Chilled out Rayong and Hectic Bangkok

07.03.2008 to 03.04.2008

Rayong...our home for nearly a month. It was nice to settle in one place for some time and establish some kind of routine. Our decision on whether or not to stay in Rayong for a month changed a million times. First we decided to stay for a month to save some money from our daily budget to make up for the tickets we purchased to India. As soon as we got to the place we changed our mind as it was different from what we expected. So after talking it over we decided to stay for three days in a small and cheap room and then head to one of the islands. This decision changed again a couple of minutes later and we decided to stay for the month taking the ocean room view. If we had to stay for such a long stay at least we had to make it worth it. We drafted our budget plan for the coming month and it made sense. So the final decision was taken...we were staying in Rayong. Needless to say we chose the best room...luckily we were the only guests at the time! Janet was happy to settle for a while as she could have a 'toileteries' corner, a 'clothes' corner, a 'kitchen' corner, a 'shoes' corner, a 'laundry' corner...it was quite comforting to have all these corners around a 36 square metre room. We also had the luxury of a balcony... the same size of the room!!. So that was it... we where happily settled, unless one considers two 'small' instances which occured in the first couple of days. Well the term 'small' is appropriate as the main characters were insects! The first situation had Janet's good friends, the bloody cockroaches, twenty-five of them, madly running all over our balcony as soon as the rain started hitting.... it was a disgusting scene! The second instance was much worse...main character...bed bugs!! It was the first time ever that they hit us...and hit us they did...with a 'carnivourous' appetite. Yakof was their first victim...they tortured him....draining most of his blood (well this last part is a bit exagerated). Janet was struck on the second day, though not as badly as Yakof. The most irritating part of this story (apart from the fact that we could not leave as we had just paid the owner one month in advance to get a 40% discount) was that the owner was failing to admit that the bites were bed bugs. He insisted it could not be the case as there was a man who stayed in the same room just before us for about three weeks. We tried to explain that individuals differ from one to the other but this information, apparently, did not hit the right spot. At last we managed to get him to change our mattresses and get some sleep. It would have been a pity to leave the place, especially given all the organised 'corners' we had. After that day we never got bitten again. A couple of days after we got to Rayong, Carm, Lee and Kaiah joined. They spent some days there before deciding to hit off to Koh Chang. It was the last time we were seeing Lee and Kaiah as they were heading back to South Africa. Ska also joined us there for a couple of weeks. And the days went by with a kind of day-to-day routine. We woke up, opened all curtains and windows to let the breeze come in, get fresh milk to eat our cereal. After breakfast (which time-wise ranged anything between 09:30 to 13:00) we either read a book or India Lonely Planet. Then we either spent some time on the internet or played cards or go for a swim. Eventually at around 17:30 we started cooking our dinner. Yes, that's right, we bought an electric wok, a kettle and food supplies for a month...well our food variety did not go far but it was satisfying. Sometimes it was rice with tuna, tomatoes and corn, sometimes past with tomato and garlic sauce, one-time french toast, sometimes instant noodles...but definetely our most important ingredient was pepper which we used in everything!! Every other day we indulged ourselves in some luxury like a Kit Kat, or better still, an ice-cream. After dinner we would either watch a dvd downstairs or on our own, or spend the rest of the night talking about different topics. Without any doubt our most important activity in Rayong was being lazy. It's impressive in how many ways you can do that. The options are vast. Waking up at 13:00 and sleeping again after breakfast; doing nothing on a hammock; bathing in the sea; easing oneself on one side to play cards and then changing eventually to the other side; turning slowly the pages of a book and having a break by playing solitaire....etc. One of the most important things here is see all of Prison Break Season 2.... Getting back to those horrendous creatures which are labelled as insects, we have to declare we saw the worst one ever till now. A huge flying creature, black in colour and enermous in dimension. Luckily Yakof stopped it from coming into the room but, in so doing, the balcony door came off!!! It was already on its way to break irrespective of the many times we asked the owner to have a look at it. And now it was sacrificed in favour of the prospect of not sharing the night with the horrendous creature. We finished it off with an overdoes of Baygon. We called the owner to come and have a look at the door...which he did...and he announced after a couple of minutes that we had no more door...and just walked out!!! We thought he might back to tell us to change the room or something of the sort but this never happened. So we sat looking at each other for some moments before Yakof (who by the way was very pissed off) came up with the idea of borrowing a mosquito net from another room and use it as screen. And so was our door for the rest of our stay....

One of our days was dedicated to visiting Koh Samet.

We made our way to the ferry at around 08:30 and spent till around 15:30 on the island. We managed to avoid the 200 Baht entrance fee by walking round the main entrance. We walked around some of the island's beaches and stopped at one particular quite one. We made friends with a dog there and Yakof spent some time shell collecting. We moved on to another beach where we found a ferry point, which saved us from having to walk all the way back to where we had docked. We started to settle in the white sand of this beach and hit off the cool sea. We were really enjoying our swim until Yakof landed his foot on a sea urchin...and unluckily that was the end of our fun. Although he manged to remove part of the urchin, some of it was still stuck inside which was quite painful. We made our way towards the nearby restaurant and decided to have lunch there. At 15:30 we took the ferry back to Ban Phe. Given the late hour we were finding problems to find transport back to our guesthouse. After some miserable tries, we met with a songthaw (local transport) full of teachers who were kind enough to let us join them. We were already dreading of going back all the way on foot, especially Yakof considering his mishap.

The rest of our days in Rayong went by slowly and gently until the day we actually had to leave. We both felt a bit sad to leave this place, a place which we had started to consider a little bit like home...it was like leaving Malta a second time....without the hearthace though. Leaving Rayong to head to Bangkok was a greater heartache, but the thought of India coming up the following week filled our hearts with pure excitement....

For more pictures click here:

04.04.2008 to 07.04.2008

Back in Bangkok for the last days in preperation for our trip to India. It's our third time in Bangkok now and we are starting to feel pretty at ease at this place. The most important thing we had to get done here was the visa application for India, which we got a couple of days before we left.... a 6 months multiple entry visa.

The rest of the days were spent pursuing one mission....eating :) We wanted to make sure to eat, as much as possible, food which we thought could not be found in India....mainly beef!! This mission was totally accomplished.

So we made sure everything was settled before we left...pending matters in Malta, stuff for storage, stuff to be sent back to Malta, visa and passport copies, exchange of Thai bahts for Indian rupees. This is it....we are leaving Thailand for good now and head towards our ultimate destination.....India!