Traveling the World

Yesterday afternoon Nick and I got Thai massages for 150 baht (about 30 yuan, or $4) for 1 hour. It was fanTASTIC.

So far Thailand has been good and bad for me. In China, every person who approaches you is only interested in practicing English and learning about you. In Thailand, every person wants to sell you something (or really screw you over big time). Case in point: last night we went to a bar, where they said if you paid 100 baht for a beer, you’d get to watch a free show. We paid the 100 baht for the beer, but as the show was starting, they started hounding us to pay 200 for the show. They said pay or get out, so we left.

There are TOO many expats and foreigners and tourists in Thailand, so it’s kinda ruining my experience so far. You see MANY men in their 40s and 50s with very young Thai girls, and it’s just disgusting.

So after we ran out of the bar, we went to the market outside. It’s a HUGE copy market, and since there are so many tourists, the vendors are quite rude. They start every item off at 800-1300 baht (1300 baht is about 280 yuan, or about $40), even though it costs more about 100 baht. Every time we try to talk them down, they tell us to go away, because they know the tourists will pay the prices like the sheep they are.

After this we took a taxi to the arab secton of town because the guys had huge cravings for doner kebabs (because we don’t have them in China). Then we walked about 30 minutes back to their hotel (we walked through the shantytowns and slums at 1 in the morning), which, by the way, I didn’t have reservations at, so I slept on the floor (The picture will come later because I can’t edit it here). I had a pillow for my head and was fully clothed and wearing a bathrobe, and used another bathrobe to cover my feet and legs, but I was still freezing cold and barely slept, but hey.. free accommodation!

So last night in the airport, I had the craving for McDonalds, but the only problem was that I was already stamped out of China and sitting in limbo between countries. I asked my mates if they’d let me go back, but didn’t think about the problem of re-entering a country that doesn’t have the arrival stamp available. They almost let me go try it. We decided that the Chinese would probably implode from being unable to compute the idea of returning to their country.

We arrived in Thailand about 2am, and I got to the hotel around 3am. This morning I saw how truly annoying the Thai people can be. They prey on tourists and are much more convincing than the Chinese are trying to get you to do what they want. I had many people come up to me asking if I needed a taxi, a tuk tuk (it’s like a rick shaw almost, but motorized), etc. I asked someone about getting money changed and I got 5 opinions (each person trying to get me to go to their own special favorite place).

I’ve seen a Hard Rock, a Dunkin Donuts, and many other places that China (at least Wuhan) doesn’t have. Needless to say I had a chocolate frosted donut for 60 US cents and am very happy. I’m very surprised that the Thai people speak English really well, and they keep Bangkok really clean. I can even see the blue sky! The reason this surprises me is because my mate told me when he was there in 2004 it was really dirty.

More to come later..

I arrived at the Wuhan airport and they informed me that eLong (the booking agency) had cancelled my ticket. They never sent an email telling me why or called the airline either. It turns out that with eLong you have to send them a copy of your visa or something, but no such thing is mentioned on the site (which is also in chinese).

So the airline tried to get rid of me. They told me to call eLong, to which I said, “no, you call them. It’s your fault and I don’t speak Chinese!” I called the bank to see if the money had been removed from my account and the woman was useless. She kept saying 400yuan, even though I was looking for 504.70 (to confirm the payment went through).

Long story short, an hour later I had a seat on a flight 3 hours later. So my mates went to Shenzhen without me and I arrived at 4pm instead of 1pm. I sat in the airport until 11pm waiting for the next flight.

Lesson learned today: never use Shenzhen Airlines because they are morons and don’t care about their customers. Use eLong because in the end they always rectify a situation if it is their fault.

Just hope tomorrow is better.