Thailand

 We arrived in Thailand on an island called Koh Samui. Our usual tender boats (but boats themselves aren’t mushy, that’s just what the little boats are called that you take to shore when the cruise ship can’t dock at a pier) don’t line up with the height of the pier, so we used local service boats to get to shore.

I’m assuming the water is quite shallow for a good distance offshore, since we left our ship far behind before reaching the pier

On shore, we were treated to a short show by a couple of Thai dancers.

Onto an 8-passenger van for a 45-minute ride to our destination. The bus curtains in Malaysia had a level of “unnecessary décor syndrome” for sure, but that was nothing compared to the way over-the-top interior of this van. The ceiling even had stars and planets etched into some glass that lit up and changed colours.

The van ride ended at a little market. The temps were in the low 30s (mid-80s F) and the humidity made my glasses instantly fog us as soon as I got out of the van, so it was almost funny to see the giant Christmas tree out front and hear “Sleigh Ride” over the music system. I’m pretty sure that almost nobody local has ever seen a sleigh, let alone had fond memories of sleigh bells jingling. It was kinda surreal.

It was also strange to see the Christmas décor up in a mall where almost all the shops sold beach attire and swim toys.

The reason for the trip was a beach excursion. I used to live on the beach, so just hanging out on the hot sand isn’t a big draw for me. Surf, however, would be awesome. I opted to do the excursion, Rob opted to stay on the ship. I think Rob did the better option. We were on the back side of the island, so there was no surf at all.

It’s pretty enough, but with no shade and no secure place to put your things, wading out into the water while your belongings stayed in a pile on the sand didn’t seem like a great idea. I walked the beach for a few minutes, then headed back to the bus to return to the ship. That’s about all that happened that day.

The next day, we got up early and piled on a full-sized bus to travel about 90 minutes inland to Bangkok. It’s a huge city with about 7 million inhabitants. Our guide’s name was Song and of all the guides we’ve had, he was the easiest for me to understand.

Bangkok’s city centre seems to sprawl out for miles in every direction. Tall buildings abound and I think I have a new favourite skyscraper now. Behold the weird and wonderful คิง เพาเวอร์ มหานคร (King Power Mahanakhon). Once the tallest building in Bangkok. Still the most expensive residential address in Bangkok. The building has 77 floors of offices, shopping, a hotel, and condos - the latter of which start at $1.4m CAD and go up to $22.8m CAD. So, roughly equivalent to the cost of a studio apartment in Vancouver (kidding). Anyway, the building is fantastic.

And since we’re in Thailand, we saw temples. Lots of temples. Mostly Buddhist, naturally.

And when I say there are lots of temples…. seriously, there are lots of temples. The Buddha in the photo above is literally just a few steps away from the one in the photo below.

The building housing the first one is pretty.

And I’m not kidding when I say the two Buddhas are steps apart. I literally stood in the same spot and faced different directions to get both temples. The one above for the first Buddha and the one below for the other one. His house was marble and very ornate.

There are two things, however, even more plentiful than temples in Bangkok. One of those things is photos of the king. Dude is everywhere even though Thailand is a constitutional monarchy with elections. There’s a lot hidden in that last statement, but if you want to know more about Thai government and elections and all that, you can google. Anyway, there’s a picture of the king (and/or queen) on buildings, signage, in little shrines in the middle of the boulevards, and anywhere else you can think of to put one. And if his pics are any indication, he’s a bit of a sourpuss. I didn’t see a single picture of him smiling.

By contrast, the queen seems pretty jovial. She’s often smiling in her photos.

The thing that’s more abundant than either temples or pictures of the king, however, is power lines. No, that’s not a joke. Apparently, none of the power cables run underground and the streets are absolutely choked with cables. Every street corner has a pole like this:

We drove through Chinatown and Little India, but unless you paid attention to the lettering on the signs, it would be difficult to tell where one neighbourhood ends and the other begins.

We stopped at a Ramada hotel for lunch next to a river. The buffet catered to Western palates (not too spicy) but there were dishes of sliced Thai peppers to ‘hot it up’ if you wanted, and of course I wanted.
They live up to their reputation, for sure.
The view across the river was nice enough with tall buildings in the background and some more traditional stuff along the banks. Like temples.

On the way back to the ship, I couldn’t help but notice the billboards. They’re HUGE. I took a few photos of ones with ads on them, but because the ads are in proportion to the size of the billboard, they don’t look oversized in a photo. So here’s one with no ad on it, to give you an idea of the scale.

We stopped at a rest area on the motorway which seemed desperate to cater to Western travellers. It had all the standards: McDonald’s, Burger King, Starbucks, KFC, Subway, 7-Eleven, etc etc etc.

…and then there was this.

I had to laugh at this. WTF is “Texas chicken”? There’s Carolina BBQ, Philly cheesesteak, even Cincinnati chill…. but there’s not Texas chicken. I did a quick glance at the menu as I walked past and it’s just…. fried chicken. Why “Texas”, then? I looked it up when I got back to the ship. Turns out that “Texas Chicken” is what they call “Church’s Chicken” when it’s outside the USA. Every Texan reading this right now is nodding their head and thinking, “OK, that’s legit, then. Texas chicken. Makes sense.” (Church’s is a chicken chain that started in San Antonio)
We had just come from lunch, so I didn’t get any chicken, but I did stop at the 7-Eleven and check out the snacks. There ware some interesting flavours of Lay’s chips here.

Once we were back on board the ship, we were faced with packing up our stuff and getting the suitcases out in the hallway before 10pm. We were getting off the ship the next morning and heading to the airport. As usual per Viking, it was all well-organized. The Bangkok airport even has a small temple. Big surprise.

You may have noticed that this post had quite a few more pictures than previous ones. That’s because I’m sitting in the Bangkok Airlines lounge and it has decent wifi! YAY! It’s a lot easier to do this when you can upload a picture in about 20 seconds rather than 15-30minutes for each one. A lot less frustrating, too.

But hey, we aren’t flying home from here. Not yet, at least. We’ve got one more stop to make, which you’ll have to read about later.

On to Cambodia

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