Our first few days in Bangkok

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We have arrived at day four of our Bangkok adventure. Bangkok is a city of contradictions. 5-star hotels next door to ruins. Porsches in shop windows while noisy tuk-tuks hurtle by. Elephants on busy highways; Go-go girls ducking out of work to pay homage to Buddha; Hot chips in red curry (we'll come back to that). The city is fast-paced, noisy, smelly and strangely alluring.

We stayed on Sukhumvit Rd at Suk 11 on our first night, a cute little fern encrusted gem. The next day we went up a few notches to stay at the Amari Atrium, courtesy of the very generous parentals. Massive beds, sauna, pool, gym and not a bad view (past all the pollution). Top dollar! Thanks Mum & Dad

We met up with the lovely ladies Amelia and Louisa on our second night and boy were we taken for a ride. We met the craziest tuk-tuk driver (a tuk-tuk is a motorbike thing that has a carriage on the back) who thought it was hilarious to do wheelies in the middle of busy intersections. The more we squealed the more monos we got, until the back of his tuk-tuk sounded like it scraped its bottom off. We were hardly little Thai girls riding in the back; we were ‘big buddhas’ as Louisa aptly described us!

We wound up at the Night Bazaar where we had dinner and drinkies and ended the night at Khao San Rd, the infamous backpacker cesspool.

Tuesday night. Patpong, or should I say Ping-Pong! Seemingly innocent markets surrounded by strip clubs with men out the front that throw a menu in your face as you pass. Upon closer inspection of the menu, we discovered that today’s modern Ping-Pong show is anything but. Some of the menu items included: Pussy does chop sticks, pussy writes letter, pussy does razor blades and pussy even does baby turtles (yes, it is what you think). Pop!

We skipped on that menu, but headed to the lady-boy lane for dinner. We altered a menu item to request shrimp (prawns) in place of chicken in our red curry, but what we got was quite a surprise. Chips in curry! In Thailand they don’t seem to understand ‘prawns’ and they pronounce ‘shrimp’ as ‘shimp’. I guess its only one more step to ‘chips’. We had a taste…and sent it back!

Wednesday morning we headed out with the girls to the Grand Palace and to visit the Emerald Buddha. The temples were brilliant and covered in gold or intricate mosaics. The wall of the grounds created a massive mural that told the story of the Monkey Prince.

After our visit to the temple we attempted to navigate ourselves to Khao San Rd to find lunch. Apparently it was a ten-minute walk. We took forty and many wrong turns. We wound up in quite a derelict area where the smell of urine burnt our lungs. There were people sleeping on the footpaths like stray dogs. One old woman who looked very frail was having some kind of seizure on the ground. She was frothing at the mouth and I’m sure she was not far from her death. We tried not to look. We walked straight passed. Had I more courage I would have given her some water and comforted her in her last moments.

Five minutes from there we were back on Khao San Rd and it might as well have been worlds away.

Bangkok: City of Contradictions

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Comments

[marissa]

hello
hey good to see you arrived safe. hope you're having an awesome time. glad i got to see u before you left. had an awesome time at the party. talk soon luv tommy

[William Moore]

I miss you guys!!!
Wow the photos look awesome!!! I wish I could be over there with you! Have a great time, Will

[mum]

All this brings back memories. Good to hear you met with Amelia. Luv to both

[mum]

All this brings back memories. Good to hear you met with Amelia. Luv to both

[anonymous]

C'est super de vous suivre, have a good time Bisous de France