Day 23 - 25: Bangkok

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Songkran almost ruined our travel plans! The new year in Thailand is a huge event and turns out that a lot of people tend to head to the islands for a break. So when we tried to get transport to Bangkok we were told that all the trains were completely booked! We eventually stumbled in to a more helpful travel place and were told we could get to Bangkok today but it would involve a slow ferry crossing (4 hours instead of 2) and a overnight bus which would leave at 19:30 and get to Bangkok at 5:30am. We were ready to leave so we decided to go for it. So we spent the morning slowly getting ready and managed to watch a video taken on Heidi's last dive before we said goodbye to everybody and set off.

The ferry was slow as promised but we sat on the edge of the boat our feet dangling over the edge watching flying fish evade the boat, so it wasn't all bad. Little wait for the bus and we were off. We managed to get front row seats to what appeared to be a private screening of G.I. Joe! That was obviously the disaster for this blog. We did however get dropped off in Bangkok at 2:30am, 3 hours earlier than expected after a difficult maybe 2 hours sleep. With a hotel booked already for tomorrow night we were a little lost at what to do. In the end we decided to head to the hotel and enquire about an extra night and hopefully get some sleep. The tuk tuk ride over was eventful with the driver warning us to stay away from several places and promising us an adventure! The hotel staff were very nice in the end and let us in to our room at 5:00 at no extra cost. So we just killed a few hours on the internet.

After a few hours sleep and feeling refreshed we headed out in Bangkok. Heidi had some detailed steps to follow to reach a temple we shouldn't miss, it felt like a treasure hunt or something. It involved crossing several bridges, getting a canal boat before we eventually arrived. It looked closed, there was nobody about....luckily for us a local came over who it turned out was a teacher! He said that the sight was closed as it was a holiday and that we should get a tuk tuk to take us to several places for just 5 Bht. He even said to use a government tuk tuk only and called one over for us (WARNING...WARNING). We both knew something was up but we felt a little lost in a strange place....and knowing deep down it was a scam.....we got on???? Anyway we drove round the corner to an absolute dive of a temple....and were told to look around. At that point we just walked away after paying 10 Bht as promised. So nothing lost but I guess narrowly avoided being forced to buy a gem or some silk or something.

From there we got a metered taxi to the Grand Palace....who actually let me pay less than the metre displayed, maybe our luck had changed. The Grand Palace was nice.....we had a good look round.....it was so hot though. We knew Bangkok would be humid but nothing had prepared us. We went from there to Wat Pho and then to Wat Arun. It was a nice day in the end.....we saw a lot of interesting markets and buddha statues etc. We got a river boat to a sky train and the sky train back to our hotel....all very easy and great to see the river at sunset. Bit of a disaster later however after waiting for about 20 minutes for the river boat to go back up the river we eventually read that they stop at 7:00pm. So we headed back towards our hotel for something to eat instead.

The next day we booked tickets on an overnight sleeper train to Chang Mai and decided to check out a shopping centre in search of some bargains. The sky train stop we needed happened to be where the red shirts had camped out but luckily for us there was very little activity so we sneaked past and went to MBK. It was a nice change from buddha statues and felt like an American mall. We had a good look round and I even bullied Heidi in to watching Clash of the Titans in 3D. An ok film, a great cinema and a weird tribute to the king at the start. From there we hit Kho San road....took in the atmosphere and did a little more shopping. Then on to Chinatown before heading to a restaurant my mum had recommended. After a long day we were shattered and couldn't handle going to the Muay Thai kickboxing as we had planned.

Next day was spent at a huge weekend market and walking through town. I enjoyed Bangkok, which sort of caught me off guard. A lot of people I've spoken to hated it....I'm not sure why maybe as you step off a plane it's a lot to take in but for us it seemed like a natural progression. Getting around was easy and a pleasure.....the hotel was great and the food in Bangkok was nice. All in all I enjoyed our three days there, I would even say I could have stayed longer. It's a not exactly an attractive city but there's lots to do and many adventures to be had just speak to an official looking person outside any of the many temples! Next stop Chang Mai!

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