Bustling Bangkok

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Hello Everyone! Be warned this is one long blog so grab a cup of tea (or beer)!!!

Well its been an eventfull couple of weeks here in Thailand so will try and squeeze it all in here with a load of pictures and maybe even a video (now that Ive worked out how to get them on here!)

Secondly hello to everyone who is receiving this for the first time, there were a fair few people we had forgetten to add at the beginning as this was intended as a noticeboard to keep the two mothers sane while we were away! So welcome on board and to catch up with everything weve posted so far go to www.travelblog.org/bloggers/deanandsarah

So we last blogged on our way to the airport in Sri Lanka, even though we uploaded it from this end thinking that all was well and we were off to Thailand! WRONG!

I had been feeling rough for a day or two and as we were finishing the blog I started to go down hill. A couple of hours later I was in bed with a temperature and by that evening I had a high fever and spent possibly the most unpleasant night of my life sweating, tossing and turning and hallucinating even at some points. Predictably I wasnt in any shape the next day to trudge accroos town to get a train to meet another train and then to a rickshaw! So seriously annoyed we had to get ANOTHER private hire taxi/minibus (cost us another 30/40 quid) but it was great as I just limped into it at our guest house and off we went. Also note any travellers do not take any medical advice from the art cafe owner near the sea wall, she reckoned I had cerebral malaria and was 2 hrs from death. Im living proof she is a nutter, nice lunchboxes though! Was quite amusing though as 'Nurse Sar' was looking after me the whole time and taking my temperature every 30 seconds! She did have to go on a few food runs too 😊

Our hotel at the airport turned out not to exist and the driver took us to another similarily named one which was hilariously expensive and then started to demand money out of sar (the look and speech he got made him wished he hadnt!!) So we crashed at a ropey guesthouse full of mosquitoes to save money, though it did have the most hilarious lime green & white marbled bathroom (thats tiles, walls, floor, suite and all!!!) Getting up at 4am isnt much fun when your well but when your ill its even worse especially when you have to go through a million security checks (due to the bomb that killed an MP the day before) complete with soldiers shining torches in your face! Cap it all the flight was delayed by a few hours too!

Flight was smooth though hard work and we arrived into Bangkok to what I reckon is one of the coolest airports around (though Ive heard Singapore is the daddy!). We got a taxi straight out to our hotel, which was our introduction to the fact that Bangkok is a live version of The Fast and the Furious film complete with sports exhausts, crazy high speed driving and continous under/overtaking!

We had booked a treat in Bangkok. The honeymoon suite at the Ramada (now called D'Ma pavillion apparently) for 30 quid a night on a special deal! The room was to be fair enormous and even had a two seater bath with nightime views of Bangkok's skyline from it! Awesome, not that I was up to a hot bath but Sar loved it. We got the doctor (amusingly named Dr Rat!!) out next morning as I was a bit of a mess and he said I had bronchitis and had got an infection/fever from there. Drugged me up to the max and gave me an injection in the derriere despite protests from me! Seemed to do the trick but it would take me nearly a week to get better!

After being holed up in the hotel for what seemed like an eternity we finally got out and about and moved accross the road to a much cheaper but still lovely and smart hotel.

Bangkok is such a weird place, we expected to hate it but it does have quite a charm to it as the traffic/pollution didnt bother us too much as it was like alpine air compared to Delhi! We must confess we did spend the majority of our time in or around the endless shopping malls. Im not a shopper and for a girl sar isnt really either but they were pretty damn amazing, made the bullring look shabby!

Basically youve got enough shops to keep you going forever and best of all mixed in with them are some pricey (compared to elsewhere) but amazing places to eat. Some were food courts and some were proper restaurants. I had some Indian food which was nearly (but not quite!) as good as we have had, easily the best Japaneese & Chinese food we have ever eaten and that before you even get to the Thai food!!! It's a gluttons paradise to be fair, the ice creams and cake were hilarious, if I had left Sar in there with Clare I would have come back to a couple of 20 stone sugar monsters! As for Stuart I think he may just have died of a sugar overdose!

In the two main malls we visited (Paragon and MBK) there was also a huge Ocean World which we both loved, it was pretty expensive to get in but worth it as neither of us have seen most of the stuff that they had on show there (and we are addicts to stuff like that!). They had fish the size of surfboards (no joke) sharks (huge sharks), penguins, turtles and endless tanks of weird tropical fish that the Sea World in brum can only dream of. They even had a huge frozen 3m giant squid in a block of ice, only in Thailand!

The other star attraction was the massive Paragon Cineplex Royal Cinema. What started out as something for me to do while I was recovering, turned into what can only be described as a rather sad obsession. We ended up going every day really, we saw Street Kings and Vantage Point in the super luxurious 'normal' cinema which was pretty much empty with reclining seats and state of the art screens and sound. Then we saw Sea Monsters and Beowulf in the IMAX 3d screen. Ive never been to one and nor has Sar so we didnt really know what to expect or even if it was any good but we were both seriosuly impressed! Its like a normal cinema but with a bigger curved screen and you wear silly glasses (pic) and it makes the picture come away from the screen, it really is quite impressive. Sea Monsters was a good demo of the screen but Beowolf scared the life out of Sar, many instances of me saying 'Put your goggles back on this cost us 6 quid!!) The highlight being when a (what would be 30 foot) rat ran towards the screen/our faces. Im still deaf in one ear! As well as having a cinema there was also a great bowling alley too where we went one afternoon/evening. We won a game each which was just aswell as it got pretty competitive (as it always does with us two!) and eventually it came down to the last throw and sar had to just knock down two or more pins and she missed after playing well and even getting two strikes in a row, shame! 😊 😊 One thing though that we did dread which was as bad as people imagine in the prostitution (spelling?). The lane next to us had some american guy playing with his thai 'friend' and constantly kissing etc and the whole time we were in Bangkok we constantly saw men parading around with hookers as though it was something they should be proud of. It was pretty upsetting especially when the guys were winding their girls up as they could do what they want (as they were paying) one guy sitting by us once was pulling his girls hair and laughing etc. Scum we say!!!

Also pre-warning for Sally. Sar was watching a jazz band play when we were in the food court and shes now adamant she is going to learn to play the saxaphone when we get back! Get some ear plugs ready!

The main thing that was going on the whole time though was the annual Buddhist festival of Songkran, which is effectively Thai new year. The festival these days aswell as being religious has turned into 'National Waterfight' where basically anyone and everyone soaks and talcs each other in the streets for three days. To be in Bangkok for it was great as it was utter chaos and we got soaked while out and about more than a few times. If I had been feeling better we would have gone out for some water fuell warfare, but maybe next time! See pictures of the running water fights in the streets. The most amusing incident though was a tourist couple walking along we got pounced on by some locals with water pistols and the guy ran away and the woman in her make up / glad rags and fancy hair just stood there with a right face on was hilarious. What do you expect!!!? Lighten up!

We also squeezed a day in doing some proper sight seeing of the Royal Palace and surrounding temples (called Wat's in Thailand). They were all seriosuly impressive but it was so ridiculously hot that we ended up cutting the day short as we would have ended up keeling over!

From Bangkok we got the train to Phitsanlouk. We had a ticket for an early train but through a wrongly set alarm clock and a taxi driver intent on taking us for a ride (literally) we ended up missing it and having to get a later train. The train was pretty comfy nothing special but air con with reclining seats and free airline type meals so we were happy. Took about 5 hours and was pretty much ontime. Phitsanulok was a funny little place, it was quite easy to navigate as it was a grid (not so when your drunk!) so we spent a fair bit of time soaking up our first real Thai town. We saw loads of random amusing stuff like the riverside mass outdoor aerobics classes, joggers in shell suits!, kids swimmingh in the river avoiding speedboats and generally wakyness. We had a nice meal on a floating restaurant which was enhanced by the hilarious Thai acoustic singer they had one. His version of hotel california had us in stitches "wewcome to dee howtel califonia etc"

We had stopped of there though in reality to do a day trip out to the Sukhothai Historical Park which was about an hour bus ride away, followed by a 15min pick up ride. It was again stupidly hot and we both struggled a bit but the ancient architecture made up for it as the whole place had a really nice feel to it and some of the structuresd were really well preserved. Because the site is quite so big (a few kilometers square) we hired a couple of old (ladies!) bikes to get around which was a great laugh, especially when your seat is so hot you cant sit on it! We got some suprisingly cheap food at the park considering it was a touristy kind of place and while we were eating sar noticed the girl sitting on the table next to us was in fact a he and not a she. She had spied our first thai lady-boy! Amused I was. We got back to the bus station on some weird turbo charged wheelbarrow thing (see video) which felt distinctly unsafe but was cheap and quick, never again though!

Before leaving Phitsanulok we got our first proper back street Thai feast with some crazy old guy and his wife cooking us up the best soup and noodle dishes weve eaten so far and we both stuffed ourselves for a total of 2 quid inc drinks!

We got the train again out of Phitsanulok to Chiang Mai, we got there early for the 1 o clock train at 12 (because of hotel checkout) and the train ended up being delayed by about 3 hrs. Let me tell you that was one seriosuly hot wait! Was in the high thirties and we both sat there absolutely sweating buckets as there wasnt even a hint of a breeze, who needs saunas!

Was a slow but pretty 7hrs journey up to Chiang Mai where we are now and where Im writing this ridiculously long blog! It will be over soon dont worry just one more place 😊

Chiang Mai is a very odd place but again like Bangkok has a charm about it that we both like. Its not as modern as I expected which is good and is littered with loads of cool cafes, bars and restaurants. But Chiang Mai is activity central more than sights and we have been doing what we can! So far we have been to the night safari which was great fun, its like a really snazzy Jurassic Park style zoo you go to at night (it was 32c at 10pm incidentally!!) and they take you around in an open sided bus/tram. Although a couple of the enclosures were a bit small most of the animals look pretty happy and we saw lots of animals again that we hadnt seen before. Capped off with a cheesy but entertaining laser/water show on the lake before bed!

We went to go climbing at the huge indoor wall they have here but unfortunately it burnt down a few months ago. In asia taxi drivers say everything apparently burnt down last week to get you to go elsewhere (further) but I think this one had by the look of the rubble!

On sunday the city comes alive though with the Sunday Walking Street Market which lines the main streets for absolutely miles (took us about 4hrs to walk it all fully) and is absolutely thronging with people so that you can barely walk through it. We ate about 5 mini meals on the move that night and got a few nice souvenirs for when we get home. But Chiang Mai has one other major claim to fame and that is cookery classes! We opted to go to an organic farm out of town for ours which was a great move as the people were super friendly and the place was really well equiped! We went on a market tour first where they taught you about rice and coconuts etc basics really and then took you out to the farm and showed you how to cook loads of dishes like green curry, spring rolls and pad thai (stir fry) while you cooked along with them on your own station. Carina and Russ would have liked it as it was a right laugh especially watching sar do phad thai in a big smoking hot wok at full blast!

Last night we went out to see some Thai kickboxing called muay thai which is another must see/do while you are here. The arena holding the fight was quite fun (very warm) and more touristy than we had expected but got pretty raucous once the crowd (including us) started to get more drunk towards midnight. The fights were impressive (read scary!) and the womens fight was particularily vicious! The main fight though at the end was a proper thriller with both guys going down and getting up rocky style (see videos) also for amusement see the video of the 4 way blindfolded kickboxing during the interval. We had ringside seats for 5 quid each and we knew there was a free cabaret after the fight which earlier on we had chuckled about thinking that it would just be some cheesy thai kareoke, WRONG!

The cabaret turned out to be some perverse thai transvestite 'show'. The first 'act' was a lady boy covered in feathers dancing around the room miming the coca-cabana song. With terrified looks on our faces, and people upping and leaving we said that if the next act was similar we would go... So when the next lady boy came out dressed in no more than fishnets, a thong and nipple tassle things and started gyrating on the floor we upped and made a very hasty exit! Took sar about an hour to come around from the shock! A mental image that will be with us for a LONG time!

So yes that concluded the mamoth Tai blog, we are leaving tomorrow for the more remote north of Thailand via Chiang Rai and Mae Sai on our way to the Lao border. We got caught up here for a day longer than we had hoped as we have got to get a few thousand dollars worth of travellers cheques to keep us going as the next cash point is not until Vietnam!! We are hoping to do some trekking in Thailand before we leave but the heat might put pay to that!

We will blog next from whenever we see a PC/internet in Laos, I dont think they will be all that common outside the capital.

Take care and miss you all,

All our love Dean & Sar.

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