30.01.2023 - From Koh Lanta back to Bangkok

After a short stopover in Phang Nga, Jacob and I continued to Koh Lanta, the last stop on our journey through southern Thailand. We stayed on the island for a total of 8 nights, which was the longest I had stayed in one place so far on my trip. And for the first time on my trip, I had some bad luck with the selected hostel. The arrival was less welcoming than we were used to from previous accommodations. Additionally, our four-bed room was not what we had imagined. When we discovered ants in the room the next morning, we quickly decided to change hostels, even though we had booked three more nights. In hindsight, it was the best decision we could have made. We moved from a hostel on a road to a bungalow with a direct beach location. And to make it even better, the owner of the resort turned out to be German, so we could find many German specialties on the menu. Now would be the point where I would tell you about all the great things we experienced on Koh Lanta. However, this time it's going to be very brief, as we actually spent six days just relaxing at the beach, with a few beach walks here and there. As a result, I didn't take many pictures. It was simply too beautiful, and we both needed some rest. And so day after day passed, until our time on Koh Lanta and our journey together came to an end. Since Jacob was flying back from Bangkok on January 30th and we wanted to spend one last evening together in Bangkok, we took the night bus on the 27th. It took a whole 16 hours until we arrived in Bangkok in the early morning of the 28th. Luckily, the ride wasn't as bad as we had feared. Both Jacob and I managed to get a few hours of sleep, so we arrived at the hostel somewhat refreshed - as refreshed as you can be after 16 hours on a bus. Since our beds were not ready yet, we went for breakfast first. During my first stay in Bangkok in November, I had discovered a German café that I wanted to visit again before leaving. So we decided to go there. After a nourishing breakfast of muesli and German bread, we returned to the hostel, where our beds were now ready, and we took a short power nap. However, we didn't have much time to relax, as our last shared activity was attending a football match - of course. You might think that the biggest challenge was getting tickets for the Bangkok United games, considering the metropolitan area has around 15 million inhabitants. But with an average attendance of 4,000 and a capacity of over 20,000, that was not a problem. The much bigger problem was actually getting to the Thammasat Stadium, the Home stadium of the club. The Thammasat Stadium is located about 50 kilometers outside the city and it takes about two hours to get there by public transport. Luckily, we had met two German backpackers on Koh Lanta who were also in Bangkok at the same time and wanted to go to the game. So we split the taxi fare and the round trip didn't end up being too expensive. Was the match worth it? From a quality perspective, definitely not. But as an experience, definitely. We had a really nice evening, which was only slightly dampened by the alcohol ban. After the game, we paid a visit to the famous Khao San Road, the party street in Bangkok, and enjoyed our last few hours together with cold beers.

The next morning, it was time to say goodbye to each other. Jacob went to a hostel directly at the airport for his last night, and I stayed one more night at our hostel to start my journey to my final stop in Thailand the next morning. But I'll tell you about that in the next post.