12 days in Bangkok - day 1

Hello everyone!

I decided to change the name of my blog according to the places I'll be staying at.

Let me start this first part of the blog by summing up my last couple of days in Fiji and my trip to Bangkok.

My new friend Lucie and I boarded a ferry from Taveuni to Suva on Sunday morning. The journey to Suva took us 18 hours. As the ferry is completely filled with people, there's no other option but to encamp in the first free spot you manage to get. Because Lucie was traveling only with carry-on luggage, she quickly boarded the ship and secured one of the premium positions - in an empty shop, where the floor is carpeted.

After arriving to Suva, we got an offer to take a shuttle to Nadi for just $5 FJD more than the bus would cost us. Of course we took the offer, as we couldn't wait to get back to Bamboo Backpackers to get a shower and some rest. Nothing interesting happened on our way except us being horrified by the driving etiquette among Fijian drivers; if you would drive like that in Europe, you would lose the license within an hour. Let me just say there was a lifetime of dangerous overtaking in the space of 4 hours - the length of the drive form Suva to Nadi.

When we arrived back to Bamboo, I decided to use my last couple of days for relaxation, since I knew there's an exhausting trip waiting on me, ergo no new content.

On Thursday morning I said goodbye to Fiji and boarded on a flight to Bangkok. I had a 7 hour layover in Hong Kong (it was supposed to be a 5 hour, but I got an e-mail just after landing that the plane will be additional 2 hours late), which I used to go to Kowloon, which is the most densely populated part of Hong Kong, as it is just 47 square kilometres in surface but has a population of 2 million (which is about as much as the whole country of Slovenija, where I come from). I made a couple of shots of the buildings and surrounding vistas, as I come from a rural area and this was by far the biggest city I've seen so far:

I was especially fascinated by how busy the port is:

While wandering around, I even encountered a Czech pub, it looked so out of place there, but it kind of almost made me feel like home :)

I bought myself a burger (which was really good) and headed back to the airport. I still had a couple of hours before boarding, so I took the time and put my towel on drying while occupying the space next to a power socket, where I was charging my phone.

Finally, the time to board the plane came. I couldn't wait to get to Thailand, as I was awake for about a day at this point. We already got into the plane, and were waiting for it to start, when the pilot chimed in on the speaker system and told us they're experiencing some problems with an onboard computer and they'll let us know shortly what's going to happen.

After about 20 minutes of waiting, they informed us that the computer is beyond repair, and that our flight will be additionally delayed for another 3 hours, which meant we'll be lifting off at 01:35 AM instead of 20:35 PM as we were supposed to originally. We got a free meal in any restaurant at the airport, at least, but too bad that the only open joint at that point was McDonalds.

I obviously had my free meal and after some napping they let us on another airplane. Because of the mess they made, I even got upgraded to 1st class, so I won't complain too much, the extra leg space was amazing :)

Because of all of the delays I landed in Bangkok at 4:00 AM on 7. 12., instead of originally planned 11:00 PM on 6. 12., which resulted in no free bed for me in the hostel when I finally arrived here, as I was unable to let them know, since I had no mobile data left. Which meant I had to sit in the reception with my stuff until 9:00 AM, when somebody finally checked out.

I can't complain about the staff though, the girl working here was very kind, she let me hit the shower and served me a breakfast. She even mentioned she knows Slovenia and surprised me with her knowledge of my homeland; she knew our Dragon Bridge in the capital city, the famous 3 bridges and even about our most well known poet, France Preseren. I was positively surprised, because I met an Austrian guy once who didn't even know Slovenija existed, and we're neighbouring their southern border.

This is the street I'll be staying on for the next 12 days, you can notice the iconic tuk-tuk in the forefront of the pic:

After acquiring my bed, I went to sleep for 4 hours, and then it was time to take a casual walk in the vicinity of my hostel. Coming from rural area, I still feel completely lost and humble walking on the streets of metropolis like Bangkok. I took my camera with me and made a couple of pictures; the thing that fascinated me the most so far is the state of power cables around here, I can't imagine how the electricians can do any maintenance in this chaos:

Of course I had to do a couple of classic shots from overhead walkways:

And, last, but definitely not least, a couple of shots of details that caught my eye; the first one is this pic of a decaying building with a vine slowly creeping upon it:

And this shaving paraphernalia someone apparently uses in the street, just around the corner of where I'm staying (it's also the first time I've incorporated myself in an image):

I'm afraid that's it for today. I need to get the hang of moving around here, it's completely different to read about it on the internet than to actually go out and do it.

See you all tomorrow in the next report!

Update:

I went out in the evening to grab something to eat, and came back home with 3 photos, so I'll just include them in today's edition.

Firstly, the place where I went for dinner; they put up everything in the evening and the square is full of restaurants, bars, shopping stands where you can buy pretty much anything, and it's packed with tourists. The dinner was excellent, and from what I've heard they come there every night, so I guess I have a regular place to eat now:

After dinner I was walking to the hostel, when I spotted this man selling fruit on the street, so I took a quick snap and I like how the photo turned out:

Literally 100 metres before my hostel this guy came towards me on the street, and I managed to set my camera fast enough to get a pic of him. I present to you The Balloon Man:

That really is all for tonight, see you tomorrow!