Bangkok Baptism (waaaaaay overdue)

---

Whats up people!

Hope you're not missing us all too much! At the minute we're in Cambodia, decided to have a little bit of a last minute change of plan and cut out Vietnam; bit of a shame but it gives us more time and flexibility to do all the other stuff we wanted to do, bearing in mind we've gotta be in Singapore by the 29th of March!

Well, guess I better start from the beginning! Me and Rich, after an epic journey from Bangkok airport in a pick-up truck (dont ask), finally met Pete at our hostel, and after plenty of back-slapping and catching up we took all our stuff to our room upstairs and sorted everything out, grabbing a much-needed shower!

Our rooms were pretty basic, but we had a bed, a bathroom, and a bar downstairs so what more could we want?! Once we were sorted out we headed straight into Bangkok, which I have to say is a pretty crazy place. Its dirty, crowded, smoggy, chaotic and polluted, but it somehow holds a strange charm. Its people race around on motorbikes weaving through the ridiculous traffic, and how we didn't see any crashes I'll never know!

Its so utterly disorganised its incredible it manages to function at all - and often, it just doesn't! 8 million people are packed into the sprawling city, which makes it roughly the size of London, but thats pretty much where the similarities to anything back home end. Despite being the most expensive part of Thailand, on our first night we got an AMAZING thai green curry for about 2 quid and a litre bottle of Singha beer each for the same. I gotta say that went down pretty well.. and the only things I have to say about Thai cuisine are ridiculously positive!

After several more beers we decided to head out, and seeing how sleazy Bangkok was, we told our tuk-tuk driver to take us to bars, but with 'NO GIRLS! No girly bars, ok?!' Nodding in understanding, he took us to the gay district, where a thousand ladyboys popped up calling us over and trying to entice us. We've never moved so fast in our life!

We quickly realised its pretty hard to find a normal bar in Bangkok. It seems like everyone presumes if you are western then you're only there for the sex industry, which is obviously pretty irritating when all you wanna do is grab a few beers with your mates and have a dance somewhere, but I guess its sadly indicative of what most people go to Bangkok for. One of the most bizzarre moments of the night was seeing a live Thai rock band and playing Connect 4 against one of the bar staff... Why she had Connect 4 with her at work I have no idea, but ya know... When In Rome!

The rest of the night was pretty hilarious, we met two girls from Middlesborough, so enjoying some conversation that didn't revolve around the opening line 'You want lady?' or 'You want go ping-pong show?' we went to a late night bar with them and chilled for a bit before grabbing a tuk-tuk home.

Tuk-tuks are the ubiquitious Thai transport, and are possibly the funnest way of travelling ever invented. Its basically a three-wheeled moped, with a metal frame and three seats at the back, covered by a thin canvas roof, and tearing down the Bangkok streets at night, weaving between the traffic at ridiculous speeds whilst holding on for dear life is not only cheaper but better than any rollercoaster on the planet! Even more amusingly, ours ran out of petrol on the way home, so we had to get out and help our little thai driver push it to the nearest petrol station!

Even after our first day, we knew Bangkok was just a little bit mental...

---