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Published: January 17th 2007
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Our next stop was the visa run on the way to Bangkok. We left Ko Toa at 10pm to catch the night ferry to the mainland. We got onto the ferry as we were told there was sleeping arrangements. Now this consisted of a small foam mattress with a plastic pillow. They were generous enough to give us a towel for a blanket. So at 5am we turned up on the mainland and caught a bus to the boarder however you have to get a boat to Burma and get your Visa. We trundled in as we were pretty tired from the traveling and we were shoved in a cue to get our stamp when we got to the front a man with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth stamped the passport. Owen was not impressed as a Burmese man kept on blowing him kisses from the street and someone else kept on trying to sell Charlie Viagra you make your mind up why he was being asked. Anyway After walking 10 minutes around Burma we hoped back on the boat and caught a bus back to the east coast where we caught our connecting bus to Bangkok. After a
total of 22 hours of traveling we finally arrived at the legendary place of Bangkok. We headed to Khoa San Road which is the main backpackers place. It has everything street venders, markets, bars, restaurants, guests houses and tuk tuk drivers but we will talk about them later.
We got a room and dumped our stuff and had a wander. There are two types of people who visit Bangkok those who love it and those who hate it who just stop by to get a flight or a break in their travels. Charlie as usual loved it as you can see by the photo he just soaked up the atmosphere and didn’t come home for two nights. Owen hated it as he found it load smelly, dirty and full of prostitutes again. We headed for our first bar and just watched the people go by. You seer every type of person there, hippies, travelers, tourists regular and sex, old and young visitors. We still played the game of spot the fattest ugliest European with the stunning Thai girl. After a heavy day of traveling we had an early night to enjoy Bangkok.
We got up early the next
Crazy catfish
This is only a small amount of the Cat Fish and they were hugh day to meet Matt and have a full day of events; we had looked at the lonely plant and decided to do the palace and a few temples just down the street. We got to the temple and found out that you could not wear shorts in there so we had to leave it there and have a wander around the local area. We bumped in to a Thai guy who told us the best places to go around the Khoa San Road area and we got into a Tuk Tuk. We first went to the reclining Buddha which has a lot of temples around it and loads of school children who wanted to interview foreigners about Thailand so after four different interviews the Tuk Tuk driver told us to go to this pier and see the fish. We didn’t think it was going to be anything special but when you get to the end of the pier there are literally hundred of cat fish and when you throw some food in they go nuts and all rise to the surface pushing some of the other fish out of the water.
Next up was a sitting Buddha which was
apparently 700 years old and looked in pretty good condition. Next we thought we were being sent to another place on our route and ended up being escorted around all the suit shops we agreed to spend 10 minutes in one place so the driver could get a free coupon as he was really friendly at the beginning we decided ok but we were asked to leave after five minutes as we made it obvious we were not going to buy anything. When the tuk tuk driver asked us to go to another place we refused as we had already been to two. He got really stroppy and drove like a bat out of hell to the next destination asked us to get out and pay him and he drove off. We thought this was really funny as he kept on saying he was doing us a favour taking us places and we should do him a favour in going to the suit shops but it’s a bit strange that we paid for the ride. Anyone reading this should take note that in Bangkok if an offer is good from a tuk tuk driver he will probably take you to
somewhere you don’t want to go e.g. a suit shop. However we saw yet another Buddha and made our way back to Khoa San Road to have a night out. We met quite a few people that night the most interesting one was a guy dressed as Jack Sparrow he was so close to Johnny Depp that you thought he was him. Now here is the nasty part everyone has heard that they eat insects in Asia and we never thought we would ever eat them until we had a little bit of Dutch courage. Charlie as usual was up first and had a healthy looking fried cricket which was the size of a snack size Milky Way Owen stood there in amazement and though I’m not going to hear the end of this if I don’t try it. So we both ended up having a Fried grub, maggot and a cricket each. NEVER AGAIN. We thought we had done well but couldn’t stretch to eating cockroaches and frogs. So we continued drinking and had a lot of fun. The one thing that both shocked us was when we went to another bar about 2am where we found a Swedish
A miniture of Ankor Wat
This was amazingly intricate guy lying on the floor with his head busted open and no one was helping him. So in typical British spirit Owen went over and tried to help him, a taxi was called and he helped carry the semi conscious man into the back of the taxi the police turned up and did nothing.
The next day we finally got into the palace and surrounding area the whole place was magnificent and had the temple of the emerald Buddha which was spectacular and there was so much stuff in the compound we could not take it I or will be able to write enough to convey how amazing it was the pictures do not do it justice. Yet again we got interviewed by hundred of School kids. most of the rest of our time was taken up by sight seeing, going out and enjoying ourselves Charlie was really please as he found a three litre tower of beer which we all helped him consume.
Charlie decided he wanted to see China town and went around the market eating anything and everything not knowing what was what all he knew he could of had a bit of rat or
dog but doesn’t really want to think about it. Because most of the food in the Khoa San Road area is available from street venders everything is a little bit cheaper so Charlie was in his element trying all the new foods. Because of all the heavy nights we had a quiet day and organized our next trip to Ayuthaya which is the old ruins of the ancient city of Siam. (Old Thailand).
All in all Bangkok is one hell of an experience if it’s the heat, smells or people it is unlike anywhere we have been before. One thing we did notice was how the range of people in Bangkok is amazing diverse you don’t know if the person is being generally nice or is just trying to rip you off this sums up a lot of Bangkok. You have extremes of things such as the magnificence of the palace compared to some of the less fortunate areas of Bangkok then from the people in Khoa San Road to Chinatown the whole place is such a contrast we were very surprised.
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