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Check it out cobber!
Sydney Harbour Bridge - the cliche shotMy fist post from overseas - I'd better make it a good one!
Well here we are, Nicola and i have been in Bangkok for 3 days now and we are having a blast! I'll give you a run down on what the past few days have held for us and then give you a quick summary of what we are looking at for the next few days. Sound good? Good!
Thursday - are we there yet?
Thanks to the changing time zones, Thursday was the longest day ever! I woke up at 4.30am on Thursday morning and finally got to sleep at about 1am Friday Bangkok time - roughly 26 hours later. Luckily the flights were both smoothe - The 3 hour flight to Sydney was lovely and spacious as there were not many passengers, and the 9 hour flight to Bangkok was a bit more crowded, but still relatively comfortable. The howling baby was far enough away as not to bother us, and the dutch lady beside us was fine about getting up every hour or so for me to move around.
Our stop over in Sydney was luuuurvley! It was a beautiful day
The view from our room
Friday morning - day is dawning on the city and we got out and saw the waterfront - the Rocks, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. We also took a stroll around the Royal Botannic Gardens to stretch our legs. The train system in Sydney is brilliant, so easy to use and so regular (like every 5 mins) so we were back to the airport in plenty of time for our next flight.
The Bangkok airport is massive. So massive in fact, that there are conveyor belts to take you from your gate to the customs area, and it still takes 15 mins to get there. Customs was a breeze, and we were collected from the terminal by Yuri, our fabulous welcome wagon and transfer specialist rolled into one. She gave us a map with places to see circled, gave us some great tips on safety, and even taught us some useful phrases. Once we were checked-in to our hotel and everything was tickety boo, she left us to get some sleep. The hotel is quite 70's, and has big crystal chandeliers like a casino, and a caberet in the basement like a casino, and the hotel's stores and restaurants are open 24/7 (I'm sensing a
Fruit for sale
Didn't buy any, but man they look good theme here...). Its very comfortable and was a cool, quiet place to come back to and rest after the days that lay ahead.
Friday - culture shock sets in
After a fabulous
free buffet breakfast, we headed out to explore. Basically we got a day pass for the Sky train, and familiarised ourselves with public transport. We saw lots of people selling goods (mostly food and drinks, but pretty much anything you could ever want is for sale cheap cheap), experienced lots of ghastly smells, and got a taste of the real harsh, polluted nature of the city.
Along the train line we saw tonnes of Wats (temples), shops, derelict shanty housing, beggars, flash banks and malls. If you walk down any street, there's like a labyrinth of tiny side streets, shops, markets and stalls everywhere you look. There are filthy markets and stalls surrounding beautiful shrines, decorated with gold and flowers. Most shops, houses and hotels have a spirit house outside, a mini temple that keeps bad spirits away. People offer food and flowers to them daily.
Anyway, I'm getting off track. We pretty much got on and off the sky train where we felt like
Random shrine amid the filthy market
Like an oasis amid the chaos, there are little shrines and things all over the place if you just take the time to look. it and checked out the city. 'Hey miss, where you go' is a standard phrase that you hear everywhere from Tuk tuk drivers trying to take you places. I haven't got the balls to try one yet, and I don't think I will, they drive like maniacs! And that's saying something, considering the fact that there are no road rules here and everyone drives pretty crazy. Crossing the road is one of the scariest things I've had to do yet.
When we got to the end of the sky train line, we transfered to the underground metro. This is a subway which connects the sky train to the Bangkok railway station. Seriously, Bangkok's public transport system is so far ahead of NZ its ridiculous. Anyway, once we got to the railway station, we booked tickets and accomodation to Chiang Mai, and thought we would check out the river!
On the way to the river, we experienced our first trickster. There are very convincing people all over the place dressed officially that are selling cruises and things that are too good to be true. My spider senses started tingling when she recommended that we take a tuk tuk. No-one
Did you see the Buddha cat?
There are cats everywhere, sleeping on shrines, running through alleys, hanging out at markets, its cool recommends tuk tuks, and most tourist information people tell you to avoid them. The second tell-tail sign was that she offered to talk to the cruise ticket office and get us tickets for a the Thai price rather than the tourist price. Also, she was very persistent, so we told her no, and once she got the hint (we were walking away) she left us alone.
We took a very round about way to get to the river, going through a few short cuts that took us through some smelly markets, but we got there in the end after about 4 other people tried to con us. It was geting tiring by that point. I was getting a blood sugar low, and felt pretty cranky. Once at the right pier, we took a public ferry back to central pier, which connects back to a sky train. The ferry boats are awesome, but you have to jump on and off really quick cos they take off within seconds whether you're on them or not! It's pretty wild, I feel quite intrepid, I must say.
We headed back to the hotel, had a shower to wash the Bangkok off and
All aboard!
Nicola on the tourist boat, there's a Watpo in the background, a river version of a tuk tuk. All vehicles here are brightly coloured, even taxis are all different colours of the rainbow. had Vietnamese for dinner. I was asleep by about 9pm that night, man I was exhausted and stressed out. Culture shock really is physical, I felt shaky, headachey, apprehensive and really sick of having to keep my guard up all day. Luckily, Saturday was much better.
Saturday - checked out the tourist spots
We headed back to Central Pier and caught a tourist boat which stops at all the piers that have things to see near. They provide a little map and all sorts of info about what to see and how to get there, and an all day pass cost $100TB ($4NZ). We headed first to the flower markets and saw all sorts of fruit, veges, spices and flowers. It was the nicest smelling place in Bangkok so far. Then we jumped over to Wat Pho to see the Reclining Buddha (huuuuge!). There was a strange noise coming from inside the temple, and once we had walked around to the buddha's back side, there were about 40 steel pots that dozens of people were dropping coins in one after the other, that noise doesn't stop, its surreal.
Next was Khao San Road. Wow. Anything you want from
Reclining Buddha
This picture does not do justice to the scale of this thing - it was massive! You have to look directly up to look at the head. clothes to pictures to ninja stars to fake documents you can get here. I bought a couple of tops, a skirt and some pants. All for about $6NZ - $8NZ each. We were there for so long looking at everything, the road just doesn't end.
Anyway, it was about mid afternoon by this time, so we got back on the boat and headed back down the river to Wat Arun, Temple of the Dawn. This was Nic's favourite place because its very symmetrical, and covered in shiny tiles so it gleams in the sun light. Its huge, the steps are extremely steep, and its very beautifully decorated. Keep in mind that its really old, kinda falling apart thanks to all the pollution here, and my camera is crap. Nics photos are way better.
I was shattered by this stage, so we took a public ferry back to Central Pier, and sky trained back to the hotel. We had Thai for dinner at a local Spanish restaurant (Ole Ole) which was really yum, and dinner and drinks was $142TB each (less than $6). I was just about falling asleep in my food and was really incoherant, so Nics put
me to bed at about 9 again while she watched Fantastic 4 on the movie channel.
And we both feel great. We are having an admin day today, getting laundry, emails and postcards done while we wait for our train trip tonite! That's right, we catch train to Chiang Mai in the north tonite, it leaves at 10pm and we have a sleeper suite with bunks! We're pretty excited about this trip because the day after tomorrow we are going on a trek! The trek includes 2 nights and 3 days of fun - elephant rides, bamboo rafting, walking through rice paddies and meeting the people that cultivate the land. Food and everything is provided, so we don't have to worry about a thing. The amazing thing is, our 3 nights in Chiang Mai and 3 day 2 night trek cost (drum roll please) less that $100NZ. I love Thailand.
So that's pretty much our last few days in a nutshell. Neither of us have been sick yet (touch wood!) and most people are super friendly and helpful. Even the rip off merchants are polite and won't get nasty if you turn them
Khao San Road
Intense - you can't see the end until you get to it, and it's full of tourists, so there were lots of pale faces eating and drinking in the many cafes and eateries. down. Sweat patches on clothing are a way of life. The smell has been difficult to come to terms with, it's so polluted here and I hope Chaing Mai is cleaner.
Final thoughts.... Once you get used over the extremes here, its a really interesting place. The city is full of people that just work their guts out in sweltering 39 degree heat and dirty conditions for a few measley baht. If anything, you've gotta respect that they're doing their best to provide for their families. That's what gets me through the instances where people try to rip us off. To me, its a couple of bucks, to them its life and death.
On that note, hope you are doing well, and if you have any news for me, feel free to email me on linden.m@gmail.com or leave a comment - I'll do my best to reply once we're in Chiang Mai!
Peace, love and kitty cats on buddhas,
Lulu
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HOLLY
non-member comment
hello kitty
i hope you bought me something aaaye