Suits, cycling and street-food in Bangkok

---

Sarah: We arrived in Bangkok late Saturday afternoonafter a short internal flight from Chiang Mai: a bit of light relief after our last 16-odd hour marathon journey from Laos. At the busy domestic airport, we waited an age to get our luggage, waited less of an age to get a taxi, but then we were on our way to Sukhumvit in downtown Bangkok. We were initially a bit disappointed with our hotel. They knocked two quid a day off the price as the breakfast service was cancelled. It is difficult to find breakfast for a quid a head where we are, unless you want some street meat, which I personally find hard to stomach that early in the morning surrounded by morning 'city smells'! Also, the corridors all smelt a bit grotty: that'll teach us for picking a hotel called 'Grottino', we thought! However, once we were in our room the corridor smells were replaced by a fresh clean ones, the room was enormous and the shower wasn't a wet room and had a proper shower door rather than a clingy shower curtain. Result.

The first job of the day was to fulfil an appointment made with a local tailor to fit Nick with some new work threads. The streets were teeming with tailors, all offering made-to-measure suits at bargain prices. While most of them I'm sure are very legit, quality operations, you could see from the mannequins in the windows that others were obviously not (turn-ups on your suit trousers anyone?). Nick had done his research to avoid any shoddy suits and we met with a wry yet charming Indian chap to help choose fabrics and styles. Previous suit-buying experiences have usually involved little more consideration than 'do they have my size in both jacket and trousers?', 'is it shiny?' 'is it reasonably priced?' (yes, no, yes means it's a done deal). The tailor helped us through all of the decisions: quality of the fabric, colour/pattern, lining, pocket style, jacket vents, cuffs, trouser leg fit and shirt collar/button type, filling in all the details on the order form. Knowing that the opportunity to pick up a custom-made suit wouldn't come up any time soon he might as well make the most of it, Nick soon (after much deliberation and chopping and changing) had on order two suits with an extra pair of trousers for each and two shirts. Phew. If there's one thing that really brings on a thirst it's a shopping trip and after all that decision making and spending it was definitely time for a cold one! We popped in to the nearest bar which was also showing the tail-end of the Grand Prix qualifying and had a debrief on the initial tailor experience. We decided that we were both very pleased with the tailor and our decisions (although my chief fashion consultant role was a minor one).

Time passed and our appetite was increasing. Feeling decidedly lazy we stayed put and ordered a couple of Thai stir fries from the bar. They were tasty and simple and once they were swiftly dispatched it was time to head back to our hotel for a good night's sleep, passing several glamorous sequin-clad ladyboys on our way home offering their wares for photos or more! The next morning began with an unwelcome hunt for breakfast (I'm so hungry in the morning that traipsing around for breakfast does not put me in the best of moods). We settled on a nearby French cafe, which was a bit pricy but did do a decent scrambled egg with smoked salmon with a warm baguette on the side and a good coffee.

For our first day exploring Bangkok we were heading out on our self-devised 'temple tour'. We started our journey on the Bangkok metro to the main station, Hua Lamphong, with a view to walking through Chinatown and then heading north to Wat Po and Wat Phra Kaeo. Unfortunately, the only map we had was a not-to-scale public transport map with only some of the main roads marked on. Following our noses we walked for (what felt like) miles, but we did take in some of Chinatown, several canals, the river and a bit of local life before arriving at our first destination, Wat Po. It was a sizey temple complex, with the main draw being the enormous reclining Buddha. We followed the crowds and joined the sausage machine of tourists and locals filtering around and taking snaps. There was even a queue near Buddha's feet to get a photo of his full length, which is otherwise obscured by various pillars. Without waiting for the big money shot we carried on around the temple marvelling at the size of the Buddha and the temple that housed him. A swift tour of the rest of the temple complex was a little less crowded and the temples were very well-maintained and impressive. Heat and hunger soon got the better of us and we were off to find some lunch. After our relatively expensive western breakfast we were looking for something cheap and local for lunch. We found it in the form of a little kitchen on the corner where we pointed at the dishes that we wanted that were nicely warmed by the afternoon sun and prayed to avoid an acute gastro bug episode (I feel we're living on borrowed time in that regard).

Next stop was Wat Phra Kaeo (a.k.a. the Temple of the Emerald Buddha) and The Grand Palace: two attractions for the price of one. We arrived at the entry gate to be greeted by hordes of tourists, tour groups and umbrellas. In terms of tourist crowds this was definitely pushed straight to the top of the charts, so much so that after several umbrella spokes in my hair and eyes whilst trying to make our way to the ticket booth we almost abandoned ship, especially when we got sent back through the crowds to queue in another crazy line to borrow some longer trousers for Nick who's shorts were too short that day (my 'temple outfit' covered me enough but does serve to make me hot and bothered!). Again we followed the crowds and happened upon the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The room was full of a pyramid of gold and sparkly ornaments, all topped with an (you guessed it) emerald Buddha. There are three routes around the temple and grand palace complex: long, medium and fast. Following the red 'fast' arrows as religiously as possible we left the temple complex and made it to the front of the Grand Palace. We took a few regulation snaps before battling our way out to the trouser return. We had survived our ordeal and although the Philistine Klaxon is now broken from overuse, the temples and palaces that we had seen were impressive, although I'm afraid that is me done: sorry SE Asia, no more temples for me.

We decided to try and walk back to the train station, again using our noses and rubbish map, thinking we could definitely find a more direct route back than the one we'd come from. Although I think we did take the most direct route back it was a lot further than I had estimated and by the time we got to the train station after about 7 hours on our feet, I was knackered. On getting home to a much needed shower we headed straight out to try and find a bar showing the Hungarian GP, which we soon did. We were not disappointed as it was a very exciting race and made us stay until the end, with a few snacks to keep us going. Once the race was finished we headed to one of the enormous shopping centres nearby, the airport-themed Terminal 21 (the doors all have gate numbers over them and the information boards are labelled 'check-in information' etc). I had read that there were a lot of cheap food stalls on the top floor and once we'd ascended the never-ending vertiginous escalators we were treated to a great choice of cheap eats. After our bar snacks we only needed some dumplings and a roast duck and noodle dish to share to fill us up. A satisfying end to a long and tiring day!

Nick: On Sunday morning we were back out looking for somewhere to grab brekkie. The French cafe visited the previous day had been very good but a but pricier than we'd like and not really a long term answer to our breakfast needs so the search was on once again! Not being familiar with the neighbourhood in which we were staying, where most of the restaurants and cafes seem to be tucked discreetly away down side streets (or 'sois' as all such side streets are called here), we were wandering around for a while before we settled on a coffee shop, by which time I was feeling decidedly hungry and grumpy! A strong coffee and a pain-au-chocolat (Sarah opting for the much healthier bagel and cream cheese option) soon improved matters...not especially local cuisine - or low-cal, for that matter - but then neither is our usual complement of eggs and bread! After breakfast, we spent a couple of hours back at our hotel doing a bit of research into the Thai islands, the next port of call on our southwards journey through the country. As always seems to be the case with these things, hours flew past and it was afternoon before we made it back out of the hotel to see some more of the city.&& First stop was the Terminal 21 shopping centre once again, to grab a cheap but functional lunch of stir-fried noodles, before making our way further along Sukhumvit road to Soi 26, a walk of just 25-30 minutes from our hotel. The reason: we'd booked a bike tour of the city, and were due to meet up with everyone before heading out for a ride through the city and to the surrounding outskirts. The tour company was based in a small building, surrounded by the usual smattering of massage parlours (or should that be 'massage parlours'), and we were the first to arrive, like the diligent types that we are...erm, several near-missed flights would beg to differ! Whilst we waited upstairs, admiring a huge photo montage of the Dutch national football team enjoying a bike ride around Bangkok circa 2007, we got chatting with our tour guide, 'Om' (no idea if that's the correct spelling), who was a wonderfully friendly, giggly Thai lady, a real little bundle of energy and infectious enthusiasm. Over the following half hour or so, the rest of our group trickled in; there were 13 of us in total, including a nice young couple from Thailand (her) and Korea (him), a German girl and two families of four who both happened to be from the Netherlands...clearly the 'Amazing Bangkok Cyclist' company has some sort of Dutch connection! After a quick run through of the safety tips and so on, we were downstairs to pick a bike and get on our way.

We were straight out into a busy road, cycling single file with the flow of traffic along the left hand lane. Despite the abundance of cars and scooters in the road, it wasn't especially challenging in that initial part, and the other road users were very respectful of our group, giving everyone plenty of space when passing, and stopping to let the group file out at junctions. Things got a bit more edgy when we had to cross over some of the busier roads, including big three-lane highways with an almost constant stress of traffic, but once again it was generally fine and the drivers were very accommodating! With Om leading the way, we zig-zagged our way through the city streets, getting further and further from the tourist-friendly neighbourhood from which we'd left, and passing through narrow backstreets that we'd never have otherwise passed through. It was a great way to see those parts of the city and watch people going about their everyday business. The locals were a very friendly bunch, giving us beaming smiles and shouting out 'sawaddi krap' (men) or 'sawaddi ha' (women) which basically means hello, whilst the little kids just wanted to stick their hands out for a high-five as we passed...we duly obliged, of course! After half an hour of riding at an enjoyable pace through the city, we stopped outside of some towerblocks so Om could give us a bit of a talk. The area was pretty rundown and the towerblocks were pretty grotty looking, frankly. This was not a neighbourhood that was awash with tourist money, and there were none of the shiny, glass-fronted offices and shopping malls of the affluent Sukhumvit area. Rather, Om explained, this was where migrant workers from the countryside lived when they came to Bangkok in search of work. Whilst it was clearly a poor part of town, there was no threatening atmosphere whatsoever, although it is probably easy to say that when you are in the company of twelve other people...a walk alone at night might be another matter. There was, however, a threatening atmosphere of an altogether literal kind: black clouds had darkened the afternoon and a pre-storm wind had picked up just as the first few spots of rain began to fall.

We pushed on and soon found ourselves beneath a huge elevated expressway, which was supported on large concrete pillars. Beneath the expressway was a shanty neighbourhood, with shacks of corrugated iron and wood filling up the space on either side of the road that ran down the middle. The towerblocks we'd passed earlier seemed luxurious by comparison, this was very clearly a place of poverty. Once again, though, despite the scarcity the locals were as friendly as ever. Om had advised us that we'd probably get a good bit of attention as some of these folks would rarely see gangly, tall white people such as ourselves! We'd parked our bikes and were having a fifteen minute break, during which we all ambled about the place. Some of the residents did indeed seem keen to say hello, whilst others were content simply to ignore us. The rain continued to thump down, but by the end of our break it had thankfully eased off to no more than a bit of a drizzle and so carried on. In ten minutes, we were at our next stop, a local temple. Well, it wouldn't have been a complete day if we'd not had a temple visit in there somewhere, right? We saw the usual collection of monks going about their business. Most people had a token wander about to investigate - as usual, the temple buildings were in immaculate condition - but with the rain continuing to fall, I didn't pick up on any great enthusiasm from the group!

Very close to the temple was a ferry terminal. At this point, we had made our way to the southeast of the city, as far as the Chao Phraya river, which would have to cross in order to get any further. With no bridges across the river in their part of the city, we found ourselves on board a long, thin, wooden motorboat being ferried across to the other side along with our bikes. Safely across and back on terra firma, we carried on. We had made it outside of the city proper, and were now at last in the surrounding countryside, in the area known as the 'green lung' of Bangkok, owing to the lung-shape formed by the river looping around the land. Our convoy carried on down some quiet country roads, which was quite a relief after the busy roads we'd been on earlier. Shortly, however, we left the roads completely and were snaking our way along an elevated concrete walkway that was perhaps three feet high off the ground, more often than not over bright green algae-covered water! We were told that the farming in this area was predominantly of bananas, mangoes and papayas, which I guess may explain the preponderance of water-filled channels (or it may not; I'm not really much of an expert in these matters). For obvious reasons, Om warned us to cycle slowly and carefully, to avoid falling from the walkway. Five minutes later, I heard a dramatic scream and looked up to see a German girl in our group falling to one side and over the edge of the walkway - luckily for her it was in a section that was not over the water, and even more luckily she seemed to have escaped relatively unscathed! Still, everyone was that little bit more careful after that!

We spent half an hour or so winding along the raised concrete walkways, passing by occasional farmhouses and getting decidedly wet as the rain continued to fall, before eventually getting back into a proper road again. We'd been cycling for a good couple of hours or so, on and off, so everyone was happy when the opportunity to take a short break arrived. We had fifteen minutes or so at a small rural cafe, drinking ice teas and eating crisps, and watching an engaging natural spectacle: the rain had brought out hundreds of winged insects from the vegetation and pond opposite where we were sat, and consequently a good number of birds had arrived for a feeding frenzy. For the most part, the birds were swallow-looking things, which could dart around and bank at high speed, and the air was absolutely chockablock with them! The unfortunate bugs themselves were big, chunky, slow-moving things so it was very easy to watch them for the short time they would bumble along before a bird came flying at pace to scoff it. There were also one or two much more exotic looking big black birds with flashes of vivid blue on their backs and strange elongated tails like two boat rudders on the end end of a stick - they were a lot more cumbersome though! Once we'd finished our snacks and watched the birds doing their thing, we started to make our way back. The trip took us back along some of the concrete walkways, although this time thankfully with no plunges, and back across the river on the ferry. Our route back through the city to the tour base was a lot more direct, and instead of winding through the quiet side streets as we had on our way out, we now found ourselves cycling along a three-lane expressway at rush hour, alongside buses, huge construction vehicles, cars and motorbikes. Not the most relaxing part if the trip, but an experience if nothing else, and at least it got us back nice and quickly!

By the time we'd dropped our bikes off and said goodbye to the group, walked back to our hotel, showered and changed into dry clothes, the evening was already well and truly upon us. We'd decided to head out into a new neighbourhood to find some dinner and our guidebook indicated that there were plenty of restaurants to be found in the Si Lom district, a convenient few stops from Sukhumvit on the underground. Indeed, there were plenty of eateries to be found, but being discriminating sorts it still took us a fair ol' while and much trekking about to find one we were happy with - as is so often the case (when you're picky) there was so often something not quiet right with every place we looked at: too pricey, no atmosphere/people, rubbish menu ('western food!')' etc. The upside was that we had spent a good thirty or forty minutes wandering about the district and so got a good feel for the place; a couple of the bigger side streets off the main road seemed to have lots of neon signs, and taking this as a potential indicator of restaurants we set off down one of them, to be accosted by any number of touts holding up happy hour signs and doing their utmost to get us sat in their bars having a drink - not an ideal place for dinner. Our venture down the next neon-lit soi found us surrounded once again by gaudy bars, each of which had its own bevy of scantily-clad young ladies hanging around outside, vying for custom. Meanwhile, male touts roamed the streets proffering 'menus' of sex shows, the most popular of which seemingly being the fabled 'ping pong' shows, given that this was their primary selling point. Clearly we had found ourselves in one of Bangkok's famous red-light districts, amongst the many 'go-go' bars - an interesting place to see, by all means, but not really where we wanted to eat our dinner! Soon enough we'd passed though the other side of the main red light drag (no pun intended) and happily, with stomachs now seriously grumbling, stumbled upon a good restaurant that ticked all of our boxes - at last!

Sat down with a nice cold beer, at the open-front of the nice cheap restaurant, we gratefully scoffed down a wonderful Pad Thai accompanied by a Morning Glory 'salad', which included deep-fried and battered stems of the aforementioned veg, topped with pork mince, prawns and octopus - delicious! With a good meal taken care of, we decided to stick around in the area and find somewhere to have a drink or two. Our first stop was a small street bar that we'd chosen on the basis that it had a couple of pool tables out the back...or so we thought: only when we'd bought our drinks did we clock that the tables belonged to a completely different bar. No matter, as we entertained ourselves by watching a big rat who we spotted lurking in the shadows of the 'spirit house' (basically the small Buddhist shrine that many/most homes and businesses here have, which include small offerings of food, drinks, fake money, etc. as well as incense). Ratty was having a good old munch on a miniature garland of flowers that was hung around a small statue of Buddha...no respect, these rats!

We moved on to find another bar, and ended up back down the street with all of the happy hour deals, looking to save a quid or two. We were immediately pounced upon by the touts and plonked ourselves down at a bar offering cheapo drinks. There was plenty of neon about the place but no sign of the gogo girls, sex shows and all there rest of it. As we drank our beers and idly people-watched the patrons sat in front of the various bars, it did become apparent that Sarah was the sole female representative, and we realised we'd found ourselves in the gay area. Not a problem for us, and with the added benefit that as a clearly heterosexual couple no-one was interested in bothering us, which is always nice! After our late start to the evening, and long-winded search for a restaurant, by the time we'd finished a couple of beers it had gone midnight, too late to catch the underground or skytrain, so we jumped in a taxi back to our now seemingly far more low key part of town!

We were due at the tailors on Tuesday morning for the first fitting of the two suits I'd requested. After a bit of a full English nearby, we hoped that the waistline measurements hadn't altered too much since Saturday! As it turned out, the trousers weren't quite ready yet and I had to pop back in the afternoon to try them out, which was no great inconvenience as we did not have any significant plans for the day. The shirts and jackets, however, were ready for their initial fitting, and all that was needed were some minor adjustments; it was a novel experience wearing a suit jacket with no sleeves, covered in chalk marks! Once we'd finished at the tailor, It was back to the hotel with a brief stop on the way for the regular haircut and beard trim. There followed a couple of hours of usual faffing about and planning, before heading out during the early afternoon. The plan was to head over to the Banglamphu region and have a nosey about, with a view to ending up at the famous Khao San Road, the acclaimed centre of backpacking in SE Asia. First of all we needed to grab some lunch, though, and keen to get cracking we popped into the Terminal 21 shopping centre and scoffed down a quick and cheap plate of stir-fried noodles before moving on. We also dropped back into the tailor to check the trousers (no major issues, with only minor adjustments required) before jumping on the 'Sky Train', which is basically like another tube train line except that it runs along an elevated platform high above the busy streets below.

The Sky Train line only went so far toward Banglaphu before terminating, so we would have to make the rest of the trip by other means. Rather than taking a taxi or tuk tuk, we decided to stretch our legs and walk the remaining distance. As before, it turned out to be a much longer walk than we'd anticipated, due to a combination of Bangkok's sprawling expanse and our less-than-useful map (imagine trying to navigate London on foot using a tube map over laid with just the main streets and you'll see why we were struggling). Still, it was a good way to see another part of the city and we were in no rush. The weather was typically hot and humid, and our salty noodle lunch was beginning to make us very thirsty indeed, so when we passed a street vendor selling large cups of ice tea, we enthusiastically ordered one each. The old lady promptly prepared a couple of great big cups of refreshing-looking ice tea...before filling it with spoons of sugar and super-sweet condensed milk. The resulting drink certainly took care of the sweet tooth but was hardly the most refreshing drink! We pushed on, keeping an eye out for somewhere to grab a bottle of water and struggling with our navigation; we knew we were nearing the general area of our destination but struggling to find the specific surrounding streets. After a few further failed attempts to acquire a decent street map, we finally hit gold at a tourist centre. Kitted out with a proper map and some directions, in ten minutes time we were near the Khao San Road sat in a cafe and guzzling several cold drinks to slake our enormous thirst.

Feeling human once again, we had hit the streets once again to explore. The Khao San Road itself was certainly different from Sukhumvit. Being the city's major backpacking centre, the street was absolutely packed with tourists, more so than we were expecting: the place was heaving. Unsurprisingly, the area was crammed with all of the usual accompanying bars, restaurants, tat shops selling tourist hats, vests and trousers; touts roamed the street hawking cheap suits (an entirely different kettle of fish from the tailor we'd been too - offers of a full, made-to-measure suit, shirt and tie sound too good to be true and almost certainly are), whilst vendors flogged gimmicky cheap knick-knacks. Frankly, it wasn't really our cup of tea and we were glad to have chosen to base ourselves over in Sukhumvit, which, whilst having its own complement of tourists, and an arguably snooty nature, was a good deal less in-your-face. Still, it was worth the trip to take in one of SE Asia's iconic backpacking destinations and having made the effort to get there we chose to hang around and have a couple of drinks and some food.

Plonking ourselves down at a table in front of one of the many bars, we were happily people-watching and working through a second shared beer when the skies darkened and the wind picked up. Having learned to obey these convenient warning signs, we relocated to the restaurant interior to beat the rush when the heavens inevitably opened - which, five minutes later, they duly did. We hung around in the bar for long enough to let the tropical downpour calm down into a minor drizzle; we'd spotted a good-looking street-food place on our way in, and were keen to give it a try rather than settle for the generic-looking grub on the bar menu. We managed to get a couple of plastic seats outside our chosen eatery, which seemed to be popular, but in the end the food was so-so. The menu had both Indian and Thai influences, so we ordered ourselves a Panaeng curry (such as we'd learned to make during our cookery class in Chiang Mai) and a Dopiaza with naan and rice. Both dishes were tasty enough, although the sauce was a wee bit thin on the ground, and I think our rich experience of the many excellent Indian restaurants back at home meant the standard was always going to be set high in that respect! Still, it wasn't bad grub and very cheap so we were happy enough with our choice. Fed and watered, we sloshed through the rain and found a tuk tuk driver to take us back to our neck of the woods for the night.

Wednesday morning came around soon enough and once again we were on the hunt for brekkie, rapidly settling on a couple of pastry goodies from a little bakery in the shopping centre, before heading back to our room to chill out for a bit. Our first three days in Bangkok had been relatively busy and taken us to plenty of different parts of the city. We were feeling in need of a more relaxing day, and the usual assortment of chores were rearing their heads once again: laundry, travelling logistical planning and the ever-necessary blog update (there are times when I have been tempted to rename this blog "A Sisyphean Struggle"). As such, we were confined to our quarters until the late afternoon, before heading out for a late lunch of tom yum rice and a BBQ pork/steamed rice dish, once again from the hawker centre in Terminal 21. After lunch, we took a walk around Sukhumvit for a while, before dropping once again into the tailors for a second suit fitting - everything was coming together nicely on that front! We went back to the hotel for a little while to shower and freshen up, before jumping onto the Sky Train for a couple of westbound stops and making our way to Soi 38 on Sukhumvit Road; this was reportedly home to some of the best street-food in the city, and we certainly weren't going to be leaving without having a sniff around and a munch on something tasty! After exploring lots of great looking little food carts, we settled on our joint favourite: a place that served a big bowl of noodles in a lemongrass broth, with crab dumplings and bits of barbecued pork....we ordered a bowl to share, with a view to leaving room to try something else. Well, I can safely say that we both agreed that it was the best food we'd had since getting to Thailand (and personally I am struggling to think of many better dishes before that), it was absolute perfection. The broth was the perfect balance of flavours and just hot enough for us, the pork was soft and tender, with a crispy outside, the crab dumplings just sumptuous...I'll stop waxing lyrical about it - you get the idea!

After our shared cheap bowl of absolute tastiness, we decided that it had in fact filled us up enough so we didn't bother finding any more food...besides, it would have been a hard act to follow! Instead, we made our way to a nearby side-street that was supposed to have some good bars along it, and soon found ourselves propping up the bar in a cosy little place that had bottles of beer on special offer. Soon after we entered the bar, the usual tropical downpour kicked off in earnest and we found ourselves trapped in there...there are plenty of worse places to get stuck. The rest of the evening was spent gassing amongst ourselves, drinking a bit too much of the lovely cold beer and generally having a good ol' time. When we left, the rain had eased off a bit, and we had no trouble flagging a taxi for the short trip back to our hotel. Unfortunately, a good night ended on a bad note when, walking on the slippery paved floor between our taxi drop-off and the hotel, Sarah slipped and took a nasty tumble. Thankfully, although it looked like a nasty fall, there was no major damage other than a bit of a shock and perhaps a sore back in the morning.

Thursday morning was our last full day in Bangkok, and after the previous evening's jollities, it got off to a slow start with a long long lie-in to sleep off the sore heads. On the upside, fed up with having to go out and find our brekkie each morning, we'd cannily bought some bread, ham and cheese slices from a posh little 'gourmet supermarket' (which gives you an idea of just how 'fancy-pants' parts of Sukhumvit can be), so from the comfort of our room we munched on some rudimentary sarnies, washed down with a bottle of drinking yoghurt. Lovely! Eventually, we decided to emerge from the sanctity of our cave and go out, opting to take a walk over to Siam Square, a key shopping area adjacent to Sukhumvit that we'd passed many times but never visited. Walking along the pavement by the busy Sukhumvit Road is rarely an entirely relaxing experience, what with the noisy traffic, motorcycle taxis buzzing past on the pavement, and tuk tuk drivers hassling for your attention but it was good to be out in the fresh air - I hesitate to use the word 'fresh', but you know what I mean. With seemingly fewer restaurants and food stalls around, lunch was a functional affair taken in a top-floor restaurant of another shopping centre: standard fare of Pad Thai and a green papaya salad, all very straightforward but tasty and cheap. Arriving at Siam Square, we took a token walk around, drank some fresh juice from a street stall, and explored a local food market, but we didn't hang around for long. The area was clearly very fancy and expensive, with plenty of very tall, glass-fronted shops and a vast, open square with tastefully understated water features...but surrounded by Top Shop, MacDonalds and images of western models plastered on huge billboards everywhere, it felt a lot like walking around the shopping centre at home and didn't hold any great attraction for us.

Instead, we hopped on the Sky Train and made our way back to our corner of town; it was time to go and pick up the suits for a final check and purchase! Back at the tailors for the very last time, I tried on my new suits one final time and was delighted with them. Rather than lugging them around for the remaining month of our trip, I ended up stumping up a hefty sum to have them couriered back to a friend at home; it cost a few more quid than I'd have liked, but looking at the state of my rucksack, which has been slung in the oily underbelly of plenty of buses by now, I wasn't keen to put my brand new suits though the same treatment, however well protected they are! It was good to draw a line under the process too, what with the number of visits we'd had to make. Incidentally, for anyone who may happen to read this blog and be interested in buying some suits in Bangkok, the tailor in question was 'Crown Tailor' on Sukhumvit Soi 8. They came highly recommended by the online community, and having now become a paying customer myself I can only agree with the great reviews; there are plenty of dodgy 'suits you sir' tailors in Bangkok, and this one was well worth paying the extra few quid!

Leaving the tailor on a high, we went straight over the road to celebrate with a cold beer...only to be told by the waitress that there was no beer on sale today, indeed no alcohol at all, not here, not anywhere. It turned out that 30th July - and in fact the 31st as well - was a Buddhist holiday in Thailand during which the sale of alcohol was strictly forbidden. The horror! We tested out this statement with a visit to a nearby 'English pub'; if they weren't selling any grog, no-one was, at least not legitimately! No joy. Ah well, we could do with a dry day or two anyway (and I happened to know there was a small can or two in the hotel minibar!). Foiled of our usual pre-prandial refreshments, we made our way straight out for dinner. Being our last night in Bangkok, we wanted it to be something pretty special, and for all the fancy expensive restaurants out there, we simply couldn't resist making our way back to the same street vendor in Soi 38 for the very same crab dumpling and BBQ pork dish, this time ordering a big bowl of the stuff each so we could pig out and not have to share! On the way back to the hotel, we dropped into Terminal 21 with the view to buying a coffee and one way or another found ourselves in an indulgent ice-cream parlour, working through various scoops of chocolatey gooiness...oops. Back at the hotel, we settled in to watch a film before getting our heads down at a reasonable hour, what with a 05:45 alarm the next day.

That pretty much sums up our time in Bangkok. When looking where to stay in the city, we'd shortlisted three areas, and chosen ultimately to stay in Sukhumvit for its convenient location near to the tailor. As it turned out, having visited the other two candidates - the backpacker-centric area of Banglamphu, and the slightly sterile downtown area of Siam Square - we wouldn't have changed the choice in hindsight. It's a big place, and being near to a good hub of connecting trains had been useful; we felt we'd managed to get to see a good amount of this big city in the few days we'd been here. Like any other big city, it is a place of contrasts between rich and poor, although it seems a particular stark contrast here...shiny, ostentatious skyscrapers fill the skyline and there are plenty of Porsches to be seen on the cities huge freeways (usually sat idling in a traffic jam), whilst the city's have-nots make what living they can at the many food stalls, tuk tuks and so on. We'd met people before who had warned us that it was a dirty, smelly city...well, it certainly was those things, but despite that, and despite the seediness, the dodgy 'meter not work' taxis, the over-exuberant tuk tuk drivers and all the rest of it, we'd both very much enjoyed our stay here.

Bangkok is behind us now, however - far behind. I am writing this blog from a bus that is taking us from Surat Thani, a hour or so by plane to the south. We will shortly be boarding a ferry to take us out into the Gulf of Thailand to the island of Koh Phangan for a few days of sun, sea and sand...a welcome contrast to the frenetic city that we have left behind!

---