BKK and Beach Days

 

enjoying the day at Angthong Marine Park (the place that inspired Leonardo DeCaprio's "The Beach")

Christmas. That's when you last heard from me. After Christmas I completed my English camps at school and immediately after headed to Thailand for my TESOL training. In the days before I started my TESOL training (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) I stayed with a friend of a friend's while in Bangkok, went to a marine park on Koh Samui and beach bummed.

 I got off the plane and instantly mosquitoes started biting me....

No. That didn't happen. It would be another day before a bad buzzer bit me.  I only had a problem with a whole lot of them when I arrived in Koh Samui, not in Bangkok.

The weather was warm. The taxi driver was pleasant--and knew English (wow), and I was excited to meet my friend Alex. I knew I would have a great experience.

 

I had known Alex since high school. He was the first person on Facebook to reach out to me when I announced where I would be moving to in South Korea. He had volunteered for a year in Thailand, traveled around Southeast Asia, and liked Thailand so much he decided to stay to teach English there. Now he's an entreprenuer as well as an English teacher.

A friend of Alex's, who lives near him and is a real estate agent, was kind enough to let me stay at her condo on a quiet and upscale street off Suhmkumvit--one of the busiest streets in Bangkok. 

I went out to dinner later with Alex and his girlfriend, Anne. Together we perused parts of the city and Anne gave some insight on Thai meal traditions. I enjoyed eating out with them. It was good for me to stay with Alex, too. He has so much information about the city, and the schools there. We had many conversations about Bangkok (BKK) expat life.

They were such great hosts. I treated them to a Japanese dinner near Alex's house before I flew off to Koh Samui. All the meals we had were inexpensive. It's cheap to eat Thai food, and a few other things. The most expensive thing we had was probably  the French wine outside an oyster bar.

 

Speaking of French, there are so many people from France (or maybe French-turned Thai citizens?), so many Europeans in general in Thailand. Walking down the street it was common to hear French words being spoken by strangers. The number of people there from Europe must be humungous. I enjoyed meeting everybody of different nationalities, the Europeans included. 

There are also Africans, Arabs, and of course other Asians. Everybody swims in the same sea. There are still foreign areas or districts (as far as I know) but outside of those, the three areas I visited were quite diverse. I appreciated this. I find more in common with a city when the nationality and racial makeup of it are an integral part of its culture. Bangkok is similar to Atlanta, and many cities back home, in this respect.

True, I didn't spend that much time there, just about five days. I wanted to stay longer, but just as much I wanted to hit the beach. So I did just that when I left.

Here are some pictures from Bangkok and my first days on the island of Koh Samui. While I was in BKK I went to a sky bar (a rooftop bar that gives you a view of the city) with Alex, tried the dessert mango and coconut-drizzled sticky rice, and road on the backseat of a tuk-tuk. In Koh Samui I started off my time by visiting Angthong Marine Park, famously known as the place that inspired the movie "The Beach" with Leonardo DeCaprio. . . .

 

catching up over wine   at Red Sky bar Angthong Marine Park

 

 

 

Yours truly,

              Evan