LIFE AFTER JAPAN Thailand and Cambodia Part 1

I equally apprehensive and excited about leaving Japan as I packed my things on the night before I left. I had organised for my friend to pick me up and take me to the airport. Unfortunately things got mixed up and he didn´t come. That was when I started stressing. I had to run with all of my luggage to Shin Imamiya station. I got to the platform with 3 minutes to spare! As I boarded the ´AirChina´ flight I was already missing the service of Japan. The service onboard AirChina is horrendous, plain and simple. I would say they were downright rude. I could tell the flight attendant didn´t want to be there. Beijing airport is depressing- modern, huge and empty.
The guy in the toilet directed me to the sink and then wanted a tip-I only had yen. The look on his face was heartbreaking, but what could I do? I had to wait there for 3 boring hours before proceeding to Bangkok. My brother met me at the airport. Talk about culture shock! Loud, noisy, dirty, smelly and poor, however the people were nice. The food was pretty good but my belly didn´t like it at all. The first day we went to the former royal palace but didn´t enter, instead we headed for a traditional massage at the training college. I thought I would feel better afterwards since it felt like absolute torture, her hands were like cold steel, but I felt the same, she had a great time though, whenever I cried out in pain she let out a little cackle.
The next day we went to the main shopping centre by taxi, they´re so cheap over there-you feel like a real rich boy. The other great thing about Thailand are the dogs just roaming around, no matter where you go there will be a loveable, friendly scruffy dog to pat.
Bangkok got a little boring and way too hectic, so we took a 3 hour bus and then a ferry to Ko Samet island. It was a bit of a letdown, I thought it would be nicer, it was a little dirty. There weren´t that many people there but there were heaps of bars. We did a little swimming and quite a lot of drinking-south east Asian beer is good.
I missed Japan a lot on Koh Samet.
On the last night we ate a beautiful barbeque. After those four days we left and got back to Bangkok, it was nice to be back in a proper hotel. The one on Samet was a little dodgy to say the least, certainly not the same one from the brochure.
Back in Bangkok we went to the craziest market I´ve ever seen, it left me dizzy. It was like a 40 degree maze with 100 shops and 50, 000 people. Interesting