Advertisement
Day Zero (aka arrival)
...in which we hang out at airports, play games on the plane, and try to persuade a cabbie to turn his meter on...
Planes are more interesting than they used to be. With everything from 50 different movies to Super Mario Brothers, and a language learning game, you can generally find something to do (even if it's trying to help the old Turkish lady sitting next to you work out how to use her controller).
Arriving into Bangkok late at night, Chris got some cash out, and then went down to catch the Express train into the city. The express train only runs every 30mins or so, so while the trip was fast, the wait wasn't. On arrival at the station, we went down to the road to attempt to catch a cab. The hostel had given us their phone number so we gave that to a cab driver to call for directions. He then refused to turn the meter on, so we got out and hailed the next cab, who then said he couldn't go there, and told us to catch another cab. Thankfully third time lucky the cab driver was happy to
For Jasey
Nena scarfs some jack fruit. Rubbery texture and tastes like a lolly version of itself. Yum.take us to the hostel AND use the meter (after calling for directions).
The hostel (Niras Bangkok Cultural Hostel) was a small old style building which appeared to be made of at least two seperate building that had had joining walls removed. It was very pretty, and the aircon in the room worked well. The staff were really friendly, helpful, spoke English well, and made a delicious Thai style Tea with milk. It was orange in colour (due to Tamarind husk), not super sweet, and had a smokey flavour.
Day One
...in which we got completely overwhelmed by noise, people, traffic, stalls, heat and just the general intensity of Bangkok...
We woke pretty early, and decided to head towards Wat Po and the reclining Buddha first. Along the way we bought what is called a banana pancake (more like a banana roti, drowned in sweetened condensed milk), and a coconut pandan drink with tapioca or taro balls. The combination of the two was a pretty severe sugar hit. We also bought a bag of mangosteens, and another of jackfruit = more sugar!
We went past the giant swing which was literally
a massive (15m) swing which people used to stand on, and swing high in an attempt to reach a pot of gold (in the name of Shiva). Many poeple died, and surprisinly the tradition was banned.
On arrival at the temple, we were surprised to not have a bunch of con-artists approach us and tell us the temple was closed (must've been too early in the morning for them). We went inside and joined the throngs, listened to some guides, and said ooh and ahh in all the right places. After an hour or so in the heat we went and got a traditional Thai massage in the temple grounds. Thai massages are not gentle or relaxing and consist of the masseuse squashing, crushing, elbowing, and generally grinding you into submission. Good stuff.
After the massage we wandered out and went to a restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet. Now, either the review in LP has gone to their heads, or LP have some gross misunderstanding of good food. Either way, we paid 330BHT for a couple of small and unpleasantly tasting meals and average juices. We kept walking up the road, and wandered through the Amulet market, which
consists of endless stalls of people selling various amulets (funnily enough), such as extremely small Buddhas made of stone or metal, which other people peer at them through eye-glasses to establish their worth. Most people carry at least one amulet with them in hope of various good outcomes such as not falling off your Tuk-tuk, or not being crushed by a falling Durian (a rather embarassing and smelly way to go).
After fighting our way through what seemed like several kilometres of amulet fans, we found our way out into the daylight and were immediately set upon by one of the multitude of scam artists. Surprisingly, this one was a female (first time we've seen a female doing it). She followed the usual script and we were so heat smashed that we stood there for a while. As soon as she pulled out the scam artists standard issue dog-eared image of the standing buddha, We realised what was going on, and made our getaway.
At this point we were both pretty exhausted and decided to head back to the hostel and make use of the air-con. Unfortunately we missed our street while walking back and went a fair
way past the hostel before realising our mistake and heading back again. Not pleasant when you're tired and overheated.
After a refreshing doze on the bed, we grabbed a delicious tea from the hostel, and sat reading some guidebooks and made plans. At the hostel's recommendation we went across the road for a Pad Thai which was pretty tasty (and much better value - 130BHT for 2 pad thais and a drink). By the way - 100BHT is around $3AUD. The plan was to head down to Little India after this for some more food, but we were way too full, and just spent a couple of hours wandering around and enjoying the cool evening breeze. Along the way we found an amazing park where it appears all the locals go for exercise. Everything was being done all at the same time - jogging, kung fu, soccer, badminton, zumba, skateboarding, tai chi, pushups, and other apparatus things. It was bizarre, but really good to see so many people out getting exercise! there was a sign banning something, but we're not sure what it was banning - high jump? leaning on fences? ice skating?
We got back to the
hostel, and hit the hay. Nena was really tired and fell asleep quickly while Chris read for a bit, and then failed to get a decent sleep (jet lag or delicious tea).
Day two
...in which we saw the religious artifact with the highest intrinsic value in the world, discovered the perils of last minute bookings, got overwhelmed by a large shopping centre, and Nena got freaked out by dodgy backstreets and by watching Chris play Frogger by running across multilane traffic...
We were again up pretty early, and walked down to Chinatown area with a plan to grab some food and check out the Golden Buddha. Chris grabbed a folded peanut pancake thingy, and Nena diced to test out some soup served up by a grinning old man with a trolley. The soup contained a variety of delicious mushrooms, some fibrous greens, dirt flavoured zucchini, several grams of salt, fish sauce, a large amount of chilli and some suspicious looking brown goop. Despite the soup only coming in a small bowl, it seemed to last for ages...and ages... Neither of us could take more than a spoonfull at a time. We spent
a while walking down small streets, laneways, and alleys populated by strange little shops, and people riding motorbikes carrying huge mounds of stuff at high speed.
On arrival at the Golden Buddha, the remaining soup was turfed into a bin.
The golden buddha is pretty huge and impressive. It weighs around 5.5 tonnes and is described as being "solid gold". However when we went through the exhibition detailing it's creation and discovery it was revealed that it's centre is a mix of rice husk ash and clay. This is covered in wax and a mould is put around it. The mould is then heated up so the wax can melt and escape through drainage holes. The molten gold is poured in and then cools and solidifies. Some time later (noone knows for sure) it was covered in plaster and then gold leaf put over the plaster. A rather sever failure of good record keeping meant that it was forgotten that it was solid gold underneath until many years later when it was being hoisted to a new location with ropes. A rope snapped, the whole thing dropped to the ground and the plaster cracked in places revealing the
Thai Goulds
Yes, it's the Thai version of Goulds. gold underneath. The exhibit displayed the ropes that were used and... well it's not surprising they broke.
On leaving the Buddha we fought our way through the usual pile of tuk tuk drivers offerring their services, crossed the road and powered up with a kick arse iced coffee (espresso, not this nescafe bollocks), and then walked around the corner to the train station to get a ticket to Chiang Mai. We were aiming for the next night, and hoping for first class (locked door while sleeping, controllable aircon, and the ability to turn the light off while sleeping). Unfortunately the first class carriage for the following night was full, as was the following night. We chatted to one of the rail staff who led us to one of the tourist agencies who have a seperate quota of tickets available to them. They had some left, but it had to be booked with a hotel as a package. 8000BHt ($240) later we had two first class tickets, transfers, and three nights accom with breakfast in a pretty nice looking hotel. A bit more money than we were hoping to spend, but not too bad really.
We then continued wandering
up the road to the MBK shopping centre. We were pretty hungry by then so went up to the 6th floor to try out the vego food stall recommended by the Lonely Planet. Thankfully this time, they didn't dissapoint and some tasty food was demolished. Now, anyone who has eaten with Chris, knows his dislike of food going to waste, and that he will occasionally grab food from another table if people don't finish food and leave the restaurant. A lady got up and walked away leaving a plate of food, and a full cup of iced tea. When we walked past again a few minutes later it was still there, so Chris grabbed the cup and kept walking. We sat down just after that and looked back to see the lady return with some other things and sit down and continue eating. oops. She didn't seem too perturbed...
We caught a taxi back to the hostel, had a short break and then walked over to the legendary backpacker ghetto of Kao San road. On the way there, we attempted to find a vego restaurant that we had read was in the area. We failed to find it, but
Pad Thai
Vego Pad Thai up the top, Pad Thai with prawns wrapped in egg at the bottom. Various additions on the right (bean sprouts, chives, banana flower). Coconut ice drink on the left. Yummm! did end up wandering down some very dodgy back streets filled with shifty characters and women of negotiable affection... We got back out to the main street, but realised we were on the wrong side of a really busy and wide road without any obvious way to cross. Being brought up in the 80s and spending a lot of time playing Frogger Chris ran across the road in a short break. Nena didn't follow and the traffic rapidly got thick again making it impossible. We both back-tracked down the road a 100m or so and found a crossing so a rather stressed Nena could cross.
Eventually we made it to our destination, and wandered around the nearby streets. We were getting pretty hungry and found a small stall selling vego food. Chris got a Vege, tofu and cashew fry, and Nena had Tom Yum. We also had some mango juice, and a banana/pineapple juice. ahhh tropical fruit, how I love thee. Total cost 130BHT (around $5). We wandered around in circles for a while, mainly people watching and laughing at funny t-shirts (I was tempted by the Dr House one saying "it's not lupus" underneath) then stopped for some
Banned
Here's something you're not allowed to do. Not quite sure what it is though... cocktails. Not cheap, but tasty. 😊 A pleasant walk home (avoiding the dodgy area) and a good nights sleep (once the people in the room next to us shut up).
Advertisement
Tot: 0.043s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0213s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Camille Jenkins
non-member comment
Bangkok
Lovely to read your blog. Are you going to travel around other areas of Thailand?