36 hours of travel adventure/misery starts now: we boarded the bus in Ko Phangnan and took a 4 hour ferry to Surat Thani on the mainland. We drove for a couple hours and then pulled into a stop where we were given 20 minutes to eat some dodgy Thai food for dinner. Then we got back on the bus and settled in for a loooooooong journey. Around midnight I finally passed out and woke up 7 hours later at a large bus station in Bangkok. We sat around at the bus station trying to figure out where in the city we were, and whether we should spend the day in Bangkok at the famout chateaushack market, or if we should go to the airport and either get our visas extended or fly out of the country. Eventually we decided to go to the airport and hopped in a cab. Once we arrived, with sugar coated fantasies of having one of those ultra cool from the movies experiences where you show up at the airport and score a wicked price for a ticket to the most amazing country ever, we quickly realized this would be the day from h e double hockey sticks (edited for my mom).
First we tried to extend our visas with Thai immigration. After walking the length if BKK twice being referred back and firth by different agencies we were told it was not possible to extend our visas and we must leave the country before they expired the next day or risk running into heavy fines/being arrested if we didn't. This is when we learned a valuable lesson in the supply and demand principle of economics. We needed to book a flight- the airport knew that we needed a flight- therefore the return flights we had found online the day before for 1200 baht ($40) were now being offered ONE WAY for 16,000 baht. No dice. Eventually we paid $10/hr to find and book two return flights to Singapore for 10,000 baht. Still a rip off, but it was the best we could do.... The only catch was in order to book online we had to get a flight leaving at 7pm which meant 7 more painful hours waiting in BKK. Ugh. To compound this aggrivation we were not allowed to check in, store our bags, or enter the main part if the airport with all the shopping and restaurants until 3 hours before our flight. Boourns. Anyhoooo, somehow we made it through the day without killling eachother, or any airport authorities, and we finally arrived in Singapore around 9pm.
We booked a hotel online in Singapore and took the MRT subway to get most if the way there before catching a cab for the last few blocks. We FINALLY made it to our hotel room, flopped on the bed, and exhaled after the longest day ever.
We slept for 6 hours and then got up to start our Tour de Singapore race against time. We started the day back at the MRT where we snagged some baked goods for breaky before heading to bustling china town. We poked around in some alleys and ate Singapore McDonalds for lunch, then got back on the MRT and a bus to the Singapore zoo. The zoo was amazing!!! It has an open concept so you feel like you're getting up close and personal with all the animals (except the ones you don't want to be too friendly with like cheetas and stuff) and they do feedings you can watch too. We saw the orangutangs being fed right in front of us-touchable close- and we also watched them feed the polar bears. The polar bear feeding was incredible. The bears are massive but super graceful underwater. They also threw a live fish in the tank an let the bear hunt it down. It was pretty cool. We also saw zebras, gireafes, hippos, monkeys, kamoto dragons, lions, and snakes.
After the zoo we high tailed it back down to southern Singapore to hint Sentosa island- a hybrid Disney/Vegas theme park island with hotels, resorts, and park attractions. The island is only 2/3 developed and will be completed in 2010 but the show "songs of the sea" was recommended so we went to that. It was cool, in it's own way, but also awkwardly "Asian" (sailor moon, hello kitty, kinda cheesy and tacky). It was basically a laser and water show with some weird Asian lip synching mixed in. We left not being sure if we were laughing with it, or at it. But in any case the special effects were neat to see.
The next day we caught about 4 hours sleep before catching our flight back to Bangkok. It was a long crazy journey but we really enjoyed Singapore and were granted 30 day visas upon entry to thailand. Mission accomplished. :-)
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