Back-packer – A long way home to Leytonstone

05/09/202305/09/2023 Sam Thompson London, Thailand

Finishing with a bang

As with all good things, our trip unfortunately had to come to an end. The last stop, Bangkok. We’ve been to Bangkok quite a few times in the past, but in a big city like this, things change quickly. It had been over ten years since our last visit, and we were excited to be back.

We arrived by taxi, and the journey was simpler than we had expected, taking just over two and a half hours from Hua Hin. We checked into the Mecure Hotel on Sukhumvit 24, at £119 per night. Yes, it had got to the point of the trip where our budget went out of the window.

Being rainy season in Bangkok, the weather was always going to be a bit of a gamble, and right on cue, the rain started falling as we pulled up to the hotel. But it didn’t last long, and we ventured out to explore the area.

Bangkok is a bit mental, but there’s something that we just love about it. As with most places we’ve been, Bangkok has been all about the food. We found a few bars nearby to get us going before finding somewhere for dinner.

Our first meal here was a good one at Sri Trat Restaurant. The starters were out of this world, with betel leaf wraps with herbs, spicy shrimp, lime and a sweet sauce, and herb salad with vinegar-cooked barracuda and peanut brittle dressing. This came at a price, at around £35 for the meal with drinks. It’s still incredible value, but more than we’ve been spending.

With the sunshining, we decided to make the most of it and went on a river cruise. This was on a traditional longboat and took us along the Chao Phraya River and some of the waterways leading off it.

Wat Arun Ratchawararam Ratchawaramahawihan

There was only one other person on the boat, so it almost felt like a private tour. It was a great way to see some areas of the city that aren’t accessible by simply walking around. The huge Buddha at Wat Paknam Phasi Charoen temple was stunning.

After an hour and a half, we were dropped off close to Chinatown, and that only meant one thing…we needed to find some dumplings. It didn’t take us long as we found 168 Gyoza and sampled three different types.

I’d also found a rooftop bar online called River Vibe Bar that was nearby, so we set off to try and find it. Chinatown is such a great place to walk around, but it was extremely hot, and this bar was not easy to find. Eventually, we found it on an enclosed back alley and enjoyed some cold beers at very reasonable prices with amazing river views.

There are lots of places to take in amazing rooftop views in Bangkok, and our hotel was no different. With a rooftop pool and bar area, we just needed to nip upstairs around sunset to take it all in.

We were in Bangkok for six days but had decided to split the time in different hotels to see different areas. We switched to Ariyasom Villa in the Makkasan area. This is definitely more our sort of place, which is a smaller independent hotel at £117 per night.

A stay in Bangkok isn’t complete without a trip to Khaosan Road, which is the lively backpacker area. It’s a little tacky, but there are some decent bars and restaurants to be found.

It was not easy to get there from our hotel. With traffic bad, we decided to skip the taxi and get there on the MTR. The problem was that it still involved in a 20-minute walk on each side of the train journey, and it was HOT…around 37⁰.

The nicer road to visit in the area is Soi Rambuttri, which runs parallel to Khaosan Road. The bars are nicer, there are fewer hawkers trying to sell you deep-fried scorpions and it’s generally not as crowded.

We had a great night, and after a few drinks and a nice dinner at I Love Thai Food at around £6, we got a taxi back and had a cold shower. This was probably as hot as we’ve been since being away, but that’s to be expected here in the rainy season.

We had a night out in Soi 11 and were treated to an Arsenal win against Man U. Obviously, this was watched in an English pub, called the Red Lion.

We’d been really lucky with the weather, with only a few big downpours during our time here. We were also very aware of how quickly things would change as soon as we’re home, so we enjoyed doing very little and relaxing around the pool for our last few days.

We enjoyed some great food including an all you can eat buffet lunch at Goji Kitchen+Bar for £25pp and a great lunch in the hotel restaurant, Na Aroon.

We spent our last night at Soi Sukhumvit 4, which is a lively area with lots of girly bars. After some drinks, we headed for our last meal at Tamnanthai Restaurant. It was exactly what we wanted, and we enjoyed Crispy Pork with Broccoli, Pork Penang Curry and and Chicken Red Curry. All topped off with a nice bottle of red wine.

I’m a little sad it’s all over, and we’re having to return to reality. For me, that means trying to find a new contract. For Katy, it means starting her exciting new business venture, PINCH.

We’ve somehow managed to keep within budget; actually around £4 per day under what we had set aside. But I have a feeling that Katy may still have some spending in her before we get on our flight home.

We have had an amazing time, and we’re so lucky that we’ve been able to do this again. Hopefully, it won’t be our last travel adventure, as this is definitely the way to see the world.

Sam

30/08/202330/08/2023 Katy Thompson Thailand

Hua Hin and the home straight

After paying for an early check-in, we quickly unpacked, freshened up, and headed out for a much needed coffee. This was very quickly followed by some much missed Thai food, and the clams in chilli sauce and Tom Yum at Chansawang Restaurant ticked all the boxes.

Hua Hin is a pretty seaside town famous for its sandy beaches and fresh seafood. It’s fairly spread out with the main area centred around the lively night market. Our hotel, Dusit D2 (£50 p/n), was about a 40-minute walk away, but Grab taxis were only £1 each way so easy to get in and out.

Hua Hin is only three hours south of Bangkok, so it’s a popular weekend getaway from there. It has a mix of locals, retired westerners, and a lot of Chinese tourists.

As we were knackered, we stayed local on our first night and tucked into some fresh grilled prawns, spicy som tam, and panang and red curries. Everything is generally a bit more expensive in Hua Hin, albeit still great value, but definitely more than on the islands we had been to.

We visited the night market a few times, enjoyed a few beers, and ate in Lung Ja Seafood, famous for its fresh seafood. We paid £20 for a kilo of King prawns, which came with an amazing spicy dipping sauce.

We’d read that Thailand now has a couple of vineyards and has started producing its own wine. Intrigued, we made sure to visit the Monsoon Valley Vineyard about 40 min drive from Hua Hin. I’d called ahead and booked a table for lunch and we organised a taxi to take us there and back.

It was a fantastic afternoon. The setting was gorgeous, and the wine wasn’t bad either. We tried their premium range, a total of five, which included two whites, a rose, and two reds. We could have paired the wines with food but instead opted for the cheese and meat platter, which after ten weeks of virtually no cheese, was heaven!

As we were in Hua Hin for eight days, we decided to move closer to the centre and up the budget (finally). We booked the Centara Grand Beach Resort (£89 p/n) for our last 4 nights. It was a great place to relax. Fortunately, the weather was kind, so we made the most of it and chilled by the pool topping up our tans.

As mentioned earlier, most things are more expensive here and geared towards tourists, so we’ve found it hard to find our roadside / hole in the wall local food gems. However, after a bit of research, we stumbled across a couple.

Firstly, DAR Restaurant, which measured the spice level by school grading – I was Primary School at 35%, and Sam graduated with a Bachelors Degree at 85%. The chef was so impressed with Sam that he was welcomed to the club with a handshake.

On our last night, we went to Ken’s Kitchen, set back a few streets from the night market. Chef Ken was a character, the food good and beautifully presented but not the best we’ve had.

Next is a 3 hour taxi ride to Bangkok!

Katy

23/08/202323/08/2023 Sam Thompson Malaysia, Thailand

The long way home

The final section of our trip has been up in the air until very recently. We couldn’t decide exactly how and where we wanted to spend our final few weeks.

Some of this was down to areas being out of season (Philippines, Malaysia) and not wanting to risk getting caught up in monsoon weather. Other options were either too expensive or too difficult to get to (Khao Sok National Park).

Finally, after considering lots of options, we landed on Hua Hin, which had been suggested as an option by a friend (thanks again Steve). This was fairly close (three hours) to our final destination, Bangkok. The problem was that it was a long way from Ipoh.

The journey was broken down into four phases:

Ipoh to Padang Basar – a three hour train to the border town in Malaysia.
Cross the border – the land border crossing from Malaysia to Thailand that is notoriously complicated.
Get to Hat Yai – an hour train or drive away from the border in Thailand, and then wait for our next train.
Train to Hua Hin – a 13-hour sleeper train from Hat Yai to Hua Hin.

Our train left Ipoh on time at 09:40, but was very busy with locals bound for the border as we were. We both got our earphones on to drown out the very loud mix of Mandarin and Malay all around us.

We seemed to be one of the only westerners making the journey. The ETS train, which runs along the entire West coast of Malaysia, cost us around £23, arrived on time around three hours later. Now, the fun part began.

We’d heard from others online that this border crossing could be complicated, and they weren’t wrong. We had come somewhat prepared in that we’d already changed up some currency, so we had some Thai Baht.

The shuttle train from Padang Basar to Hat Yai was ruled out as there was a three hour wait. So, our first priority was to find a taxi to the Malaysian border so we could stamp out our passports. There was no WiFi anywhere, and we had no local sim card. So we had to opt for an overpriced taxi (still only £12), which said it would help us navigate all of the border controls and take us to Hat Yai.

What we didn’t realise was that this would involve three separate journeys in two different cars. The other issue is they didn’t have any small change for our 1000 Baht (£22) notes, so we had to find somewhere that could change money for us.

The station was chaotic, with no clear signs or instructions. It turns out there were no money changers. Instead, we had to negotiate with a local cafe owner to break our large notes. Thankfully, they helped us.

After paying and filling in the required papers for the Thai border control, we were hearded into groups of four and told to wait. We weren’t too sure what we were waiting for, but it turned out it was a baking hot car to drive us ten minutes to the Malaysian border control.

After 20 minutes, we arrived at the border and got into a queue, which wasn’t too long. We weren’t sure if this was the Thai or Malasian border, as we’d been warned it’s common that people go direct to the Thai border. Thankfully, after some broken English conversations, we confirmed we were in the correct queue. It only took ten minutes or so to get stamped out of Malaysia.

Next, we were hearded into groups of eight and told to wait…again, we didn’t know what for. After about another 20 minutes, we got into a ‘party bus’ and made another ten minute trip across ‘nomansland’ to the Thai border control.

Into another queue to then be told to go to the supervisors office! After a moment of panic as to why, it turned out that the supervisor was the only person who could issue visas on arrival. Back into the party bus, and after another 20-minute wait for an unknown reason, we were on our way. After an hour and an uneventful drive (thankfully), we arrived at Hat Yai train station.

We thought we had about a three hour wait here, but what we’d not accounted for was the time difference, so it was actually four hours. It was a long four hours, and we were knackered at this point. We found a local minimarket where we could store our bags and headed into town. It was a cool 33°.

After filling our time in air-conditioned shops like Starbucks, we topped up on water and snacks and headed back to the station.

Our train actually arrived on time, and we got to our 1st Class private cabin, which cost around £90. It was very compact, a little dirty, but had good air-conditioning, and the bed was vaguely comfortable.

We left on time at 18:15, and got comfortable for a long night. We arrived over an hour late at around 08:15 the following morning. We’d both managed to get some sleep and weren’t feeling too bad, but we were both keen to get to our hotel.

A short cab journey later, we arrived at DusitD2 Resort, which cost around £40 per night. Almost 24 hours after we had left Ipoh, we’d arrived at our destination for the next eight days.