bangkok pang pong ping

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The flights were pretty traumatic as we didn't sleep due to noisy airports, short flights with stops and lots of feeding going on and the suddenly being plopped into a different country after a long journey, no sleep and my what a city!
Bangkok is big and a serious culture shock after India. Everything is pretty clean, roads with pavements, taxis in every colour of the rainbow, air con buses, big elegant buildings everywhere, people who pretty much ignore you appart from to smile at you and even the rickshaw/tut tuts look like they've been on pimp my ride. I think this is going to be a big welcomed change of scenery!
We got a bus to the Khao san road, but got a shock as it was serious tourist central, basically rammed in every inch was a tourist, its weird and garish after being the only whiteys in sight for months.
Spent the first evening sleeping and trying to get to grips with the three different festival level speakers blasting out all your latest pop songs right under our window until 2 am. We were so tired though that we dropped off and slept right through.
Next day was a nice day, we went to china town, which was pretty cool. Saw a massive golden buddah, its between 5 and 7 tonnes of real gold all in one temple. China town market was rammed, tiny alley ways going between the houses with stalls selling everything you could imagen, including food stalls selling some strange and glorious snacks.
The next day we had a day appart for some head space, Russ went to a barge museum and I went on a super duper temple tour, we've got a new budget and so I went to all the free ones then walked around the fence of the ones you had to pay. The temples are so amazing, the detail and spangly sparkle is breath taking and the buddhist atmosphere is calming to the bone, I could sit there for hours just being at peace and I can't wait to see another 100 of them. The next day we both went to Dusit zoo, it was great fun. A whole section was dedicated to albino animals and you could pretty much put your arm through the lion and bear enclosure bars..good old safety regulations again and they had a brilliant seal show which had me and Russ in fits of giggles at the seals shinanigans!
Our new budget is 1000 Bart a day, that's about 22 quid between us and that includes accommadation, food and transport, its gonna be tough, our flights to new zealand are booked and until we get there to work this has to last, eeek!
The heat here is unbearable, its hot hot hot and muggy and the fan just doesn't quite cut it but then again we are in a big city so hopefully the coast will bring some respite.
We are getting a bus to Pattaya tomorrow, an old skin trade city (sex shops,shows and theatres) full of garish bars...We are actually going because there is a massive breading programme for 250 tigers that is near by but it will be interesting to see the darker side of thailand, just on the khao san road we've already spotted several lady boys and prostitutes very unsubtely lurking at the end of the night...so its gonna be fun ( maybe more so for Russ) love from Bangkok Lissy and Russ xxx

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