finally leaving Bangkok

I'll be hopping on a bus tomorrow morning to finally get out of Bangkok, heading south probably to the coastal town of Hua Hin, or else one slightly farther south called Prachuap Khiri Khan. I could probably catch a bus direct to Ranong, the jumping off point for the island of Ko Chang, but I'd rather break up the journey along the way. I've been in Bangkok I think 11 days now, which definitely wasn't the original plan. But for the most part I've been enjoying it, and I decided to stick around a little longer to meet up with some people who also were flying in. So a couple of days ago I met up with a 24-year-old American girl, who had contacted me because we were both on the email list for that orphanage (although really just a guy who had adopted a dozen or so kids) that I visited just for a night when I was wrapping up my tour of northern Thailand (that's where we went on a long bike ride with the Burmese kids and another American, in which we took a swim in the river that separates Thailand from Burma, a.k.a. Myanmar).

So, Erin had somehow figured out that I would be back in Thailand around the same time that she was flying here to go visit the orphanage for several weeks. We managed to meet up here in the same area of Bangkok, and hung out the past couple of days, seeing some of the sights around Bangkok. I also knew two Irish girls that I'd met in Nepal who flew in around the same time, and although I bumped into them a couple of times we didn't manage to coordinate doing anything. But everyone is taking off tomorrow, headed in different directions, so I figured that was a good time to finally get out of here as well.

I also ran into yet another person from previous travels, Dean from England, who was one of the guys I met on the Andaman Islands and ended up playing a heck of a lot of chess with, while waiting for our meals at the guest house there that always took forever. That was yet another crazy coincidence, since this is his first trip away from England since he'd been in India two years ago. But on the other hand this area of Bangkok is where all the backpacker travelers end up hanging out, so if you're here at the same time then there's a pretty good chance you'll run into each other walking down one of the streets, which has happened close to half a dozen times now in the time that I've been here.

So, I think I've clarified it before but just to make sure: there are two Ko Chang's in Thailand. The larger and more popular Ko Chang is near Cambodia, in the same group of islands that I visited when I was in Thailand before. I'm not headed to that one though, I'm headed to the Ko Chang that is due south of Bangkok, then west a little over to the Andaman Sea, right near Myanmar. Also it's right next to the island of Ko Phayam, which is the other island I plan to visit. Considering my limited time at this point I probably won't get the chance to see much else, but if I got bored quick enough on those beaches, then I might head further south down to the Krabi area, which is supposed to have some of the most beautiful beaches in Thailand, although it's a bit more expensive as well. I'm not sure how often I'll get around to getting online the next couple of weeks, since internet access is generally expensive on the islands as well as slow. I'll try and check email at least once along the way, but it's possible I might not get around to it until I get back up here to Bangkok, which would be right around two weeks. Then I'll be flying out of Bangkok early morning on April 24th (assuming that China Airlines isn't the next airlines to go bankrupt!...).

PS. I decided to hold off on reserving my flight from Hawaii back to the mainland, as I can't make up my mind quite yet as to where I want to fly into, so I'll just have to make up my mind on that later and hope I'm still able to find something fairly affordable. Otherwise there is always the possibility of using the standby service to get back to California from Hawaii, which I've used once before.