We are in Bangkok now. It was Monika's birthday yesterday. It wasn't much of a birthday.

Between being wiped out by scuba diving and traveling between places, I haven't had the time or the energy to post to this web log. Here's a brief update (I'll back fill it later):

We finally made it to Ao Nang, on Tuesday, on the east coast of the Gulf of Thailand. We stayed there 1 night, just enough to grab dinner and some sleep and then we jumped a 9am ferry to Ko Phi Phi. We should have headed to Phi Phi (pronounced Pee Pee) directly. This limestone island, shaped like a giant letter "H", juts out of the ocean. It's greenery encrusted cliffs are connected by a little strip of sand, which equates to the crossbar on the "H". We dove, and snorkeled, and swam for what was too short a time. We stayed at this excellent hotel called the Phi Phi Princess. It was a pricey: 5400B for the beachfront bungalow, and 3300B for the bungalow 1 row back from the beach without a view, but it was worth it. The hotel has a very nice, blue tiled pool. You can hang over 1 wall and watch the waves and take in the limestone cliffs that embarce the northern bay. It has a good beach with chairs for rent for 40B/day. About 100m offshore from the hotel, the coral starts. It's pretty nice have a little snorkeling area, just outside your doorstep.

On Saturday, we hoped a ferry from Phi Phi to Phuket, too a mini-bus to the Phuket airport and hopped a Thai Airways flight to Bangkok.

After picking up our bag at the Maruay Hotel, where we left it before departing Bangkok the first time, we made it to our hotel, The Siam Orchid Hotel. It's listed as a "well appointed, mid-range" hotel in the Lonely Planet. Let's just say we don't like the mid-range in the Lonely Planet, and leave it at that. At least it's only for 1 night.

The taxi driver from the airport to the hotels didn't have a meter. When we got to Siam Orchid, I asked him how much. He said, "350B". I knew that the meter to Maruay from the airport was 83B, and we had traveled at least that distance again. So I said OK. He was really nice about it and I'm sure he would have accepted less. I have a habit of overpaying at first. Until I get a sense of the value of the money in the place that I am. I think 200 or 250B would have been fair. Still this is much cheaper than the 600B the "airport taxi" service, not the public taxi service charges.

As I mentioned yesterday was Monika's birthday. Traveling on your birthday isn't much fun. It took us 8 hours to get from the dock in Phi Phi to the hotel in Bangkok. We weren't able to get out to get anything to eat until 10:30pm. Depressed by our poor accommodations, hungry, and tired, we went out in search of food. Not an easy thing right around our hotel, at least not at that hour. There was a huge music festival across the street, and under better circumstances it might have been fun, but we were too tired and hungry to enjoy. After walking around the block we ended up at a decent Italian restaurant, in the Le Meridian President Hotel. There was a female singer and a band on the balcony above us that sounded pretty good. The band was set such that we couldn't see them. Under the guise of going to the bathroom, I requested that they sing "Happy Birthday". 5 minutes later after I got back to the table they started playing. Monika heard the song, but didn't hear the introduction addressed to "Miss Monika". "A song for me!" she remarked, not realizing it actually was for her. "I had them play it for you," I replied. It took a couple of seconds to convince her. It wasn't much, but it was the best I could manage.

We are eating a breakfast of cold, runny fried eggs right now. We've only got a couple of hours until we need to catch a bus to Phimai. Expecting to arrive in Phimai around 6, I think we will try to catch a 1 pm or 2 pm bus. We've got 3 large (right at the edge of acceptable for airlines) suitcases, right now. 1 bag in completely full of gifts for the people in India. When we went to Phuket, we left the bag at the Maruay Hotel. We don't have the same confidence in the place we are at now, so we think we will leave it at the bus station. While we know that the airports have a "left bags" desk where you can leave baggage got 40B/day, we are not sure about the bus terminal.

With all the flights to Krabi booked we decided to fly to Phuket instead. Since Krabi is only a 4 hour drive from Phuket that left our options open. The oneway ticket from Bangkok to Phuket was about 2600B. Thai Air was booked until 4pm, but Bangkok Airways had a flight at 2:40pm so we took that. So we arrived in Phuket with absolutely no idea what we wanted to do next. We came up with 8 different itineraries. We could gop to Phuket, Phi Phi, Krabi, or some combination of 2 of the three. The problem we are having is that we have so little free time in Thailand, that we are really worried about missing something. Of course it doens't matter what we do we are going to miss something. After much deliberation (I think this plan was gestating back in Bangkok) we decided on the Krabi
Phi Phi itineratry.
We rented a car from Budget (1/2 the price of the Avis desk that was in the airport). Since it was daylight (4pm) decided to drive down to Patong and checked it out. More on Patong later. We ended up staying at a place in Kata Beach. Ok. We are getting antsy to get on the road. I think we are going to stroll around Patong for about 1 hour and then we are going to head to Krabi by way of Phang Nga. We should be in Krabi by dinner. The plan now is to grab a morning ferry to Phi Phi.

We made it to Bangkok and arrived at our hotel, The Maruay Garden Hotel, without a hassle (none was expected) . The Maruay is within 20 minutes of the Airport without traffice. Metered Taxis are the way to go. When you actually leave the secured area to the Airport to go find a taxi there are well dressed taxi agents trying to sell you transportation. 650B to downtown and they quoted us 500B to get to our hotel. There is also an "Airport Taxi" desk near the exit. Stay away from these people and the desk . They are charging 3-5 times as much as a metered taxi. Bypass the desk and follow the signs for "Public Taxi". These are the metered taxis. There is a little desk near the crub with a railing that helps form a queue. They were all very nice. The metered taxi from the airport to the hotel was 83B + 50B (airport surcharge). Big difference from the 500B the other people were trying to charge.
We are at an internet cafe right now, looking for a hotel in Krabi. There are a couple of airlines, Thai Air and PBAir that fly to Krabi. I also heard the Air Andaman flies there, but I didn't see anything on their website. Thai Air has online availability. PBAir doesn't. It looks like Thai Air is booked right now, but we might call or go to the airport anyway.

Internet Cafe: The hotel was asking 200B for the first 20min and then 5B every minute thereafter! A little internet cafe within 100ft of the front door of the hotel was only asking 20B/hour.

There was a convienient 7-11 right around the corner from the hotel. We were able to buy a phone card there. Unfortunately, there were 8 phones right outside the store. More later. We are going to try and get to Krabi.