On-board diary 1. 26/27 January

Never take a bus to Istanbul if you are like me. Without any sleep after the opening party of the new official party flat, eat a meat börek of those I love as much as they fuck up my stomach, doing the backpack and incredibly freezing on my way till the university's door, it seemed a worderful idea to me to smoke the spliff I had ready as a goodbye. It wasn't. In that situation, fall asleep in the enviroment of a five-hour bus driven by an average turkish citizen is fatal. And as a result, thanks to a broken plastic bag, I had to wear shorts all the way, wich in Bangkok was perfect, but Bankok arrived almost 36 hours before leaving Eskisehir.

We arrived a completely snowed Istanbul at about 1 pm, Martín left to meet with Gokhan and Robert and me to Atatürk Airport. 4 fucking hours in there, with the need of having to pass a security ring each time I wanted to comeback from smoking a cigarrete totally fed up of doing nothing. I tried to dry my clothes, they didn't, Later we met Aga & Justyna and we went to the Burger King just before entering the plane completely afraid of the plane we were about to see. And we totally forgot it when we enterered. A normal plane, a Boeing, not that fearsome russian Tuvolev I was expecting, with a normal crew, plane meals, everything you expect when you pay 600 € for a ticket, but not when that ticket is handwritten and has about 8 pages. Or when you take a look at their website. A perfectly normal flight to Ashgabat. Since Guernsey, I never went down a plain by stairs till 27th dawn. On the international airport of a gas-rich country capital, I did it again. It was so cold back there, in the most sovietic, small and unconfortable airport I've ever seen, and we had to wait there for our plane to paradise for about 4 hours. I drinked a tea because a beer was 5 US$, begun to read Acid House, played tuttifrutti and made a lot of trips to the bathroom corridor. I met just when i got down the plane the only turkmen I already knew, my classmate, he was going back home and he welcomed me to his country. Nice, but it didn'd make it better.

Finally, our departure hour arrived and we could leave to Bangkok. A six hours flight , but it wasn't so bad, just long. Our arrival was so good. Without the need of a visa, just a small queue to get the stamp with a lady screaming "oteneeeeee", wich turned out to mean "hotel name". Our first introduction to Thai english, wich is always like that.

-handson maaaa
-biutufuuuuuu
-eloooooo

So nice. Back there was so fucking hot. Really jungle sticky hot. Murat and Candaş were waiting for us in the departure gate. So good move: leaving the airports by the departure's gate is cheaper as the taxis cannot stop there. Murat gave me my first 1000 bath and negotiated with the driven the cost of the trip to Khao San Road, mecca of backpackers, incredible. We slept on New Siam Guesthouse, one minute from Khao San Road, full of people from all the world and with a really good padthai for less than one euro. After leaving our stuff and eating, straight to the party. Buckets of all sort of things and Chang wich linked to the later events of the night lead me to the first Changover in Thailand. Nice place to go out on party.

My battery is finishing and I didn't took the charger, so this are the last lines of these days. Maybe I'll will explain another time the end of the night. But as the first impression, Thailand is so fucking awesome. Wich is true after 14 days here.