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Published: January 4th 2010
Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, its very name conjures up images - those images will depend on what it is you want: such as the backpacker haven of Thanon Khao San or the girlie bars and ping pong shows of Patpong in downtown Bangkok being both ends of the spectrum and a multitude in between. The intense sensory overload will hit you day one; the manic pace of tuk-tuk drivers as they hurtle you around the city as if completing their personal best on Gran Turasmo 3, to the variety of smells, some welcome, like BBQ chicken others horrendous: the pungent smell of drains from the city’s many open sewages. The city is awash with cultural activities from the numerous Wats around, some large and grand such as Wat Pho or also known as Wat Phra Chetuphon and its large Reclining Buddha and if markets are you choice of entertainment Bangkok has more than its fair share and G being G dragged T to most of them.
We arrived in Bangkok after a very pleasant overnight train journey from Chiang Mai and found ourselves amongst the hustle and bustle of Hualamphong Station, Bangkok’s main station. On arrival we were approached by a
railway employee there to help hapless tourists in distress, they asked for our destination and then pointed us towards the metered taxi rank emphasising to use the metered taxi and not the waiting tuk-tuk. Another egger to please assistant approached us, repeated the same process and once again told us to only use metered taxis - so we did. We arrived at the hotel at 8:30am to find our booked room not vacant until 11:00 am, after a hearty breakfast we left our bags and ventured out in to the heat for a wander. We returned at the allotted 11th hour and our room now wouldn’t be ready until 12:30pm, slightly peeved we set about looking for another hotel and find one called the Rambuttri Village Inn a stones throw away from the Khao San Road, the room was very pleasant with air-con and TV, but the Brucey bonus was a swimming pool on the roof, and this was a 140bhat cheaper than the last place at 750 per night. We checked in and then went back to our other hotel and removed our bags from the baggage room and ran, having not put any financial security down on the
room we had nothing to lose.
As it was a Sunday and with G’s insatiable fondness of all things tacky we ventured to the Chatuckak weekend market, neither of us was particularly keen on the voyage but it was the last day of the market - it being a weekend one after all. We jumped on the local bus and paid a visit; this market was huge and could have held an FA cup final, so we ventured in. T being someone whom hates markets with all his heart and has to be almost dragged in kicking and screaming, was in his element, thousand of stalls full of crap, the place heaving with people, the heat pushing the mercury pasted the 35*c mark and the hordes of tourist walking around ooohing and arring at shit they wouldn’t touch if this were back in England/Australia or were ever is home. Thankfully god was looking down on T and on the 30,000th stall we turned a corner and there it was, lights flashing, chairs spread about, the stench of beer and the bartender standing there with open arms as if welcoming a long lost son, an oasis, a heaven amongst hell
- a BAR! So T was dumped here whilst G performed her tourist obligations and went in search of pillow cushions of all things.
After about 30 minutes even G had had enough and returned, we left the place as fast as possible and headed towards Bangkok’s immaculate sky train and headed to Siam Square for a look. After a couple of hours looking about and a chat to a Siam centres security dude - telling us that English people should deserve the best and to avoid the rubbish markets, we tried to get a taxi back but after being quoted an ungodly price from a tuk-tuk driver to take us back to Khao San Road - 500 baht, that would make a London cabbie blush!! What was even more worrying was when T laughed at him and walked away, he didn’t try and lower the price - inflation has arrived in Thailand! Thankfully we found the local bus that went to Khao San Road for 7 baht!
Once we finally made it back, we ventured out for beers and found a cool little bar playing some good tunes and sat there for the evening, T was sinking
back Chang beer and on drinking his 6th the waiter came over and congratulated him, “6 big chang, well done!” T realised he had completed the 5 chang challenge. The Chang challenge is based on the notion that Chang is unregulated, although it says it’s 6.4% on the bottle, popular belief is that drinking Chang is like a alcoholic roulette, one bottle can be the advised 6.4%, the next could be 3% the next 5%, then 7% and then final being a 10% and thus knocks you out! So that’s why the waiter was so impressed with T. On G’s behalf, he didn’t seem too impressed with her drinking of 6 glasses of wine which disappointed her, after many months off the stuff she was still just about standing.
We woke late feeling weary from the previous night’s excesses, to the left of our hotel lay the union jack and underneath the words “British Café”, both looking at each other with the same thought running through our minds - a proper English fry up, this should clear the hangover mist and set us on our day. The British Café lived up to our every expectation and surpassed T’s, they
sold black pudding - bacon and black pudding baguette coming up, G order the full English and afterwards smugly sniggered at other backpacking eating Pad Thai.
Belly’s full we headed to Wat Pho or as the Thais call it Wat Phra Chetuphon, by either name is a stunning ‘complex’ of wats with the centre piece being the huge Reclining Buddha. The gardens of Wat Pho have some stunning buildings and is a rather pleasant place to potter. We headed back to our hotel for a swim and then out for some dinner and some beers.
After a reserved evening we were both up early and ready to attack Bangkok’s cultural sights, but not until a visit to the British Café for another bacon and black pudding baguette for T and tinned toms of toast for G with eggs a fav of hers back at home . First port of call was to be the Grand Palace, en-route to the palace we bumped into a local chap, who’s English was impeccable, he informed us that he was a teacher in the local university. After the pleasantries were conducted he guessed we were heading to the Grand Palace and went
on to tell us that it was closed, as the monks were performing a ceremony of some description, but would be open again at 2pm. T having just splashed out 45 baht on a map - a growing obsession of his, the chap proceeded to draw all over his map, drawing mountains, badly drawn wats etc, then told us what these were, he then planned a trip for us, then hailed a tuk-tuk, much to our initial refusals but he carried on regardless, he negotiated a fee of 40 baht for the whole trip and we were ushered into the tuk-tuk not quite sure what had just happened. T said to G that the chap was a either a really friendly man, who has negotiated us a great deal or he has set us up for a royal rip off, we waited with baited breath!!!! The tuk-tuk driver en-route to our first wat told us it was a Government day so all the wats were free to enter - we didn’t have a clue if this was true or not, thinking that maybe they were free any other day! But we were told as long as you used a Government
tuk-tuk (apparently one with a yellow licence plate) for today only they were paying for all travel hence why it cost 40bhat! This first Wat is not in our guidebook and can’t for the life of us remember what it’s called, but was pretty, your usual gold Buddha. Next on our ‘itinerary’ was Wat Indraviharn, which holds a massive 32 metre high mirror plated statue of Buddha holding an alms bowl. Wat Benjamabophit was next, this is known as ‘The Marble Temple and is a mix of classical Thai and European 19th Centaur design, the grounds were very pretty and with a stream and cute bridges over it made for a nice picture, incidentally, our guidebook states that it is one of the best temples in Bangkok to witness religious festivals and rituals, although we didn’t see anything, they were preparing for something.
Feeling quite embarrassed for expecting to be ripped off, we have seen what the chap , suggested, the driver then asked if we could go to three shops, stating “ 5 minutes in each, just looking no buy, you like, you buy, you no like, you no buy” he then explained that he will get 10
litres of gasoline, expecting this to happen it didn’t bother T as it was a one off hit, we got a cheap price he gets free fuel, incidentally, T purchased something from one of the shops, so it worked out well. After our whistle stop tour of Bangkok, our tuk tuk driver dropped us back at the entrance to the Grand Palace in time for its re-opening at 2pm.
The Grand Palace is the ceremonial Palace of the Thai king (who incidentally on the bank notes looks just like G’s dad!!!!), and was officially opened in 1785 and marked a new era of the new capital after it defeated the Burmese invasion and was the rebirth of the Thai nation. Within the Palace stands Wat Phra Kaeo which is the holiest religious site in the whole of Thailand, with the Emerald Buddha being the country’s most important image. So with all this in mind we venture in and are met with a dress code, not shorts showing the knee, no singlet’s or vest-tops, no tight trousers, miniskirts or short shorts and most annoyingly no shawls. G supporting a very nice dress was ok but for the strappy shoulders it
had, so had to go into the changing room and hire a garment to cover the shoulders and as her emergency shawl she carries with her everywhere for occasions just like this was deemed in-sufficient, as you can see from the photos it really finished off her outfit.
The entrance fee to the Palace is an extortionate 350 baht each which in today’s money is a whooping 7 pounds of the Queens English EACH!!!!! We walk around, looking at the intricate tapestry style painting adoring the walls of the Palace, we even watched a painter topping up the art work - very impressive. We ventured into see the Emerald Buddha and it’s a very impressive sight. After an hour or so we had see enough and G had sweated about a third of her body weight in the shirt she was given to cover her shoulders.
After a very cultural and sightseeing day we award ourselves some cold ones and some food.
The next day, we started the day with once again a visit to the British Café, G sticking to tinned tomatoes on toast and T the usual Black pudding and bacon baguette. We spent the
morning in the pool relaxing and enjoying the sun, then headed to the British Embassy to see if our bank cards had arrived, we arrive at 3:30pm to find it closed at 3:15pm, slightly annoyed by the Embassy’s working hours and wondering what would happen if we came hurling down the street being pursued by police or the army, sprinting along at high speed hoping the embassy had a chopper on the roof ready to take us to safety, we turn the corner down Wireless Road and bang on the door of Her Majesty’s British Embassy Bangkok to find they have closed for the day, there is no chopper………
Slightly annoyed we walked the length of Wireless Road which is a lot longer than its portrayed on the map, to find the metro, our aim was to visit Patpong the seedy part of town, G wanted to see a ping pong show, so we arrived in day light to find another market being set up, we headed to a café for a bite to eat and a beer and waited for the night market to kick off (the market bit only relevant to G, still not having found her
cushion covers, so was still on a market mission). We walked down Patpong and stopped at a normal bar for a beer, but then further investigations - men coming up to you with a card asking if you want to see ping pong show, man and woman having sex and a host of other things, after realising that there is no ‘tourist’ ping pong show and with the potential of being robbed in one of the upstairs establishments we decided against it and headed for the metro heading for yet another night market in search of these darn pillow cases, thankfully there were bars for T.
Once G had purchased her many cushion covers (T blames Hannah for this) we headed back up to Khao San Road and sunk a few ales and watched the entertainment on the road.
Our final morning in Bangkok couldn’t pass without a trip to the British café for breakfast - yes you have guessed it the usual black Pudding and bacon baguette for T! G opting for a cheese and BRANSTON pickle sandwich!!! It’s been a while, she just couldn’t resist!!!! Tummys nicely full we waited for our pickup for our minivan
to Kanachanaburi to the Death Railway.
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