Blogs from Bangkok, Central Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 715

- FOOD: Breakfast on a 45 minute flight! Red curry in gorgeous restaurant next to our hotel; unidentified but very good street snacks; more good street food for dinner. - AREA: Cute airport with trees and flowers; park in the middle of hectic Bangkok; efficient Skytrain; river boat to Khao San road past all the sites. - PEOPLE: Very sweet and smiley old lady running very sweet cafe. Thur 22nd Sep: I slept really well and then Tania and I headed to the airport to catch a flight back to Bangkok (who needs ferries and overnight buses when you have a spare 50 quid). The airport is SO sweet - a grass courtyard in the middle with wooden huts surrounding it. Trees and flowers everywhere and only 2 check in desks. We'd had breakfast before getting ... read more

I'll cut straight to the point - Bangkok is too full of travellers and tourists. But before you think it, we also know that we are part of these travellers and problem. Everything is set up for the westerner abroad - food, entertainment, 'tat'; women! It doesn't have the mystique that many of the remote Asian towns we've visited have had. The experience of Khao San road is OK, but the road is smaller than we imagined - and never having seen 'The Beach' we had no great ideas of its importance. The city is cleaner than we thought, and has more grandeur, in parts, than we expected. The royal palace and temple (Wat Phra Kaew - temple of the emerald Buddha) is a really grand affair. In the grounds there are buildings hugely decorated, with ... read more

Thailand is kind of like a second home. On average in my life I have been there 3 times a year. It's cheap and easy, fast to get to (from home in Hong Kong) and my mom loves it there, hence why I have been there a lot. (And free flights from all the mileage we get). You must never do drugs in Thailand! I know someone who almost got caught, stupid idiot. I love Bangkok for shopping. It is great. Always shop in Bangkok. Hua Hin has nice beaches, bit touristy, but still good enough, its another regular hangout. Phuket is also great, really touristy, unfortunately a little ravaged by the tsunami, but I'd definitely go there again. Pattaya is another one like Phuket and Hua Hin combined. Koh Samui- I went there for our ... read more

I got to Thailand 2 nights ago, found a small room on Kao San road (backpacker central) for B140 a night (the equivalent of $3.50), and have been wandering around the city for the past 2 days. Why I love travelling in "less developed" countries: 1. They are cheap as hell. I spent 50 cents on Pad Thai earlier today and it was way better than any Pad Thai I've had in the US. 2. The smells. My cab from the airport had a string of magnolias hanging from the rearview mirror. It was nice. 3. The sheets. In Nicaragua I had Little Mermaid sheets in my homestay. Here, I have sheets that say "California Dreamy" all over them and have little pictures of teddy bears. I don't want to know the last time these sheets ... read more

- FOOD: Street stall food all so good (and lots of it all so hot); good, proper hotel breakfast; bitter apple type fruit with hot chili sugar dip; fried locusts and fried maggots (yum); nice (but HOT) Thai green curry (my fave). - AREA: Mix of modern, mad, poor, rich with nice aromas of spices mixed with nasty ones of pollution; very wide lanes with MUCH traffic but calm alleys off them; Buddha statues in the middle of the madness; confusing road names; posh, multi level shopping centres at Siam Square with 'Boots'!; bright and bustly Khao San Road - backpacker heaven (although a midnight curfew of alcohol sales); LOTS of travel agents; Toni and Guy! - PEOPLE: They seem a bit on the rude side but friendly enough; taxi touts with real London cabs; smiley ... read more