First day in Bangkok

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Day 1 in the big city!

Our first mission of the day (not counting getting out of bed!) was to head across town to buy tickets for the train to Chiang Mai. Our hotel in on a soi (street) right next to the Nana Skytrain system, making the city easily assessible without the need to haggle for taxis or TukTuks! We made it onto the Sky Train system and sucessfully negotiated our way off it at the next station along, where we changed onto the MRT (underground). At the end of the line is main train station, Hualamphong.

We were greeted at the station entrance by a very nice lady who showed us where to go to get our tickets. We booked an upper and lower bunk together for a grand total of 1700 baht (about 35 quid, for a journey of around 750km). On our way out of the station we got a corn on the cob each from a street vendor cart, very yummy and cheap too!

We made our way back to the MRT and then onto the Sky Train, but this time we stayed on for a few more stations and headed to the shopping centres near Siam station. The shopping Centre with direct access to the Sky Train station is Siam Paragon. It was huge. We went up what felt like a never ending number of escalators to the very top where there is a multiplex cinema and an IMAX theatre. We were too late for the IMAX but i got Adam to agree to take me there later in our stay.

We headed back down the escalators and on one floor it was like a huge car showroom, only they were all sports cars. Porches, Ferraris Etc. A very strange sight in a shopping centre!
Anyway, this shopping centre was full of designer international stores and nothing we were interested in, so we headed off down the road in search of a supermarket to get a few essentials.

Not too far away we found a Big C supermarket - similar to a big Tescos only its over more floors and has a huge food court and some other smaller shops in it too. Got our bits and bobs and then had a wander back to our hotel, stopping at a street vendor for some food. Adam had a sausage on a stick and i had a bag of chicken pops. More yummy food. 😊

Our final stop of the day was on our street. We had a few beers at a quiet bar, where we met an retired seafarer (suprise suprise!). I went online and booked our hotel and elephant trip in Chiang Mai.

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