Australia Vs. Iraq and other stuff..

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Had a difficult time leaving the hotel this morning!! One especially persistent tuk tuk driver offering 5/10 baht tours of the city landmarks followed us down the street for a long while. Hahaaa, we were wise to this scam... The driver takes you to where he wants to go, like gem stores and jewellery shops but thanks to a nice tailor on our way out of the hotel and our trusty lonely planet guide, we were forewarned!

Had a look around Koa Sahn Road, had some brekky, then went to the travel agent just off Khao San to book our trip to Chiang mai on the overnight train - the helpful Thai bloke ripped us off blind...By at least 100 baht ($3.50 Australian), because it's cheaper we found out to go directly to the source when booking anything in Thailand! The irony is that it probably would have cost more to go to the station and back to book it there anyway..but broken English at the travel agent is much better than no English at the train station!

Headed off to the Grand Palace, which was an effort within itself, being stopped every few metres by friendly and convincing Thai people who tried to tell us that the Grand Palace was either closed today, or we wouldn't be able to get in because we didn't have long pants...we ignored them anyway, and sure enough - open for business!

The Grand Palace was really impressive - got some great photos to upload later on..the place was enormous and gold! It was so impressive in fact that even golden boy himself Jamie Durie was there - in a hideous fluorescent orange shirt!

Felt like we'd been up for 36 hours at this point, but it was only mid-arvo and there was probably the most important item on the agenda still to go - the Socceroos vs. Iraq live at National Stadium, only a few k's away from where we were...we got on bus 71 bound for National Stadium and met a Melbournian called Nick (different Nick) and he decided that it was too good an opportunity to pass up - so he tagged along.

Arrived at National Stadium and it was really impressive, but a bit quiet.

Turned out that there are TWO National Stadiums in Bangkok and they are on opposite sides of the city.
With only an hour to go before kickoff, we caught 2 Skytrains, got kicked out of a taxi because of 'traffic', and then a bus which dropped us off pretty close to the REAL National Stadium, which was unbelievable! Looked like the Colosseum!!
Got a sensational video to upload later from our seats which cost 220 baht (a steep $7.50 Aussie) to check out an International game of soccer - even though they played terribly!!

We all (us and Nick) headed to grab a bite to eat and found this cool little authentic Thai place near Sala Daeng station - where we were served by no less than 4 waiters - all of which spoke no English, and seeing that we speak no Thai, it proved to be an interesting experience! The food was awesome, but really spicy!!

Headed to the underground Metro railway and off at Lumphini station to the Muay Thai boxing - unfortunately the main event had already been decided so we instead headed to the Night Market, where Nick decided to part ways. Later on we found out that he ditched us for a renowned raunchy strip show in the famous Pat Pong district!

After a full on day - Chang and Singha's were on the menu!

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