So if you’ve been following my blog or watching my videos recently, you’d have heard that I had a lot of apprehensions before leaving for SE Asia for the first time. The main one being I HATE needles, and hadn’t had one literally since childhood, which for some reason made me feel like getting 3-4 in a series would be the worst experience ever. I waited until a week before my flight to finally buy some numbing cream (!!) and head to Walgreens while perusing pics of tropical beaches on my iPhone while I waited to avoid a panic attack.
# 1 - I know all of this is so EXTRA, but I wanted to reassure anyone who has irrational fears such as these that 1) the experience is less than 5 minutes total and 2) the pain is about a 1/10th less than having your teeth cleaned! I’d also suggest trying to get those shots on insurance if you can, since one Hep A shot in the US is at least $90+ (I think for me it was something like $113!) Get them as soon as you’re planning to travel so you ideally have at least a month for them to kick in. Fingers crossed, I feel fine so far but being a germaphobe, I’m constantly wondering if all of my food is fully cooked and vaguely thinking that every bottle of “drinking water” is actually “Typhoid water.” Save yourself the worry and get your shit handled in advance so you can chill ;)
# 2 - My second piece of advice is to AVOID “tourist centers” when you get to Bangkok. As soon as I got into the city center, every random person I came across insisted that I visited one of these tourist centers to buy train travel for the prices that Thai students pay. This was a HUGE mistake on my part to listen at all and I got majorly conned - I got the worst room I've ever seen that I couldn't even sleep in and had to book another hotel. After traveling a full 24+ hours, the last thing I wanted to do was stay put indoors in a dimly lit room looking at pamphlets about trains, but I was finally pressured by my tuk tuk driver to stop in one and ended up booking a train/ferry to Ko Samui and a few nights in a bungalow. While this ended up costing around the reasonable-sounding $200 USD, I later found out that the train south is a mere $20 USD, and you can easily find rooms with A/C within walking distance on the beach on AirBNB for around $20-$30 a night. (I probably overpaid by about $100.) Keep in mind I’m here during high season so it’s probably a lot less if you come after March and before November!
# 3 - Also, everything you read about the heat and mosquitoes is true - bring yourself a giant bottle of DEET spray and hose yourself down before leaving any room with A/C! There are mosquitoes *everywhere* and dengue fever sounds GNARLY. You can always try the all natural essential oil blends as well, and while I’m confident these work since I used EOs in the rainforests of Hawaii to much success, I didn’t plan in advance to buy some so I had to stick with the drugstore brands (even though I brought a bottle of Citronella for my face - smells gross but I’d recommend it since it’s much gentler than the harsher chemicals.)
#4 - Make some time for Bangkok! I only spent 4 days there and one of them was spent in a hard hostel bed, and I wish I’d planned my days a little in advance so I could’ve hit up the Unicorn Cafe and the MOCA, as well as the weekend market Chatuchak. Fortunately, I’ll be here for a while so I can swoop back up on my way to Cambodia. I spent 90% of my time near Khao San road, an area so easy to walk around that I had little reason to leave, and it was all too easy to hang out drinking beers and margaritas with other tourists and expats all day. Which brings me to my last piece of advice….
#5 - Check out the Mad Monkey hostel near Khao San! I didn’t have a concrete plan of where I was staying when I arrived tbh, but I was very pleasantly surprised by the vibes and heavily air conditioned rooms when I got there :D I’ve stayed in a gazillion hostels in my young life, but the happy energy of this one stood out as one of the best (I’d say only tied by the USA Hostel in OB in sunny San Diego!) The beds aren’t very comfy though, so it might be worth booking a room nearby in a hotel if you can if you’d like to get a really restful night’s sleep on your first night in Bangkok to catch up on quality Z’s. You can always head to Mad Monkey for a drink at their excellent bar or to get some really fresh, high quality food (I loved the veggie pad Thai and the margaritas were on pooooiiiint!)
I hope this helps for all the last minute gypsy vagrant travelers out there who might happen to read this before heading to BKK - feel free to comment with questions if you have any!
:-* <3
Milano