India and Thailand

I travelled to India and Thailand during my uni break for around a month. I really wanted to experience something really different. I hadn't been out of the country too many times and was really really bored of my everyday Sydney life. everything was just too predictable and I felt that i needed to experience a new culture. I'd wanted to go to India for a very long time. I'm just in love with the food, culture and the people. While my friend was keen to go to Thailand. So we joined forces added an extra person to our trip and off we went!

We left rainy, miserable-looking Sydney in early February (a few days before my birthday) to Bangkok! It was the first time I'd ever been to Thailand and didn't know much about the

country before I'd left and didn't know what to expect.

The three of us arrived at the Bangkok Palace Hotel at 2am. We dumped our luggage at reception and wandered the streets around the hotel. We had some street food - fried rice which was okay... i think?

I have this thing with my taste buds where i can't really tell the differences between some foods... So with things like beef and lamb i can't really differentiate the taste between the two. Sometimes i don't really know when something tastes really good or just good... So there's no use of me going to fancy restuarants and whatnot because it usually tastes just like any other restuarant to me.

Apparently the street food in Thail and is meant to be really good but i can't be the judge of that.

We got back to the hotel and checked in at 6am. Our first day was INSANE!! we squished in so many attractions into the one day we were knackered by the end of it. We learnt a lo

t of lessons that day... We encountered our first scam. Which was very intricate. I kind of want to say Kudos the the scam artists. it got us good.

theres a very precise description of it on wikipedia -

A network of touts and con men present the mark with an opportunity to profit from buying discount gems from a jewelry shop. The mark is convinced that he can buy gems at duty free price and bring them overseas for a threefold or more profit. Through a network of helpers, each of whom tells the mark bits of information, the mark is guided to the jewelry shop.

1. A tout will be on the lookout at popular tourist spots like the Grand Palace, Wat Pho, Khaosan Road, Siam Square, or other temples or tourist attractions in Bangkok. (Also, the scam may often be initiated by a tuk-tuk driver.) Thetout will be dressed as a student or gentleman and will approach the mark to tell him the place he is about to visit is closed today because of some made-up holiday. The tout, taking advantage of the Thai people's reputation for friendliness, may strike upa conversation, asking where the mark is from, and if this is his first time in Bangkok. The tout will also tell the mark that a certain tuk-tuk waiting nearby is cheap or even free because it has been sponsored by the tourism ministry and can bring him to other temples elsewhere to visit. Sometimes this gentleman finds out which country the mark is from and informs the con man at the next layer about it.
2. If the mark gets on the tuk-tuk, the driver will bring him to a secluded temple in the city, drop him off, and wait for him to return.
3. When the mark walks into the temple, there will be a gentleman praying inside. That person will tell him about a scheme by thegovernment (usually so called Thai Gem Expo) which allows people to buy jewelry duty free and make a profit when the gems are shipped to their home country, adding that today is the last day of this scheme.
4. The tuk-tuk may take the mark to another temple, where another person (sometimes a Thai, sometimes a Westerner) tells the same story, building up the mark's confidence through a seemingly "independent" verification. If themark is interested, the person will tell the tuk-tuk driver to take him to the jewelry store.
5. At the shop the mark will be pressured tobuy jewelry. If the mark purchases the jewelry, the gem will be packaged and shippeddirectly to the mark's address in his home country so that he will not have a chance to get the gem appraised or return it for a refund. In the purchase process the mark may be told to go to a nearby gold shop to purchase gold to be exchanged for the gem - this money laundering ensures that any stop-payment on the part of the mark will not affect the gem store's profits.
6. The mark returns to his home country, only to find the jewelry to be worth far less than he paid for it.

Other scams include fake Thai Mikimoto certificates. Once in a store, a variety of selling tactics are employed, including bait and switch, and "educating" gemstone novices about "fake gems" which are in fact real, and selling them "real gems" which are fake.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_gem_scam

Its exactly what happened, and our naive souls fell right into their little trap. Sneaky bastards.

I didn't buy anything too major at the store, although one of my friends spent around $AU120 on 3 rings...

But there was a plus side of that day - we got to visit the lying buddha, marble palace and the Lucky buddha.

Marble Temple

The lying buddha was my favourite that day. It was the most overwhelming thing i'd ever seen! the sheer scale of the buddha was ridiculous!

The next day we went to Chatuchak Markets - The largest flea market in the world! This was probably by favourite thing about Bangkok! Just because i love flea markets.

We had amazing time running through the endless maze of stalls, buying and bargaining!

I bought with amazing embroidered bag and a one-of-kind wallet that was made from vintage embroidered fabric as well as many other things.

That night we went out to Khao San road - the party road of Bangkok. But lets not get into the details of the night... I've just started this blog.

The next day we went to China town. To sum it up in a few words it was - busy, pushy and sweaty. Then we went off to tourist street (i forgot the actual name of the street but that's what the locals called it) and, you guessed it, it had mcdonalds, KFC and several tourists.

Tourist street

The next day we packed up for Koh Phangan Island which we travelled to via train and boat.

It was a long trip but well worth it. We pretty much chilled, swam and listened to good music on a crystal clear beach for 3 days, which was conveniently right out side our little hut. We also celebrated my birthday on that island which was good fun.

We arrived in Phuket via bus, which unfortunately broke down in the middle of a highway... But all was good when we reached our hotel which was a street away from Bangla Road (a party road that was featured in hangover 2). In Phuket we went elephant trekking, snorkelling three idyllic islands and saw a lady boy cabaret show.

I think I'm going to have to tell you about India another time... You can tell I'm starting to slack off in this post already...

But just incase i don't, here are some photos of India i took to fill you in.