Bangkok

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We arrived at Bangkok around 5am. As we made our way from the plane into the airport we realised we were once again amongst people who actually care about cleanliness! After 6 weeks in India, who’s airports we experienced smell and have chunks of ceiling missing, Bangkok international airport was a dream. We found the taxi rank easily – Thailand has signage! – and took a bright pink taxi to the hotel we had pre-booked online. We had paid quite a lot for our hotel and to be honest were not expecting it to be worth the money but as we were arriving so early just wanted somewhere we could just head straight to and sleep. The hotel was down a quiet side street, 10 minutes walk from Khao san road, but most importantly it was clean! We had a massive bed with a thick mattress, a nice bathroom with a shower curtain (these don’t seem to exist in India) and every day our room gets cleaned, we get fresh towels and 2 bottles of water in our fridge – that’s right, the room even came with its own little fridge. The hotel also came with breakfast included which we hadn’t actually realised when booking, and was buffet style with fresh Thai and western style food. Nom Nom.

That first day we slept. Got up in the afternoon and went for some food at this little lady’s café/restaurant round the corner. We sat outside eating our delicious Thai food and watching the lady’s little pet turtle, relieved to be in Thailand.

The nest day, after our free and tasty breakfast, we took a walk into town. On the way we were stopped by a friendly Thai lady who informed us of some temples that were apparently free entry that day and also told us we should go to the Tourism Office for information. Coming straight from India we were a bit wary of her advice but with no better plans we happily let her flag down a tuk-tuk, tell him where we wanted to go and negotiate what we thought was a pretty fair price. To be honest we are still not sure whether she was just very friendly or was working with the tuk-tuk drivers! He took us to the temples which were indeed free of charge and after took us to the ‘tourism office’. Of course this was not the official tourism office that the lady had pointed to on the map but rather one that would pay him a commission if we bought a tour. We had a similar move pulled on us in India! We went in anyway as we were wondering about the cost of booking trains through agents like these. We asked about a train ticket to Chiang Mai and before we knew it she was trying to sell us a week long package including a floating market, bridge over the river Kwai and the Tiger Temple tour, a night in Ayutthaya, 4 nights in Chiang mai including trekking, Laos visa and transportation across the border. We have to admit for a few minutes we considered it but then came to our senses and realised it was overpriced and would give us little freedom or flexibility for the next 10 days. When we returned to the tuk-tuk and informed the driver that we had not purchased anything he went from being mr friendly to mr irritated ‘why no buy, I take you another shop!’ We declined his impolite offer to visit another shop and asked him to take us to Khao san road which he did in silence, mwahaha.

We took a walk down Khao san road, stopped for lunch then walked back up again, unimpressed with the overpriced market stalls, restaurants and the hung-over tourists we headed back to our hotel for a few hours where we arranged train tickets from Ayutthaya to Chiang Mai for a few days time. We also booked the floating market, bridge over the river Kwai and Tiger Temple tour that the lady had tried to sell us that morning at a much cheaper price. In the evening we returned to turtle lady’s restaurant for some more of her yummy food. Just as we had sat down it started to pour down with rain and so we spent the next few hours taking advantage of the free Wifi until the rain stopped.

We were picked up from our hotel at 7am for the tour and drove straight to the floating market. The market is of course focused on tourists and for most stalls massively overprice their goods. Despite this we really enjoyed our morning paddling along the river packed with colourful market stalls selling the most random souvenirs and the boats selling fresh fruit and Thai cuisine. We then took a speed boat (speedier than an Indian speed boat but still not that fast) to a resort on the river where we had to wait for another group. There was a cobra show but Angelo wimped out so we just grabbed some drinks and enjoyed the river view.

We were then driven to a restaurant for lunch before visiting the bridge over the river Kwai. More interesting than the bridge itself or the strange little museum on the river bank were the two baby leopards and the tiger cub from the local zoo sat at the side of the road. For a 100baht donation you got to play with/hold/feed the cubs. It was a nice unexpected addition to the day, they were so cute! By this time it was once again pouring with rain so we cut our visit to the bridge short to get to the Tiger Temple quickly. It had stopped raining by the time we got there and our guide rushed us through the ticket booth and through the entrance. Now, Tiger Temple is the place where you can get really up close with tigers, touching them and having your photo taken with them. We joined the queue for the free photos. What happens is a member of staff takes your camera while another holds your hand and walks you round all the tigers who are lying on the floor. The staff sit you down behind each tiger and snap away with your camera before leading you back out. We weren’t sure how we felt about this place. On one hand it’s a chance to get really close to these animals and it is quite amazing to touch and stroke an animal that could quite easily tear your head off if it wanted to. On the other hand everything felt quite rushed and you don’t get enough time to appreciate these animals unless you pay the extra money for additional experiences. The trip had already pushed us way over budget so we didn’t opt for any of those extra experiences, no one on our tour did. We climbed back into the minibus and drove back to Bangkok. That night we took a walk back into town for some dinner, opting for some cheap but tasty street food after our expensive day out!

The next morning we got up fairly late but managed to make it to the train station for around 10:20am. We bought tickets to Ayutthaya, the old capitol of Thailand. The train ride cost around 30p per person, bargain!!

Deb & Ang

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Photos

Ang posing with some Japanese dummies
At River Kwai museum