It wasn't easy to leave Thailand, especially the south islands. This would be easily understood by people who went already there. I planned to stay 5 days only on Ko Lanta, and ended up staying 10 days instead. I guess I only made it to Khao Lak because I booked the diving trip, otherwise I might got stuck in the middle on Phiphi...
You're always meeting nice people in Thailand, and everyone is happy to be there. You can see this on every single face around you. The only ones who looks bad are the ones who crashed on their motorbike or scooter... they look bad!
When I look again at some pictures like those ones
I wish to go there again... I looked to go there again from New-Zealand, but it's too expensive.
But I have a story to tell you as well about how I left Bangkok. Apparently I wasn't the only one who didn't want me to leave Thailand.
On the morning I had my flight, I thought it would be intelligent to have a look again at the departure time of my flight to Auckland. The night before, I didn't sleep much, of course it was my last night in Bangkok, why would you want to sleep, hum? So when I checked my webpage with all my RWT itinerary I saw that my flight was scheduled on the 18th, with arriving date on the 19th.... But come on, am I so tired? It's the 19th today! And if I remember correctly, I should fly on the 19th... I checked twice my watch, the computer's date, and this scary webpage... That gave me a quick shot of adrenaline, I can tell you! I went into my room to check the initial itinerary I printed out and it was scheduled on the 19th... Good, I'm not getting brainless! It was too early to go and see a travel agent, they only open at 10am, so I had to wait... wait to know if my whole RWT ticket is lost or not. I had a pretty fast breakfast which stayed on my stomach for a while.
Yeah it's 10am!!! I rushed into the first travel agent I could find and explain the situation. He started to look online on Thai website, but I told him he had to call them since it was part of a RWT ticket. After a few eternal minutes with the guy speaking in thai on the phone, I got to know the very good news! I can fly the day after, on the 20th, and it's free of charge!!! No I'm not kidding! It's free... That's Asia, you can always "fix" your ticket even if it's saying on it what you can't change your dates. My flight on the 19th was canceled and they moved me on another flight earlier. Why would you leave Thailand earlier? I'm not in the situation of all those people who were stressed out because of the shutdown of the airport a few days earlier... I'm on big big big holidays :-)
And then... I ran out in the street and met up with some people for another "last day in Bangkok" ;-) but I was soooooo tired, I didn't last so long that night.