Blogs from Bangkok, Central Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 708

A crazy busy 3 days of jet-lag, Chang beer, the Ko-shang road (?... as seen in the beach), Pat Pong, temples, locusts etc etc. Very crazy place! Have met up with the fellow travellers with BUNAC who are all cool. We didn't have any time to really go and do our own thing until the night-time as each day we were offered a different tour to be taken on which involved getting up very early everyday with a hangover in hot humid conditions and being taken to various places. Our tour guide (knicknamed Mr. Miyagii) talked ...alot.... but it was very cool to be able to see everything in ssuch a small space of time. Went to ko-shang road on the first night was very cool indeed, really crazy place and very busy people trying to ... read more

For those of you who have seen the movie, The Beach, with Leonardo DeCaprio, Khao San Road is the scene at the beginning of the movie where Leo is walking down a croweded street and is solicited by touts to drink cobra blood and then checks into a very cheap hotel. While these first few minutes of the movie contribute to the exaggeration about the exotic dangers of Bangkok that show up in western movies, music, writing; it is true that about 90% of western tourists under age 30 end up on Khao San Road at some point during their trip to Bangkok. Khao San Road is where the East meets the West. It allows tourists from Australia, the Americas, and Europe to come together and bar hop along a 1/2 mile stretch of one of ... read more

Today was a mixture of high and lows. We left this morning for the Chatuckuck Weekend Market. We spent three hours there and saw an amazing number of things for very very low prices. I got a Buddha amulet, a small toy for Ian and Alyssa (nephew and niece), some plates, and a Thai flag. Colin did more shopping than I, although we both did a lot of eating. We spent three hours at the market. It rained a ton and we got wet moving from stall to stall, although we sought protection in the covered part of the market for much of the time. The monsoon-like rain showers are very very heavy. They've prevented us from doing more sightseeing in Bangkok today like the Golden Mount and Chinatown (although we've already gotten to drive through ... read more

Last day in Bangkok today. We have been here since Tuesday so we have been able to fit lots of sight seeing in. Aside from a day trip to Ayuthaya we have been in the city the whole time. It has been amazing. We have visited lots of temples and seen so much. We have also experienced lots of weather. Yesterday it rained so much that all the streets were flooded! It was really deep in places including the road the hotel was on. You could not leave unless you were prepared to wade through it! It all drained away in a couple of hours though. On the whole it has been hot, hot, hot. We visited a Tesco's yesterday! Shocking I know, but we came across one when we were out and thought we HAD ... read more

Today we had our trip briefing, where Ole (pronounced "Olay") gave us an overview of our itinerary and we introduced ourselves to each other. In our group, we have 3 couples and the rest singles, mostly adventursome women like me :). I'm the youngster in the group, which is just fine by me. We visited a beautiful flower market where flower dealers made gorgeous arrangements for sale to local shops. For price comparison - a huge bouquet of exotic flowers in Bangkok will cost about $25, compared to $100 or more in the U.S. We took a longboat ride on the Chaophraya river, and saw many river homes, temples and other buildings along the way. The boat was a loud, diesel-motored contraption. We stopped for a cooking demonstration at the home of Mrs. Toom. She was ... read more