Back in Bangkok

On Saturday we took a van to the Phuket airport which was an hour long drive. The driver had Wi-Fi in the van though! So the ride went by quick! Oh and it finally rained to break up some of this humidity. We got to the Phuket airport for our last domestic flight and I finally, after 4 other flights of waiting in line for forever, used the self serve check in kiosk and we were outta there in a flash! I should have done this the whole time! We grabbed some lunch and waited at our gate to board. I used the Wi-Fi here to download the new episodes of Riverdale and Stranger Things to watch on the long flights home on Monday and I also checked in to those flights. We are dreading the long flights home. Especially going to snow in Manitoba. Mom and Brooke are going to have to bring us warm clothes to wear! No more tank tops, shorts and flip flops.

Our flight to Bangkok wasn’t bad. About an hour and a half long. 2 episodes of Riverdale long. We got our bags and successfully completed all Air Asia flights with no lost luggage!! I connected to Wi-Fi and had an email from 12go saying they refunded me money for our ferry ride yesterday so that is great!! Then we caught an uber to our last hotel. The end is near.

New hotel is okayyy… a little bit sketch but we will deal with it. We searched Trip Advisor for a buffet as per Dad’s request for tonight. I found a big one with good reviews. We were not disappointed. It was very expensive but very delicious.

Delicious! Sorry you’re probably hungry now. The seafood was great. Definitely not in the budget but I think it’s the only expensive meal we have had all trip. Yeah….But then we got the bill and it was actually more expensive because it was the weekend plus they added service fees to it. So we actually ended up spending almost $70 CAD each and we don’t think it was worth that much. We probably would have been okay with $40. Good thing they took credit card because we are running out of baht! Only one day left so no point getting more.

We got back to the hotel and it’s just really sketchy. The shower has no shower curtain, I killed a bug in the bathroom and the ceiling is falling apart. So we are booking a better room for tomorrow. We paid barely anything for this one so I think it will be worth it to switch tomorrow. We can go closer to the airport for our flight Monday morning anyway.

We’ve stayed in nicer places for cheaper. We had a horrible sleep because the air conditioner wouldn’t stay on and we had to keep turning it back on throughout the night. We finally dragged our sleepy selves out of bed, got ready and packed up and headed to the Chatuchak Weekend Market. So this market is ginormous and I had no idea what the layout was, I should have looked it up before we went…. but sleep. So the market is huge and we started walking through and easily got lost in the maze. There are thousands and thousands of stalls.

We found a few little souvenirs and decided instead of eating here we would eat at our next stop. We requested an Uber and waited awhile and it finally came. The guy brought us to the wrong place and argued with us for a long long time and we kept saying “76 Lat Phrao Road” over and over. We knew where we were going, the guy just had to drive straight down the street. Eventually we had to use dad’s phone to Google map it to show the driver. He complained the whole way until we told him we would give him more money. Then he was happy. We don’t know what happened with the uber app but it sent him to 8 Lat Phrao Road instead of 76. (It sounds close but it’s actually 7 km down the street). So eventually we got where we needed to go. It was almost 1 which is when we had to meet someone so I saw a Starbucks back down the road. We walked there for something to eat but it was brand new, still being built. Oh well. We were gonna be late so no lunch for us. We finally arrived at our destination… Dazzling Tattoo! Yes people. We have secretly been planning to get tattoos since back in August or September. Dad’s friend Pete from back home has a sleeve done by this guy Put and we already came for a consultation and to check out the shop back when we were in Bangkok at the beginning of our trip. We didn’t tell anyone because we wanted it to be a surprise. Dad ended up telling mom though because she was suspecting it and he can’t keep anything from her because they’re so close. She wasn’t very happy. BUT It’s all about the father daughter bonding experience and this is the perfect way to end our awesome trip! Haters gonna hate 😄

We got there and the shop was closed. Nobody around and we thought maybe Put forgot about us. We waited 20 minutes and ended up calling an uber to go back to the hotel. We were really disappointed. Then right before the uber came… The door opened!! All right. Let’s get inked!

So we originally were going to get two different tattoos by two different artists. We are getting elephants to represent the trip (a big one and a little one to represent us). I was just planning on doing a small one to add to my others on my right forearm and dad was planning on getting a big more complicated one on his forearm. But after he saw mine he liked it so much that he decided to get the same one by the same artist (Nut). I guess I have good taste! So I went first and it was the least painful tattoo I’ve ever had. I almost fell asleep during it. It turned out so much better than I thought and I absolutely love it. The artist, Nut, hand sketched it based on a photo and he did such a good job. If you look him up on Instagram to see his work it is inksmith_bkk. And Put, the owner of the shop, who is super talented and has a tattoo academy upstairs where he teaches students art and how to tattoo, can be found on Instagram at dazzlingtattoo.

Nut was great and was a complete perfectionist. He worked so hard on the shading and was constantly looking at the real life picture on the iPad to make sure it looked as real as possible. We are so happy with the way they turned out. I can’t stop staring at it. Here’s the big reveal!

Aren’t they beautiful!!! They were the cheapest tattoos we both have ever gotten, too. We paid and thanked the guys and grabbed a ride to our sketchy hotel. When we got in the room I saw a cockroach run across the wall. Thank Christ we are switching. We grabbed our stuff and immediately checked out and drove about 45 minutes to the new hotel by the huge airport. I’m glad we did the drive tonight and not in the morning so that we aren’t as rushed and can be less stressed. We are also so hungry because all we ate today was a chocolate bar and some Pringles that I ran to 7/11 for in between the tattoos. We checked in and went straight the the restaurant next door. We had a good big meal, went back and packed up our bags and went to bed.

Tomorrow is the big flight(s) home to the snow! Bittersweet feelings about going home but I definitely think we are ready. Dad sure is, he misses mom something awful. I could probably stay here another month but reality is calling back at home.

Thanks for reading!

Xoxo Hales