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Published: September 2nd 2008
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We touched down in Bangkok about 9pm and decided to catch a bus to the Khao San road which is the backpackers Mecca and a good place to start, the whole place was bustling with people and lively music, the humidity was intense and the temperature 33 degrees! We couldn’t find our guesthouse to start with so we must of walked around for a good 30 minutes in the heat with the backpacks on, it was hard work and sweaty, did think I might collapse for a second! Eventually we did find our place to stay and it was cool, nice and cheap basic room with clean shared bathrooms.
We decided to pop out and get a drink as soon as the backpacks were off and it was madness! The streets were packed with food vendors, loads of people International and Thai, various dogs and cats and all sorts of music, clothes, markets etc……it is an amazing city which is very exciting, seedy but totally addictive!
For the next few days we toured the city by foot and used a Tuk Tuk as cheap mode of transport, the latter being a hold onto your pants kind of ride but
loads of fun. We went to Wat Po and saw the gold reclining Buddha, this statue stands at 46m long and 15m high and is the largest reclining Buddha in the whole of Thailand, very impressive! We didn’t visit the Golden palace as we have both been before, however it can been seen from the roadside which is cool and there are many temples and spectacular architecture to see in all directions.
Our tour on foot which we name ’Craigys Tours’ due to the fact he had the map and some knowledge of the area (we should of charged people to come along, make a few baht) took us to the Golden Mount which had just shut when we got there but an amazing building all the same, we took a few pics and chilled for a hour, On our way out of the grounds we met a couple who also were too late to go in so we stopped and had a chat, they were from Bulgaria and Germany and really nice to talk to. They were on there way to China Town so we decided to walk with them and check it out. China Town was brilliant!
It is again very lively with loads of roadside restaurants, bars and all nationalities, we bought some chicken satay off a street vendor and sat down on the kerb and watch the hustle for a while, very cool!
After a very entertaining session of people watching we sat down and ordered dinner on the roadside seafood restaurant, lovely menu and really cheap, its situated on the roadside kerb so you are in the ‘thick of the action’ so to speak. At one point the road was cleared by the police and a machine made the street wet, a film crew then arrived and they started shooting a scene for a movie unfortunately no Brad Pitt (Boo!) but I’m sure the actors are famous in their countries. Anyway before all this a really nice aussie guy called Ed joined us for dinner, he was on his own doing a 3 week tour of Thailand, Cambodia, he was really chatty and a good laugh, so we all decided to catch a Tuk Tuk to Pat Pong and have a few drinks and walk around the night markets, a few shots and Jack Daniels later we made our way back to the
Khao San road and myself and Craig drank a few more drinks in the Silk Bar (plays classic dance tracks from the 90’s) before heading home, needless to say I don’t remember the walk home much and my head was a bit jaded in the morning lol!
Continuing our tour on foot myself and Craig covered quite a lot Bangkok and ate our way through enough Pad Thai to feed a small country, very delicious and good value for money, under a £1 for a decent Thai meal! We sat in the local park and chilled out and Craig was interviewed by a school girl from the local college about his trip, so sweet she had a tape recorder and loads of questions. We managed to get a free bottle of coke as there was some sort of promo on, bonus! On one occasion we took a boat trip around the backwaters of Bangkok, it was like river taxi really, very long and quite colourful, this took us to the floating markets where everything is done in a boat, cooking, selling of goods. There were children jumping off bridges into the river, I think its like ‘Tomb stoning’ Thai
stylie, a bit scary to watch but goes to show kids do the same kind of stupid stuff no matter where your are in the world!
In the evenings we trawled around the streets eating in various restaurants, markets and generally soaking up the atmosphere. We stumbled across this roof top bar called Gazebo which was really great, it had excellent lighting, lovely cushions on low seating in the open air, very cool, the in house band sang cover versions of chart hits which was great, the Thai guy singing Elton John songs was quite amusing but the girl singer was brilliant she covered ‘Bleeding’ love almost perfectly! It was a excellent sing a long evening ha ha!
Next stop for us is Koh Chang!
With love
Caroline and Craig xxxxxx
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