I <3 Bangkok!

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Bangkok is what it is, and everything you expect it to be... Hot, humid, Smoggy, frantic and what the hell is that smell? No wait, it's gone... No... there it is again! We LOVE this city, love, love, love this city.

We've stayed here or passed through countless numbers of times, and although somewhat tired of the scene that surrounds Khao San road, it feels like home every time we set foot within its limits. We feel so comfortable here, we know how it all works, and we’re immune to the annoyances and scams that await the Gapper fresh off the plane...

This time is different though, this time we have two children with us, one of which is still very much a baby. Will we see the city and this country through a different set of eyes... the eyes of a parent? All those things we thought were funny before, the bare wires hanging out the wall in our room, the hole for a toilet, the mangy dogs shagging in the street, these are all potential hospital trips. Are we quickly going to fall out of love with this place?

The flight over was pretty straightforward, I think the key to easy traveling with children is to really KNOW your children, know what sets them off and then avoid those situations... Cartoons also help!

Nate never really watches TV, it's not that we don't want him to or let him, he just never really seemed interested, and so we didn't push it. A few days before we left however, he suddenly had a new found love for certain shows so I loaded my netbook up with them for the flight. It turns out he's not going to be a super genius child prodigy after all and loves brain rotting TV just as much as the next kid.

Since being in Bangkok there are several things we’ve noticed:

1. Thai's love children... We knew they were keen from seeing the interactions on previous visits but nothing prepared us for just how keen they really are. We can't walk two steps without people rushing over and cooing over Gabe and wanting to touch/hold/pinch (?) him, we've seen a few kids about Nate's age but none have been nearly as young as Gabe so I imagine he's a bit of a novelty.

2. How much more expensive things have gotten. The unfavorable exchange rate hasn't helped (everything is effectively 50% more expensive than the last time we were here) but I'm sure everything was much cheaper a couple of years ago. More than two quid for a large Chang in some places? There’s also a 150 Baht withdrawal fee from every ATM we’ve encountered, which is new. We're on quite a strict budget, something tells me we're gonna break it!

3. It’s quiet (relatively). We’ve never been during wet season and I’m sure the recent troubles haven’t helped. There are discounts advertised everywhere, 20% all food, buy one night get one free etc… We’ve been here a week and seen rain once, so wet season shouldn’t deter you from coming.

4. It’s Hot. Stupidly obvious I know. We’re not acclimatized at all which doesn’t help, but it isn’t normally a problem as you can find some comfort somewhere/somehow. Chilling at a café/restaurant/bar with cold beer in hand is a good option. Chasing a two year old round the streets in search of cockroaches/geckos/tuk tuks isn’t!

5. The sun is your enemy. Australians may understand this. We used to be like every other Farang, wandering straight out into the sun as soon as we got here muttering “tan, tan, tan”. Kids change that! Now it’s sticking to the shade, hats permanently on and Factor 50 liberally applied every couple of hours.

6. Fish ‘Massages’. You stick your feet into a tank and hundreds of small fish nibble off all the dead skin. These seem to be all the rage at the moment, there are hundreds of places that now offer this service. Haven’t tried it but they let Nate stick his hand in one which he thought was hilarious.

We've spent our time in Bangkok generally doing not a lot and that suits us just fine. We've been to all the typical tourist hot spots before so we don't want to visit them again just for the sake of it. We’ve pretty much spent our time hanging out eating good food, overdosing on pineapple lassi's and wandering around.

We did visit Wat Saket and the Golden Mount to get some views of the city as we'd not been there before, it was a cheap admission at only 10 baht and it gave us an excuse to ride a Tuk Tuk, keeping Nate happy as he's getting obsessed with them screaming "TUK TUK" every time he sees or hears one!

We also went out for a day trip to Ayutthaya, we've been there a couple of times before and enjoyed it, so thought we'd go with the boys to see how we handled it. We took the train there, which was fairly painless and then chartered a Tuk Tuk for a few hours to take us round the various sites. It isn't the cheapest way to do it at 200 baht an hour but pretty damn convenient. We had a pretty good time but seriously underestimated the sun which was brutal with little cloud cover. We spent the time hopping from shade to shade, sweating profusely and swigging water. In the end it got too much and we took the lazy option to get back to Bangkok, jumping in a taxi at a whopping 900 baht fare! It was worth it though as we really couldn't be bothered with the hassle of negotiating the train and it was a whole lot quicker.

We’re now going to hit the beach for some more idleness, we had plans to go south but all the trains are booked up for several days to come (well in A/C class anyway) and we didn’t fancy a 12 hour bus ride, so we’ve now decided to head south west to the island of Koh Chang. I’ve heard a lot of good things about the place and I just hope the weather’s not too bad as it’s not the best season to visit.

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Comments

[Donna and Neil]

Glad you made it safely!
Hi guys...glad you made it to Bangkok safely. Ice cream is definitely the way forward in this heat, Nate has the right idea! Enjoy Koh Chang and we hope the weather holds out for you...prices a bit of a shocker but I'm sure we'll see this ourselves when we get to Thailand this week - as you say the exchange rate doesn't help! Have fun and enjoy your family holiday Donna and Neil x

[Noel Wigdor]

lovely photos....
and great adventures !