Bangkok Baby

One of the guardians of the Grand Palace

Bangkok – Best Experienced at night

I could finish the blog there and let you decide why for yourselves but I’ll fill you in on our experiences in the city so far.

Well it’s one of those places that you keep coming back to. Not necessarily because you love it but it’s actually one of the hubs of transportation in Thailand which guarantees your return when you want to move on.  The Stereophonics album ‘You gotta go there to come back’ kinda sums up Bangkok.

As I said earlier, it is best experienced at night-time.  During the day it’s tough battling through the streets with Tuk Tuk drivers wanting to give you the best priced tour of the city and scammers at all the tourists spots bluffing that the places are actually closed and begging you to go see the ‘Lucky Buddha’.

Thanks to our trusty Lonely Planet guide though we were pretty wise to all these schemes and have actually gone on the total defensive and just ignore any Thai person trying to help… because ultimately you’ll get ripped off in one or another.

Our time in Bangkok was split between frustration at the public transport (getting lost in ghetto Thailand looking for the bus) on the first day. Pffft we thought that was it – coming from uber organised Hong Kong we thought we were gonna die being thrown into this major culture shock.

Looks like Bangkok Disneyland

We started to enjoy Bangkok more now as we realised you gotta take the heat and street sellers with a pinch of salt during the day and pretty much just walk by them hounding ya and that’s what we did.

Went to see A LOT of Buddhas while we were there – we’ve seen them all…gold ones…reclining ones… brown ones….wooden ones…the lot!

I’ve been quite intrigued about the whole Monk thing since being here. They get their own place on the boats to stand (a thai guy told me off for standing to close to him, women aren’t allowed in their personal space) and they get the last row on the buses reserved for them too. I think I might pick up a book on Buddhism to find out what it’s all about.

The first reaction was to get drunk on some Bangkok Buckets up at Khao San Road to forget our troubles and boyo did we forget them! Bangkok buckets are pretty lethal stuff – made up of whiskey/coke/redbull – they are enough to knock anyone’s socks off…and that they did!

How's my hair look?

Hopefully Gareth will be able to get the video of the tuk tuk journey home from Khao San Road on the blog – absolutely priceless entertainment with disco lights and 100mph speed ducking between lanes.  We only got into them we were pretty drunk!

Bought quite a bit in Bangkok in the end – handbags (3…..) and pictures from the stalls and a lamp thing. Need to get them posted because I can’t be lugging them around with me the whole time!

The Suk 11 hostel was a lovely place but out of the backpacker region and was quiet compared to Khao San (which is the party place!) We met the two Bens from Oz there – Ben 1 is doing some travelling with Ben 2 (who is only here for a few weeks). Ended up meeting them again and went up to Khao San with them where we bumped into Joanne and George – which turned into a pretty late one! Good laugh though!!

Ben 2 was sorely disappointed at the lack of blogging on the site, so if you’re reading this Ben – this one’s for you! haha

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