Double Big Mac, Super Sized

With Bangkok International Airport now open, there were plenty of sleeper seats on the midnight ghost from Laos into Thailand. We first went up to the restaurant car and partied in style, where we kept our seats until closing by giving one of the staff shots of our whiskey all night. Then we crashed out in our comfy bunks and arrived in Khaosan road bright eyed and bushy tailed, ok only a little bleery, and just in time for Chinese New Year. Oops, as in, everything is booked! It took some walking around but we did eventually find a place. Our first priority taken care of, we went straight to, you guessed it, those sweet, sweet golden arches. I got a double cheeseburger which went down smooth, but Sam foolishly got himself a double big mac (do they even have that at home?) with four burger patties, which he regretted soon enough. Ah, the joys of being back in the land of tourists after so much time at the village in Laos. I have to say, I haven't been sick since that meal. Either it was the ultimate cure, or the ultimate poison compared to everything we've eaten since.



We didn't have a lot of time before our flight to Bali, so we booked a trip to Koh Chang, one of the nearer Thai islands, famous as a backpacker destination, where Sam had stayed in a shanty beach bungalow just over two years ago for $3 a night. When we arrived fairly late in the day, we were surprised by the change since the tsunami - the whole strip had been coated in a tidal wave of fancy resorts! Even the shanty beach bungalows were now fancy, upscale looking beach bungalows, beachfront for $120/night, shanty bungalow a few meters from the landfill for $40/night, book well in advance!

BIG WARNING TO EVERYONE WHO READS THIS: THAILAND'S ISLANDS ARE NO LONGER BACKPACKER DESTINATIONS!

The ironic thing was we went to Koh Chang because everyone told us it was the best island left, and to avoid Koh Phi Phi, Phuket, and Koh Samui at all costs because they were so built up! Oh well on the plus side we now had a 7-11 every 50 meters on Koh Chang, so we would never get too thirsty! Sure, you can probably try some of the lesser known islands, and if you're willing to commute to the beach by moto you can still stay for very cheap. But for Americans, I think Hawaii or Mexico are now a better bet, with cheaper airfare, similar priced accomodation and food, and better beaches too. If you want to see southeast Asia, and don't mind riverfront instead of oceanfront, Laos and Cambodia are quite nice! Northern Thailand (Chang Rai, Chang Mai) is also super cool. Bali is still a good bet and pretty cheap, with clean beaches, at least outside of the biggest resorts, but more on that soon.

Anyway sorry for the negative spin, just thought we'd warn you. Sam talked to the local workers in Koh Chang and here's what happened: after the tsunami, big international companies came in and bought all the beachfront property. They then built a bunch of big hotels, which were completed and opened only six months ago. Some hotels are still going up. Surprisingly, rooms were still mostly full despite the higher prices and the airport situation a few months ago. But everyone we talked with who had been frequent visitors to Thailand in the past vowed never to return.

We hung out at Koh Chang for a few days. By staying across the street from the beach we managed to find the fanciest room we've stayed in for the whole trip, in a brand new hotel, for not too much money (though Sam had to use his good looks and boyish charm to extract the price from the receptionist girl, while I stayed discretely away.) The beach was ok, though not super clean. I guess they built big hotels but didn't think too much about sewage treatment, or maybe it was the landfill they were digging up polluting the ocean, or both. I highly recommend renting a moto and cruising all around the island at top speed, as in, pushing it up the steepest hills and cursing all the way, then nursing the burning brakes on the way down in first gear. Oh well, safety first! We also checked out one of the waterfalls there, it was pretty small but the water was refreshing. All in all I guess the highlight of Koh Chang was this delicious place where you could get a whole baked chicken for $5, we ate that every night with 7-11 bread - delicious! Everywhere else was $10 a plate for a few prawns. FYI: there's nothing like a trip to Laos to turn you into a super cheapskate! Or to make you appreciate a chicken with actual meat on its bones!

Another highlight of Koh Chang was the snorkeling trip we took. Ok, it was kind of a small boat, packed with tourists, and the snorkeling spots were small. And though they explicitly promised that fins were included they wanted to charge extra for them! But it was all made worthwhile when a boat 10 times more crowded appeared, absolutely packed with Thai tourists in identical swimsuits and lifejackets. They totally entertained us with their beach antics!



Then it was back to Khaosan, for more McDonalds, naturally, and also stocking up on the world's best tee shirts for travel, as in, hand washing and wringing. (You know, all those 7 Up and Elmo shirts Sam wears everyday like a uniform.) Decked out in style, we then spent one day checking out the huge mall, MBK, once the world's third largest, though probably not anymore. It is actually worth seeing! There's an entire floor of cell phone shops, hundreds and hundreds of them! The tricky part is finding the shop you liked again once you leave it, particularly if you already paid for something and are trying to pick it up! Also the Chinese New Year dragon dancers in the mall were pretty cool, though for some reason they did not have elephants with them like the ones back at Khaosan.

Another fun activity in Bangkok was catching the river taxi down to Chinatown. Actually, it was more like a river local bus - packed to the roof, and leaves regardless of the lady with the stroller trying to get on, with one leg on the boat and one on the dock....In Chinatown everything was closed for Chinese New Year, oops again, but Sam managed to pick up a cheap guitar to occupy spare time on those Balinese beaches.

Soon enough our time was up! At BKK we had to have BK, of course, and also for a change from Mickey D's. Then it was off to Bali!