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Published: March 2nd 2010
The Bangkok Skyline
The skyline with wind induced hair included...Hello Everyone or should I say Sawat Dii,
Many things have happened since my last post...
I believe where I last left off was Hampi and Hyderabad? I'm not sure but my last week in India was actually relatively uneventful. I went to the coastal down of Puri expecting to find a nice beach but instead found an open air toilet and in Kolkata I was just doing boring things like posting home a parcel (and you don't want to hear about that!). I did however spend a night and a day at Asia's largest lagoon where I saw the rare Irawaddy dolphin and spent some quiet time away from the hustle and bustle of Puri.
So instead of going into detail about this i'm going to jump right into Thailand!
Ok, my flight from Kolkata left at 8:30 in the morning meaning I had to be at the airport at the ungodly time of 5:00am.
Aside from some dodgy plain food the flight was uneventful and I touched down in Bangkok at about 12:30 local time.
Following disembarkment from the plane the first thing I really noticed was how clean everything was. After spending
Big Buddha
With feet included... 4 months in India a country which is full of grime and which one of my fellow travelers describes as a beautiful shithole Bangkok was a welcome change. The ease of travel needs to be noted as well I managed to get a lovely air conditioned coach direct from the airport to the infamous Khao San road... this was all a massive reverse culture shock for me.
Khao San road is the famous backpacker haunt of Thailand, you either love it or you hate it...
The best way I can describe it is like a festival;with all the t shirt stalls and open air food stalls combined with the heavenly aroma of lovely beer if it wasn't for the fact there isn't any live music you wouldn't be out of place in any festival.
Most of you know I am a huge Aston Villa fan and it was the league cup final that evening; some of you also know that I am partial to the odd alcoholic beverage. As you can imagine these factors coupled with the fact I hadn't really drank much at all in India equaled a big headache for Jack the next day.
Not Actually Bangkok but chilika Lake in India
I just thought I would show the turtle graveyard I found... But aside form the dyer result and the blatant bias refereeing myself two other Englishman (one was a Villa fan) and a Slovenian bloke were able to enjoy the footy and the beer.
Summoning my self from the pit the following day was hard but with strong coffee and some nice thick toast I was able to muster up some sight seeing. I decided to head to the temple of Wat Pho, there lies a 45m long and bloody tall statue of the lying buddha which was an amazing site to behold. The temple was an extremely serene place and most unlike the noisy temples of India (which I also love as well).
In the evening there was a congregation of fellow travelers sitting on the table out the front of my guesthouse... needless to say I didn't know what I was letting myself in for when I decided to sit with them. It turns out I had joined a table with two of the most tourist, traveler, lonely planet hating grumpy old men I have ever met. When one of the guys (who turned to be a Welsh professor of English) asked me to explain my SE asia route things did not turn out well. Once my route had been explained he continued to lambaste my route as being on the tourist trail and if I were a real traveler I would only go to NE Thailand. There are words for these type of people and that word is... tossers.
The other bloke was an old Yank artist who kept snapping at a young German lady when she decided to put music on. But it made an interesting evening humoring these two old farts.
I suppose I better tell you about some more sight seeing... I will brief!
Today I visited the Golden Mount which is another temple of sorts that provides a fantastic panoramic view of the whole city. I was amazed at how massive this city is and there are way more sky scrapers than I have ever seen here.
Anyway just so you know I got here safely and am really enjoying the food and beer!
I head to the Island of Ko Tao tommorow (against the Welsh guys judgement) for a spot of diving (if I can afford it).
Jack xx
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judith
non-member comment
Hi Jack r dad is on to his second bottle of Rioja and Mum on her second long glass of G nd I. She is instructing m e on how to learn how to do this having only having a computer a week, Your mum has been sending me your blogs but now i am going to try and get on line and read them for myself Look forward to seeing you soon Love Judith and nodge x x x