Blogs from Bangkok, Central Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 744

I take the Bangkok Post and its international reportage make it perfect reading for the 12 hour bus journey from Krabi to Bangkok. It's sports coverage is excellent providing comprehensive cover of both the FA Cup 3rd round and the Ashes. It's ‘around-the-world’ anecdoture leads one to believe that everyday in Manilla someone kills their best friend after some sort clandestine tragic/comic turn of events. Honour seems to be a serious thing in the Philippines. When you get to Bangkok at six in the morning you would think it would be relatively quiet. Instead it's populated with a smorgasbord of revellers, freaks and busy locals. It could be because you're stone cold sober but there seems to be a total absence of any style or purpose. Ah, Bangkok. You forget how off the wall it is ... read more

On arrival in Bangkok things were very westernized in comparison to where I had been in India. I got a room on Khao San road after a while since it was very full of travellers there and had to wait for some people to check out. Khao San road was very crazy - so many people all heading to different places from the travel mecca of Asia. On my first day there I realised it was friday, and took a very hard journey by taxi to the other side of the city to get a Laos Visa. The first taxi I took dropped me about 6km away from the embassey and then no-one knew where it was. I managed to get there at 3pm, and had the VISA before 4pm! - great deal. I didn't want ... read more

Mark Meyer and I are travelling to the countries of South East Asia I was bumped to another domestic flight but we will meet up in Sydney for the international portion of our journey to Thailand. The flight took nine hours and Mark didn’t like anything about the trip I can’t see him flying British Airways again in a hurry. The terminal was modern and clean so the walk outside was a shock to the system as the humidity was high and the noise pollution high. This is mark’s first trip to Asia so it must be a bit of a culture shock for him. We caught the airport bus to Sukamvit Road from where it was a short walk to our accommodation in Soi 11. My first impressions are of a hodgepodge of modern skyscrapers, ... read more

Bangkok is a beast of a city. It resembles the sprawling metropolis from the computer game "Grand Theft Auto", only if Hounslow Borough council had been given the job of maintaining it for the last 30 years. This is to say that a lot of the low rise buildings have been poorly maintained giving way to dirty concrete fascia's - although to be fair, unlike the jewel of Middlesex, in Bangkok litter is kept to a minimum. Amongst the rudimentary construction the city is regularly punctuated with pristine monuments and temples. The airport is nice too which is most welcome as the last thing you need after a 10 hour flight is chaotic architecture. I guess it's a question of priorities. The Thai people are very polite. They pay you the honourable compliment of not staring ... read more

My 19 hour stop in Bangkok was great - I slept a lot on the plane from Denver, so took a bus in to Khao San Road as my cousin Jon recommended. At 3am things were fairly quiet but I met a couple of British people (Welsh and Scottish) took some tea in a bar, and then slept for a few hours in a hotel there. The next day I took a look at the Royal Palace, a 60 ft long Golden Buddha (Wat Po), and the Golden Mound with a lovely Austrian couple before having a great lunch and then heading back to the airport. It was just as well that I left a lot of time to catch my flight to Delhi because the traffic was terrible since there was some foriegn royalty landing ... read more