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Published: February 10th 2013
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So I did it. I got on an aeroplane and travelled for almost 22 hours away from pretty much everything and everyone I've ever known with only a bag to live out of for the next six months. A slightly scary thought, but aside from a fairly comprehensive wine spillage all over my brand new 'travelling shirt' and the scottish girl next to me, pretty much everything went to plan on the flight over. I even managed to watch the new On The Road film for a little bit of inspiration too. Despite the fact I arrived a little dishevelled, covered in wine and generally looking like an alcohlic homeless man, I decided to drop myself in at the deep end and get the skytrain from the airport to the hostel. This turned out to be a great idea as I was treated to cracking views all accross the city as the sun set. Welcome to Bangkok indeed. First impressions are that it's completely mental. There is just so much to take in all of the time; the sights, the sounds, the (mainly reminiscent of a post-curry bathroom visit) smells. Everything seems to be constantly moving. The roads appear to be
Wat Arun, Bangkok
Please note my incredible shirt. a total free for all and the buildings all seem to have been constructed with little thought about where they are put, meaning they're all pretty much on top of each other. It's also suprisingly green, with trees and bushes growing out of pretty much everywhere. The heat and humidity is really quite something here too, you find that within minutes of going outside you are reduced to a sweaty mess. In short its totally unlike any other city I've ever been to, and I love it.
Over the past few days we have visited some of the main tourist attractions, kicking off with The Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. As soon as we arrived we managed to get caught in quite a large, well rehearsed tourist trap which ended up with us going on a tuk-tuk ride round the city, where we had to awkwardly turn down various jewellery and tailor made suits. A complete waste of time, but the tuk-tuk ride was a lot of fun. They are basically little trikes with a small engine and a bench accross the back, and they weave through the traffic at breakneck speeds beeping
their little horns to warn everyone that they're coming. My advice to anyone travelling would be if you don't plan on washing your underwear that often, don't go in a tuk-tuk. They really are quite scary. The first time we got in one the first 'manouvre' the driver pulled was to do a U-turn into four rows of oncoming traffic before dodging its way past buses, taxis and other tuk-tuks at a speed I would have presumed was quite beyond it's engine. After a few rides you do get used to it though and can let the blood flow back into your knuckles as you unclench your fists. With a good hour or so wasted we finally managed to get back to the temple, and after borrowing some of the rather snazzy trousers you have to wear, we could finally do what we came for. The temple was incredibly busy, as it is probably the most famous one in Thailand, but I still enjoyed it nevertheless. Aside from the pure size of it and the gold everywhere, the attention to the smallest details on every building and sculpture is what made it all so incredibly impressive. I particularly enjoyed the
Emerald Buddha, which isn't actually made of emerald, but is pretty old and was set atop of a fantastic golden throne and surrounded by several other buddha statues. I even managed an illicit photo. In the evening we went to Khao San road, the notorious backpacker district to have a few beers and meet some other travellers. I loved every minute of it. We were even invited to a table and had a few drinks with some Thai people, who seemed incredibly pleased that we were joining them. They were very nice, but did get a little too friendly for our liking (even the men!) meaning we had to make an excuse and wander off else risk becoming the victims of some kind of minor sexual assault. Quite amusing none the less.
The following day we hit up a few more of the famous temples in the city, first going to the Wat Arun (The Temple of the Dawn). This has possibly been my favourite temple so far. Aside from being far less busier than the Grand Palace, it was situated right on the riverside and you could climb the steep steps up to the top of
the stone structure. The views of the city here were incredible, you can really see the divide of the old city (lots of temples) and the new city (skytrain snaking through skyscrapers) seperated by the massive river Chao Phraya. I took some great panoramic photos and then made great use of the zoom on my camera from the top of the tower to take photos of asian people taking photos. I couldn't really tell you why this was so funny but it was. There were some belting photo taking stances going on. After visiting the temple we took a boat ride for about an hour, taking in all the usual tourist attractions before heading out round the canals to the poorer parts of the city. I was actually quite shocked to see the way the people around there lived, with their wooden shacks suspended over the river by stilts and washing their clothes in the river. The boat dropped us off on the other side of the river and we went to look around the Wat Phro (Temple of the Reclining Buddha). This houses a giant statue of the Buddha pulling his best 'look at me chillaxing' pose. As soon
as I entered the temple the sheer size of it is what really impressed me, all golden and glittering in the rays of sun that actually made it through the smog. It took a while to actually walk around it, it really was one big statue. Following a pretty successful day of being your stereotypical tourists we celebrated with a McDonalds takeaway (!) in which the big mac consisted of four (!!) burgers. I'm not even ashamed, it's pretty much foreign.
We got up early on the third day in Bangkok and travelled north for a day trip to Ayutthaya, the ancient capital of Thailand. Upon arriving we hired some fantasically retro bikes with incredibly questionable brakes and set about cycling around the old ruins. Although the roads here were much less hectic than in Bangkok, there still seemed to be very little structure or rules to the road use, which made it a bit of an adrenalin rush. The ruins themselves were of palaces and monastrys built in 1374 (which I think is a very similar time to Tonbridge Castle), and were ransacked and burned down during a war with Burma in 1764. As a result,
all of the ruins look pretty cool, most are twisted and crumbling and the sheer amount of them means it must have been a fairly massive city for ancient times. One particularly good bit was the head of a Buddha statue, which had become completely entangled in the roots of a Bodh tree. It looked like something you might see in a theme park, except it was actually real and hundreds of years old. We had lunch in a small Thai restraunt right down by the waters edge and then headed to see another Buddhist shrine, which housed a 12.5m high solid gold Buddha. It had been restored since it was built but still very impressive. It seems to me the Thai people of yesteryear seemed to love nothing more than making big gold Buddha statues. After we were all ruins-ed out we begrudgingly returned our bikes and headed back to Bangkok. In the evening we returned to Khao San road for more beers with other travellers. After another great night, with some choice dutch phrases learned, we headed back to bed.
Thats it for now. Today is Chinese New Year so we are heading over to
Chinatown in Bangkok and hopefully to the sky bar this evening before leaving tomorrow morning and heading for Sukothai.
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