuisines of course, but Thai food is easily found and very affordable. Rice dishes are everywhere, though noodle dishes are a close second. Street food is the most affordable of course, but local restaurants are great too. It’s only when you’re downtown at the restaurants that are geared more towards the tourists that you start to get food that’s a bit more expensive – though most of the time that’s expensive compared to the local places. You can get American prices, but those tend to be at the hotel bar/restaurants (and from what I’ve heard from fellow travelers, is still cheaper than many American restaurants now – apparently prices have gone up a lot since I left.) The further away the culture is, the more expensive you typically have to pay – especially for good quality food. You can find western style food, but just like you can get Asian food in the states but it’s been ‘Americanized’ to better fit the local tastes, remember that it’s typically Asian style western food – so if you’re looking for your comfort foods, it could take a bit or you should expect to cook it yourself. For instance, I had macaroni the other day and instead of with cheese it had a sauce that reminded me of stir fry and sweet and sour sauce. It was really good! 

One of the most surprising things, is that there are about a million Michelin rated restaurants. Sometimes it’s only one dish that is rated, other times its the entire restaurant. But you can literally be walking down the street and see a street food stand/cart with a Michelin star. So strange but so cool. I’ve eaten at Michelin star restaurants in the states, and I’ve eaten quite a few of the Michelin rated food here now and the food is just as good, but for a fraction of the cost. (seriously it’ll be a meal that only costs around 3-5$).

Sights

Alright – the different sights in Bangkok. I’ll admit – I didn’t actually get to any of the major temples. It was a bit later and we were hungry when we first walked by them in the first week and then I just never went back that way since there was so much more to see. Eventually I’m sure I’ll get back there to see them, or will see others. The outside of them looked amazing though!

I did get to Chinatown. And man was it chaos. They don’t close down the actual road for it (though I imagine they do for events) so you have a pretty narrow walkway to walk through and see all the different food carts/stands and the different vendors. It’s definitely worth a walkthrough though!

While wandering around one day, I ended up on a River Walk and in what must be the flower district. There were probably about 5 different Flower Markets and you could find just about any flower you were looking for. Some of the markets were definitely geared more towards vendors who sell on the streets, so a supplier type of market (I’m spacing on the name right now – maybe it’ll come to me later…) but some of them were geared towards anyone who wanted to buy flowers. In one of them, there was also a coworking place advertised so they definitely get all kinds of visitors in the area!

One of the best places that I went to see would have to be the Big Buddha. I didn’t know it existed until I was taking the metro into town after I switched hotels and saw it from a distance. It sticks out among all the buildings and I knew that I needed to go see it up close. It is so big and I don’t think the pictures do it justice. There are also some temples in the area around the Buddha along with some other large (though not as large) statues. It was a nice walk around the area and it was great to see some of the local neighborhoods that I passed through to get to and from the Buddha.

Stays

During my month in Bangkok, I was at 3 different places. One of them an Airbnb but the other two were hotels. It has been a nice change to the hostel living that I’ve been doing for the 6 months before that. It’s affordable as well, with many good hotels being around 1000 baht ($30) or cheaper a night, especially if you don’t mind being out a bit from the city center.

Initially my friend and I stayed more centrally located so we were spending about 2000 baht ($60) a night. But when we split up, I went further out, but still on a metro line for easy access to downtown. The hotel was basic in terms of amenities but really good rooms, and it was only a 5 minute walk to the metro station then about 20 minutes to get downtown, less if I was going closer, more if I was going further out. Simple and easy. What was also easy? Laundry. It’s an unfortunate part of everyday life – and when you’re on the road that means that you typically have to do laundry in laundry mats unless you want to spend a fortune at a hotel. The laundry mats in Thailand were easy to use and super affordable. A load of laundry would be about 80-100 baht (2.5-3.5$) depending on the size of the load.

What’s Next?

So now I’m on a ferry headed away from Bangkok. I decided against a bus (the 16 hours of the last one is still way to fresh in my mind) or dealing with an airport and plane ride. So instead I’m on a 22 hour ferry with a capsule bed so that I can get some sleep with the end destination being Koh Samui. There is a restaurant and 2 bars and it’s great to be back on the water. I honestly think one of my all time favorite places to be is on a ship – too bad it tends to be more expensive to do cruises…especially as a solo traveler.

So that’s all for now! 🙂

Oh! Check out my Instagram, I’ve posted some videos from my time in Bangkok!