Bangkok


Advertisement
Thailand's flag
Asia » Thailand » Central Thailand » Bangkok
March 24th 2011
Published: March 24th 2011
Edit Blog Post

We enjoyed Bangkok more than I thought we would after hearing reports from other people! We had been told to only stay a couple of days, but after handing over our passports to the Vietnamese Embassy on the Thursday (our first full day), we had to stay for 3 working days meaning we had to stay till Monday. Despite what we'd heard we filled our days and enjoyed them! Sorry to those who find the day-to-day commentary boring, but its easier for me to remember that way!

We spent the first day navigating the sky train to and from the Vietnamese Embassy. We had a wander round this shopping centre, which was interesting as it was basically like a five-storey indoor market, but didn't buy anything (partly because it was basically like a more-expensive-than-the-outside indoor market). That evening we had a wander up and down the famous Khao San Road.

The next day we went to the Grand Palace, and the temple of the Emerald Buddha. These were amazing. The buildings were covered in a variety of intricate patterns in a rainbow of colours, it should have clashed, but it actually worked and the outcome was stunning. This is probably the most impressed we've been by architecture so far on our trip in south-east Asia. We then walked onto Wat Pho which holds a incredibly large (probably the largest) statue of a reclining Buddha, almost to large for the building that houses it, making it very hard to photograph! We continued our walk to the Golden Mount, a temple built on top of the ruins of its predecessor. It was impossible to photograph! At the top we were able to see a monk ceremony taking place (we don't know what it was but it was interesting). That evening we walked to Chinatown in search of some incredible food. In a sense this was a bit of a failure as our actual meal was average. However, we made up for this by buying some thai pancakes and this sweet bread thing. Despite the rubbish main meal, we had a great time wandering round as the place was full of a variety of foodstalls, we even saw shark fin soup!

Over breakfast the next day we were looking at our potential itinerary and decided we probably wouldn't have time to take a cooking class in Chiang Mai like we'd been planning. So we looked our trusty lonely planet and saw that there was a cookery school just around the corner with classes that afternoon! Our teacher/chef Ning was fantastic: a brilliant cook and lovely person. After finding out we both studied politics and Jamie history she spent ages chatting with us about Thai political history. To those of you who hate it when we talk about politics, this wouldn't have been fun for you, but we loved it! We asked what a traditional Thai desert would be and she invited us back on the Sunday when she would bring some for us to try. We learnt how to cook pad thai (a noodle dish), tom yam (spicy soup) and panaeng (red) curry. After eating our three dishes we were way too full for dinner, which is good as we will probably never find food as good as Ning's anywhere else!

The next day we went to the Weekend Market. Again, I imagine this sounds like a nightmare to a lot of you, but it was fun. The market is not really aimed at tourists, which makes it much more interesting than most markets! On the Sunday, we returned to the cooking school to eat our desert! Ning presented us with mango and sticky rice and it was delicious! The rice is coconuty and sweet and complimented the mango brilliantly! Jamie said it was the best desert he has ever tasted! However, I don't know how the Thai women can eat rice for breakfast, for their mains and for desert AND stay so skinny! After that we went to Dusit Palace Park to see a collection of Thai artwork and an old palace made entirely out of teak famed for being built without one single nail (only wooden pins - takes the edge of the amazement from the no nails). Our tour guide was a character though, finding out which country everyone was from and pointing out all of the things made in that country: "Anyone from Germany? MG42, still working, *makes gun noise*, sorry sorry, still working, *gun noise* sorry sorry... Anyone from England, telescope 19th century, still working!" We decided to walk further afield than Khao San Road for dinner and we hit the jackpot with this guy in front of a 7/11 serving 2 dishes, he spoke no English, we had one of each and both were delicious! When we asked (gestured) about drinks he pointed towards the "seven", simple yet brilliant restaurant!

We finished our time in Bangkok like it started, with a trip to the Vietnamese Embassy. We decided that in order to save time and taxi fares we would take a taxi to the train station and I would wait with our bags whilst Jamie took the skytrain and subway to the Vietnamese Embassy. He returned empty handed as he arrived at 11.35 and unbeknown to us it shut from 11.30-1.30! This meant a long wait in the train station for me and several trips back and forth (in the pouring rain) for Jamie, fortunately there was a Dunkin' Doughnuts in the station to sweeten our mood. The security guards on the subway would salute to Jamie (but not other people) every time he walked past which kept him entertained!



Advertisement



Tot: 0.062s; Tpl: 0.008s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0415s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.1mb