Day 30, according to Lauren. 

   

We decided to let ourselves have a lie in as yesterday had been so early and stressful with the phone saga. So needless to say we woke up a little late, to the sound of torrential rain on the corrugated iron roof. We were not keen on the idea of donning flash ponchos and temple touring in the rain so decided instead to head for another sky rise for a day time rooftop view of Bangkok. We caught up with the German boys who said they were going to the grand palace and told them our plans. We got ready and headed out to find Sarah a banana pancake from one of the street food vendors on our road.

  
After that we went back into matchbox to grab some water. Sarah dashed upstairs while I waited in the lobby. The Germans came down and looked bemused that we were still here after we’d said goodbye to them half an hour earlier upstairs. I explained why and the chattier one of the two then boldly invited himself along on our sky rise trip. I said they were more than welcome, so we did a few name introductions and waited for Sarah to come back down. When she returned she was slightly surprised to learn that we had become a group of 4, but happily introduced herself properly and we got going.

  

On the sky train journey we had some general chit chat and the Germans casually talked about the other day when they went to extend their 30 day Thai tourist visas like it was common knowledge. We nodded along and then privately exchanged eye widened glances as we realised that this was our day 30 and we had not done any such visa extension. We decided we’d check it out later, only half trusting that the German boys had done their research properly.

We got off the sky train and had to transfer to the BTS (airport rail link) for one stop to get to the Baiyoke Tower. We collected our token tickets and everyone got some bubble teas for the journey. John, the (initially) less chatty of the two engaged Sarah in some riveting political chat while she smiled and nodded and pretended to know what he was talking about. 

  
We got off the BTS and found our way to the Baiyoke Tower. We purchased our tickets and were told where we could go and that there was also a free fruit buffet afterwards. Interesting. We headed up to level 83 and took in the spectacular view, then posed for some hilarious photo ops.

  
  
   

  
We then continued up to level 84 through a space themed stairwell with spider man hanging down over us. This level was all outdoors and supposedly rotated for a 360 degree view, but there was construction going on so it was distinctly stationary. The view was still incredible though and we marvelled for a while while holding our skirts down. A couple of Marilyn Monroe moments thanks to the high winds. 

  

  

  
  
After taking all of the photos and feeling sufficiently windswept, we went back inside and thought we may as well check out this fruit buffet seeing as it was free and we hadn’t eaten lunch. I expected to see a few apples and oranges laid out but what greeted us was far from this. It was literally a buffet of all varieties of fruit prepared in every way you could think of – fresh, jellied, soaked in syrup, baked in cakes, sorbet, dried, and juiced.

  
  
  

 

And on top of all that, a chocolate fountain, coloured sticky rice, and fresh coconuts to drink from.

    

We were told that we could help ourselves to everything so we grabbed our plates and dug in. It was a great opportunity to sample some of the more exotic fruits that we wouldn’t find at home, including dragon fruit and star fruit. These were pretty tasteless; strange given how colourful and exotic they looked

   
 
Leon (the other German) then persuaded us to try some durian – a fruit that’s spikey on the outside with an incredibly pungent smell (kind of like rotting eggs…) when cut open. It is said to have amazing health benefits so we tried a little bit each but let Leon finish it off as it wasn’t particularly tasty.

  
We went back for several rounds and soon had very full bellies. We cheekily tried to get back up to the bar level which had been closed when we went up earlier as it was almost time for it to open now. The man checking the tickets was having none of it so we sheepishly called it a day upon realising we had outstayed our welcome.

Sarah and I had decided that tomorrow we would head to Koh Chang so thought we’d stop in at a travel agent on the way home to book our coach. The lady quoted us $1000 baht each and after some advice from the boys we decided to pass as we could get it cheaper at the bus station ourselves. We were all feeling in need of a post-fruit-binge lie down so we headed back to matchbox and agreed to meet up again later for dinner. 

We got home and decided that we should probably check out this supposed 30 day limit on our tourist visas. After some googling and checking of passport stamps, it soon dawned upon us that our visas did in fact expire today and we’d need to visit the Thai embassy and pay around £40 if we wanted to extend them. It was 7pm, definitely outside office hours. Uh oh. With some more research we established that we’d probably just have to pay £10 for overstaying by one day, but there was also some worrying talk of prison time penalties and being banned from Thailand for life. A little panicked, we realised we would have to leave the country tomorrow. This was the more economical option as we had only wanted 4 more days in Thailand anyway which was not really worth paying £40, and Sarah read some other backpackers’ experiences which said that they just fine you for overstaying when crossing the border. It was risky but we decided it was the best option. We set about trying to find the cheapest way of leaving the country so last minute. Flights to Cambodia were reasonable and flew out the next morning. We had planned to head to Cambodia after our next 4 days in Thailand anyway, so decided that we may as well just go straight there.

Flights booked, we were hungry and stressed so craved some comfort food. We went to the Italian on our road and shared a delicious carbonara, just what we needed.

  

It was now about 11pm so we figured we should probably pack up and get our heads down as we’d need to leave at 3.30am the next morning. We laid wide awake in bed, unable to sleep, having to repeatedly reassure each other, “we’ll be fine”.