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Published: October 4th 2009
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Bangkok
In keeping with our flashpacker way of travelling we stayed in Shanghai Mansion, a rather lovely boutique hotel and a perfect retreat after the hustle and bustle of Bangkok.
As expected, Bangkok is one great big dirty city and we loved it. The first day involved visiting the Grand Palace and surrounding temples which were spectacular to say the least. The photos don't really do it justice.
The same day also involved getting scammed by a tuk tuk driver who took us to a load of jewellery and silk shops. This was so he could gain a petrol voucher worth 20 litres of petrol. So basically we asked him to take us directly to a specific place. He did his little detour for about 2 hours taking us to the said shops and refused to take us where we wanted to go. Eventually, because Neil and I would not spend any longer than 2 seconds in any given shop he did not get his voucher. He got severely pissed off and wouldn’t leave us to our final destination despite us having played along with his little game. In the end we paid 40 baht to be taken nowhere
and wasted 2 hours of our day but it was fun to see his scam backfire. Also to be fair he did take us to see a massive big Buddha where you can buy a cage of birds for 100 baht. We let the birds free in front of the Buddha and this is supposed to bring you eternal good luck and fortune! Here’s to hoping!
That night, we went to a thai boxing match, great fun, loved seeing the guys pummel each other to death! There was blood and sweat and lots of spit, lovely jubbly! Afterwards we headed for Khao San Road, party street of Bangkok. We got absolutely smashed on vodka buckets and smoked shisha, a bong-type contraption for smoking flavoured tobacco! As soon as we were suitably drunk we made our way to a crap night club and made utter tits of ourselves on the dance floor. The best bit of the night was probably the pad thai we got at the side of the road for 10p on our way home, yummy!
The next day I proceeded to vomit 10 times. We eventually made it out of the hotel by mid afternoon and
headed for the Royal Indian Restaurant, nothing like a spicy curry to settle one’s stomach!! After walking for about 2 hours in the searing heat trying to find this place, we eventually stumbled upon it down some dark rank alley way. The restaurant was a complete dive but the food was first class. However, it didn’t sit well in my already very upset stomach and a few more trips to the bathroom took place.
That evening we went to Vertigo Bar, a bar on the 64th floor of some hotel. There is a bar both on the inside and outside with a band playing and little tables lit by candlelight. It was very pretty and the views were amazing. Neil and I were off the booze due to our tender tummies and just as well because one coke cost 6 quid.
Moving swiftly on from the highly priced bar, we made our way to Pat Pong where we moseyed around a few markets. Of course no trip to Bangkok is complete without a trip to a ping pong show. We opted to see said show at Super Pussy, a classy establishment full of even classier employees. Imagine your
granny with her knickers tied around one leg and her bra hauled up around her chin, also waxing strips evidently aren’t a big thing in Thailand! Now imagine her lying on her back pushing 3 ping pong balls up her fanniard and her face depicting a world of pain, then popping said ping pongs out her fanniard alarmingly close to where you’re sitting....nice! The best was when one particularly chubby granny decided to draw a pic of Neil’s face whilst clutching a pen with her fanny, marvellous pelvic muscles these girls have! I have to say the pic does bare an uncanny resemblance to Neil’s face. I’m currently in the midst of perfecting such skills myself. Slightly more disturbing (if that’s possible) is when I got hit by a flying dart, and yes it was popped out of yet another fanny in an attempt to burst to some balloons pinned to the ceiling! Fingers crossed I don’t have AIDS...
So after quite a manic few days in Bangkok and seeing quite a lot of rather unattractive fannies, I was looking forward to going to Chiang Mai.
Chiang Mai
We didn’t stay in a particularly touristy part
of Chiang Mai of which we were glad as we got to see where the locals hung out etc. The girls working in the hostel were excellent and basically planned our 3 days there. We ate like kings in local shops for 50p. We hired mopeds and almost got ourselves killed whilst visiting various temples. We went to the night bizarre and haggled over various items and ate more delicious food. Our favourite activity was by far our one day mahout course. A mahout is an elephant guide. We travelled for one hour into the Chiang Mai jungle to an elephant sanctuary. Here we learnt different commands for the elephants and were introduced to 6 elephants including two babies, 3 and 4 months old. We learnt how to get on top of the elephant by climbing on top of its leg, or using its trunk, we bathed the elephants in a river, we rode on top of them (without those wooden box things you see, this was bare back my friend), we then took a mud bath with them, see pics, absolutely fab day, definitely one of the highlights of the trip.
Well folks that just about sums our
travels through Thailand up. Next stop Laos!
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