Bangkok...Backpacker central!

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We were up at 10am on our last day in India, and our flight wasn't unitl 11pm. We didn't have much rupees left but had seen everything we wanted to. We popped to Mumbai train station to use the internet, updated the blog, then hopped in a cab to the airport. We had been told it would be 300 rupees by the hotel, but the honest taxi driver (only one in India?!?) said it was 200, so we gave him a 50 rupee tip and went into the airport. This place was boring, our flight wasnt for about 7/8 hours and we had 2 shops and a cafe to keep us entertained. We struggled through with some card games, brought some food with the last of our currency (left India with 2 rupees!). We were heading for Bangkok but had to transfer at Singapore.

Our first flight to Singapore was with jet Airways, and the plane was amazing. It must have been new, in our ecconomy seats we had 100's of movies and music to choose from, and even games to play on the massive in seat screens. The controller we had was not only a tv remote, but also a games controller, phone, and had a full qwerty keyboard on the reverse for emailing! We got quite excited about all this and spent most of the flight playing games (Adam broke his and it froze for about an hour!). We had a few beers and the plane food was a bit of a let down, and left Nick feeling a bit ill. We should have really slept on this flight as we were arriving at Singapore at 7am....oops! Singapore Airport was even more exciting than our inflight entertainment on the plane. It was really nice looking and clean, had over 300 free internet portals dotted about, a cinema, free massage chairs and had over 35,000 staff employeed. It had more shops than Bluewater and more restuarants than shops! We could only afford a Burger King due to not wanting to change money into Singapore dollars, due to us only having 6 hours in Singapore. The time soon passed and we headed for our second flight before we both fell asleep in the waiting lounge, Nick actually did fall asleep, and Adam pretened to be asleep and joked they had missed the plane when Nick 'woke' him. The next flight was Cathay Pacific, the plane was old and the entertainment was poor, but this was made up for by some delightful food! We got Ben and Jerrys ice cream and Toblerones - something we wanted in Singapore but could not afford! We both slept for all of this 3 hour flight except the food time.

We landed in Bangkok about 4pm, and collected our bags that we hadn't seen since India (which was rather scary considering they have almost everything we own in!). We had arranged airport pick up after the mess in India when we arrived, and a nice little Thai lady was waiting for us with 'New Siam - Adam Gibson' held high on her sign post. New Siam 2 is the guest house we would be staying in. The lady drove us there and first impressions of Thailand were good. It was clean and everyone seemed nice and polite - a nice refreshing change from India, New Siam 2 is a guest house, but seems to be like a hotel. It has a pool and restaurant, and the rooms are really nice, it has its own tour/help desk too. It is costing us 420 baht each per night (about ฃ6), this is seriously cheap for what it is, but we can probably find somewhere cheaper if we look about, we are booked in for 3 nights (our longest stay anywhere so far). We went for our usual walk about to see where we were compared with the action. It seemed we were right in the middle of it, just around one corner was a street buzzing with backpackers and nice thai people trying to get you into thier restaurants. The street was full of places to eat and drink, internet cafes and lots of book shops, which claimed to buy/sell or swap almost anything. We got some cash out from an ATM and brought some waters and a map. We then went out ot eat at Four Sons guest house restaurant, this place was goooood! We had veg fried rice with chicken and cashue nuts, served inside half a pinapple as a bowl! This cost us 80 pence each, and had a few Chang beers for around 60 pence each (tthey were pints and 6.5%- bargain)! We went to the shop on the way back from some water and snacks and then both crashed out about
11pm after 2 days with almost no sleep.

The next day we both slept in and woke just before midday. We decided we would try and hit as many of the main sights as possible and it seemed from the map most of them were walkable. We first headed for Wat Phra Kaeo and the Grand Palace. Along the way we had a guy come up to us saying the Palace was closed and we wouldn't get in with our shorts on, he said we should get a Tuk Tuk to some other places first and circled them on our map, he also told us how much we should pay and stuff, half way through the chat a Tuk Tuk driver walked up and the other guy left, we were wize to this from India and said we would keep walking to the Palace anyway. About 2 minutes later we had another stranger start chatting to us and he said exactly the same thing. Another driver came along but we pressed on towards the Palace. Both of these saying the same thing seemed to make it sound true, but their acts were way to similar. We soon arrived at the Grand Palace after about 15 minute walk. The first thing that we saw was a sign saying ' Beware of strangers offering tuk tuks and sigh seeing', seemed we managed to avoid some sort of scam there! They weren't lying about the shorts though, we had to leave a 100 baht deposit so we could borrow some rather fetching blue or green trousers, Nick got the slighter better looking green and Adam and the blue. It was the most expensive entry of the day at 250 baht but worth every penny. This place was big, and seriously 'blinging'. every single part of it was shining in the sun, and it was all either gold, mirrored of some sort of gem! We took some good photos and walked around it all, with help from an english guide leaflet. After seeing all of this we headed for Wat Pho, to see thing reclining Budda, made famous from the opening scene of the movie 'The Beach'. The Budda is hugh and was hard to get all in one photo, it was painted gold and the room has an amzing sound in it, from people dropping lucky stones into all the pots around the edge of the room it lays in. The place also had lots (100's) of other gold buddas all around the grounds and there was a school there too. We saw quite a few monks walking around here and generally painting the place or praying. Next stop on the sights was Wat Arun Ratchawararam (Wat means temple), this place was across the river and a nice guard pointed us int he direction of the port. Our boat trip across Chao Phra Ya River was bargain at about 7 pence each, although it did only takeabout 2 minutes! Wat Arun is a large temple that you can walk most of the way up, it didn't seem to be maintained and painted like other things we had seen today. The first lot of steps up it were big and steep and most people seemed to only go this high, we went up to the top and the last flight of stairs were crazy, it was like climbing up a wall - we both nearly got cramp after getting down! We got the boat back across and stopped in some little back street cafe for some noodles with chicken, the food was good and we were proud to be eating good local food and not western style restuarant. Hopefully no more illnesses on the horizon. We headed back to New Siam guest house via Saranom Park. This was a local park area and was full of joggers and people exercising, it also had people playing chess and some people playing a rather interesting game involving keeping up a ball (Video coming soon). We popped into our guest house and asked the tour desk about tickets to the Muai Thai Boxing, they only had ringside tickets so we walked to the stadium. We went via Khao San Road. Khao San Road is the center of the backpacking world. The street is a few hundred meters long with the same bars/food places/shops and street sellers we have previously seen, there are different languages all over the place and people offering to take to all sorts of places - we turned down the ping pong show for now. We reached the boxing stadium and found it was on tonight, but cheapest tickets were 1000 baht and we didn't carry that much on us. It was on Thursday (tomorrow) too, so we decided we would go then.
We walked back down Khao San Road on the way back, noticed dvds for 100 baht and some seriously cheap clothes, which were all very similar to clothing out at home, we are guessing the top shop factory is close by!? We popped back into the hotel to write up all the things we had seen and upload the photos from the camera, we have over 350 photos so far, at this rate we will get back with over 5000, sorry in advance for when we bore you with them! We then went out to eat at Four Sons (our new fav place to eat). There was a funny male waiter called Jessica here, he didn't manage to turn us gay but did sell us 2 t-shirts from his shop over the road for 250 baht (about ฃ1.80 each). After this we decided to head out to see the nightlife in Khao San Rd, it was crazy down there, we had a few cheap beers at Four Sons before heading there and as soon as we hit Khao San we ended up in an unlicenced bar due to some offers of cheap drinks. These bars are mobile, they pitch them up, put out all the seats and start gathering people up. We had a cocktail there for 300 baht, that was served in a bucket similar to what you would take to the seaside, she asked what we wanted in it but we said anything, and then warned us to drink it slowly! We had a nice chat with an austrailian girl called Jessica for a bit until the police came past and our bar suddenly disapeared! We headed out for a wander and ended up in an actually bar this time, or so we thought. After about 20 minutes here the police drove past and we all had to hide our beers under the table, crazy stuff! We hung out on the street for a bit and saw some street buskers doing some amazing tricks with footballs and tennis balls keeping them up, and a random guy with a baby elephant walking down the street too. We got some noodles from a street seller and some water from the shop before heading back to the guest house. Crashed out after a long day.

Awoke about midday with our first hangover of our trip, we still had places to see in Bangkok and headed out for them. First place was The Giant Swing at Wat Suthat, the swing wasn't that impressive, but the temple there was really nice. We got some good photos of all the golden buddas and a photo of a hugh one that was in the main temple, not often they let you take photos inside these. After that we went to The Golden Mountain, this is another temple and is built on a big hill and is very high. We had a long winding walk up this but there wasn't much to see inside, but some good veiws of the city and we could see our next stop of the day. Next was Wat Ratchanatda Worawihan, this was another temple and had more of the same that we had previous seen (that budda dude is everywhere!). On th e way out of this place we walked past a wood cutting area of town and saw some doors being made, all with premiership football teams logos carved into them, they looked really nice but a bit big to be sending home for anyone! We headed back via McDonalds and tried the local McPork Deluxe, but turned down the McPrawn! We got back to the guest house about 4pm and used the internet to catch up on email and find somewhere for Nick to have his Hep B injection, don't worry he doesn't have hep b, but didn't have time for all 3 injections back home. After this it was time to head off for the Muay Thai Boxing at Rajadamnern Stadium. There is 2 main places to see muay thai boxing in Bangkok and this one of them. Tickets are priced at 1000, 1500 and 2000 baht, we went for the cheapest ones, which put us right in with all the locals. We weren't that far away from the front anyway and the place started off about half full. It wasn't long before we were asked to move to the other side by a local, it seemed rude at the time but turned out to be good advice. It got crazy in there with all the locals getting very involved and seriously lots of betting happening, we were glad to be able to watch that from the side, something we would have missed with ringside seats. Not sure how the betting worked but it involved lots of hand signals and shouting about, but no sign of a book keeper anywhere! We got 10 fights, each was 5 rounds of 3 minutes, unless there was a knock out. It started rather slow in early rounds and by the 5th rounds they going for it, and it was obviously from the crowd who had the most money on them, the atmosphere was really good. The fights all went the distance until fight 6 when we got a knock out by elbow to the face, he was stretchered out efficiently and then fight 7 was apparently the main event. It went the distance and the crowd really got into this one. Fight 8 was won by knock out with a knee to the head. Both fighters in fight 9 looked about 13 years old and in the last fight we had the only forigner who was from Spain, and he lost. The fighting finished around 11pm, and it started at 6.30pm, so it is a full evening of entertainment, and something everyone who visits Bangkok should visit, even if you aren't into fighting sports, this is a massive part of thier culture. After this we headed back to the guest house picking up some cheap noodles from Khao San Rd along the way, then both crashed out asleep, these days are hard work!

We are off to sort out Nicks injection tomorrow and see the rest of Bangkok, we also have to plan how we are getting to our next countries, as internet may not be as easy to get in Cambodia!

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Thanks for reading...

Adam Gibson and Nick Burke

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Photos

In flight Entertainment
Ours toys on the plane!

Guest House rooms
New Siam 2 was a big change from our Mumbai room!

Chang Beer!
Bargain at 50 baht!

Grand Palace
This place was seriously blinging!

7 Pence Boat
This took us to Wat Arun

Wat Arun
These stairs were killer! Both almost got cramp!

Khao San Road
Backpacker Central...

Our Cocktail...
...from the unlicenced bar, mmmm

Comments

[simon]

street fightiing days
well looks like having a cool time enjoy it while you can

[Simon (Adams Bro)]

Aha!
After forgetting your blog address i finally found it! good read. More shinanigans please.

[Adam mum]

Can we assume after all this temple visiting you are now fully enlightened and following the path of Budda!