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Published: February 9th 2007
G'day..
Still going good over here.. Got a few hours before I leave for India and starting to get a little worried about what is going to meet me over there but anyway.
I'll update to last day and this morning what I'v been up to. Yesterday morning I decided to head to the floating market which is about a 2 hour bus drive out of the city if you have arranged a your. Of course I didn't and what could have been a nice relaxing trip took me about 3 1/2 hours to get there using public transport.
First I hopped on a bus that a local told me to get on that would take me to the station that heads to the market.. Well the bus was very interesting and he was pushing fuses about his head (see photo) to indicate to the traffic etc Also he had a little spidderman head to use as a horn (also photo) wich he used all the time.
Traffic rules, there are no real rules. The traffic light have a count down time from about a minute and a half so if your within 3 sec to go hold on cause they
always go for it. It's like a challenge for them.
Well the bus trip to the floating market was pretty nice. Was expecting to see some more green along the way though just rubbish on the side of the road.
As for the floating market... Nothing special at all. To many tourists now so not really worth the effort of heading out there I don't think. Got on 1 of the boat thing that went flying around the little channels so the was alright. They said it was 1300 BAHT (50 Aus) I said bull s^#t and got it for 600 Baht in the end. Some of the locals could live of that for a month over here.
I'v gotten pretty hard on the for bidden down the price now. You have to though cause the first price is always way to much.
Got back to the city ok after another hour trying to work out what bus to get onto. I was the only tourist there that had not organized anything I think. Just hanging with the locals was good though. The round trip cost me only 10 Aus for buses, trains not including the boat ride though. Still
Bus Driver
Spiderman Horn, Fuses Indictators Above Headthink it was wat to much.
Anyway the motorbikes have got to be tried out for transport if anyone comes over here! I was on the other side of the city last night in peak hour traffic and no tuk tuk would take me to my hotel cause it was going to take 3 hours!! I thought bugger that and jumped of one of the many motorbike taxi dudes. Made it in 20 minutes after many near death experiences! But must admit the do know how to ride. In and out of the traffic doing 40-50K/H and got up to 90k/H once only because I was egging him on! But very quick and cheap transport and a little risky though.
This morning was spent at the Grand Palace and this place was huge.. Went the the first day but only had shorts on so wasn't allowed in, went back yesterday but was closed so was thinking this bloody be worth it and did not disappoint. The main attraction is the Emerald Budda. Couldn't take photos as was not allowed but I still tried to sneak one but didn't come out. The Budda was carved out of green jade way back
Floating Market
More Local Food in 1431 and like the Golden Budda in my last blog was covered in "paint" and only found out that it was Emerald some time latter. So someone would have struck it rich again!
So had a look around the palace and other cool looking statues, tagged along with a few tour groups to try and listen in so see what it all meant and then came here.
Final opinion on Bangkok... 3 nights is plenty of time to spend here maybe even 2. Train system and buses very easy to use. Tuk Tuks easy once you get hard onto them, never want to see another suit of gem shop ever! And the people are great.. Very friendly and will always help if ask for directions, even if they don't know where you want to go they will pretend to know..
So thats about it for Bangkok for me, only got ripped off 15 times (that I know off) and next stop Delhi..
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