Thailand: Islands - February 2009
Dear English-speaking readers, this page is an automatic translation of an article originally written in French. I apologise for any strange sentences and funny mistakes that may have resulted. If you read French, click on the French flag below to access the original, correct text:
Français
Here I am in Bangkok, in the tourist district, for a short night. I'm starting again this Friday for Phuket. focus on Koh Yao Noi, my first stop, in Phang Na Bay.
Airports: from Charles de Gaulle to Dubai
Undisputed travel on Emirates, via Dubai. Brand new airport, full of shops and services. As usual, our airport in Paris is struggling to support the comparison.
In Dubai, wifi is free and free. Unlike Charles-de-Gaulle. There's wifi, yes ... But the rates are prohibitive: it starts at 6 € per half hour. No comment.
But this night take-off allowed me to admire the lights of Paris.
Service and comfort top on Emirates. The first plane is not so full. Almost all eco-class passengers were able to lie on vacant seats and sleep a bit.
To report anyway, an interesting novelty, at the TGV station of Charles-de-Gaulle airport: there is now a large luminous table with all flights departing, which indicates the corresponding terminal to know where to go. It was time for the signage to improve a bit ...
Bangkok: return to Kao San Road
Tonight I'm in the tourist district in Bangkok, I'm staying in New Siam I, in the street that extends Kao San Road.
The area is not authentic at all, but it is convenient when you only have one night to go. There is everything on site: bars and restaurants, guesthouses, mini market 7/11 for shopping menus, internet connections.
I still find with pleasure this funny atmosphere, between the vendors of everything in the street, the small restaurants at night with their tiny plastic chairs, the farangs (strangers) who hang the tong on the asphalt. The smiles here are mostly commercial, but who cares?
And then it amuses me to notice again these little details which tomorrow, already, will not draw me the eye any more:
- The lanterns and garlands everywhere in the restaurants, which give the impression that it is Christmas whenever the night falls;
- the loud tuk-tuk that sneaks all over the narrow "ones" (alleys);
- carriages of itinerant soup vendors which whet the appetite;
- rolls of PQ in their small plastic boxes that serve as napkins on restaurant tables;
- the inevitable beggar-singer-blind with his creaky sono;
- the first mosquito trying to eat my calf;
Motorcycles overloaded with bundles of vegetables overflowing everywhere;
- the taxi-meter pink-purple and green-yellow, which are on the watch for the client;
- the sweet taste of yellow mangoes;
- the backpackers improvident who parade with their big bags and find "full" signs everywhere;
- small altars with their offerings in every trade ...
My taxi driver dropped me in front of the guesthouse despite the narrow street.
He spoke poor English and just managed to ask me "Where do you come from?" I almost answered "perancis" since the Indonesian comes to me more easily, and quickly rectified in "farangset".
It pleased him, Mr.Tongsat, my driver. "Farangset is good!" he told me, thumbs up. I agree.
???? ????
Hidden somewhere in the roof above the terrace of my guesthouse, a gecko cheerfully sputters. I like the chuckling of the gecko, the evening at the time of the cool Singha ...
This is a sign that I came back to latitudes that I like.
😎
