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I made my way to the infamous backpackers mecca Khao San Road this morning & set up camp at the Lek Hostel. Tonights fee will be 190 Baht, a shade under 3 pounds (cant find pound sign on gay keyboard), and it is all very basic indeed. I've got myself a creepy little single room with a bed, clothes line, a wobbly come down in the night and kill someone ceiling fan and some tame ants.
I ditched my bags and went for a gander around the area. It didnt take me long to become a sweaty wreck & it didn't take me long to observe two main things.
1. I didn't recognise anyone
2. All these people that I didn't even know refused to leave me alone, by this i mean the local sales people.
The majority seem to get off to a bad start with me as they usally ask where are you from and as soon as they learn that you are from England a lot of them seemed to chant 'Chelsea' at me....how foul! At times I found myself talking to them for ages struggling to get away because I'm just to
Standing Buddha
I presume this guy eat all his greens as a wee nippa! polite to say piss off! Towards the end of the day though I began to get the hang of things & if you just ignore them they will go away. Felt a little ignorant but at the end of the day they are only talking to you for one reason.
I did however take a tuk-tuk drivers offer up of a ride, it just had to be done. I wanted to go and check out the grand palace but was told by the driver that it was closed, I later found out that this was actually a dirty lie and the driver just wanted to take me places where he would get commision for such as a couple of taylors shops (Now what an earth would I want with a custom made suit when I'm travelling for 6 months!), a travel agency and a couple of buddhas.
The Buddha shrines were good, I got to see a giant standing Buddha & also I was asked to light some candles and sticks and make a wish to Buddha in the temple. The Tuk-Tuk experience itself wasnt quite as scary as some might think, it was only when the guy
Pigeon Street
This old dear almost got buried in those pigeons at one point. slammed on the breaks & nearly topped the thing that I became slightly concerned as the driver himself looked like he had just cacked himself. Oh and there was the whole driving into oncoming traffic bit as well.
When the driver decided to take me to another taylor shop I decided that enough was enough and I paid him off (about 1 pound) & i toddled off only to fall into another tourist trap.
The second trap I fell into was a boat ride around Bangkok, which as it happens was alright, but I did tell the guy that I didn't want to do it....but I ended up on the boat anyway because I'm a sucker! But I did however put my foot down when some guy dumped a silly hat on my head & did some kind of weird dance in front of me & tried to charge me 300 Baht for it, I'm sorry but I dont do silly hats, thats not what I'm about!
Once I had got the hang of shrugging off the masses I spent much of the day exploring the streets of Bangkok. At one point though I think I had breached
to far as I found myself in some sort of slums & everyone was looking at me, the whiteboy from out of town. I made a sharp exit.
Bangkok certainly has character, there just seems to be so much going on, possibly even to much for its own good. One thing that really annoyed me was that you could'nt stop for one minute to soak up the surroundingss or take a picture as you would get hassled, a lot of good photo opportunites were missed as a result of that. I remember I found this cat sat upright like a human on a street corner, a purfect (haha...ahem sorry) picture moment, but not when you have some shady chap in your ear trying to sell you ladyboys. Once again another sharp exit was in order.
Some of the shops in Bangkok are just so weird, I was walking through a shopping district & if you look through some of the shop windows you will see nothing really in them other than some drunk Thai passed out on a matress & a few noddles loosly scattered about the place. I swear at one point I was just actually walking
around in someones living room!
You get some very interesting smells around Bangkok to, some nice, some definately not so nice, one smell was so bad infact that I almost considered crying, the only word to describe the smell was 'Sinister'.
Not entirely sure how much kip I'm going to be getting tonight as my window is next to a night club & there appears to be some sort of rave taking effect. I think I'll go ask them to turn it down a bit.
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sally doughty
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mum returning message
Hi Dan, I assume you are getting our return messages? It sounds as if you are having a very different experience to anything you have ever had before but thats what its all about, just take care and be careful, it willtake you a while to get used to what not to do and where not to wander to and remember you stick out to them like a sore thumb: how is that toe by the way? Not much to report from this end I'm afraid . Suzy is driving us balmy at the moment, will not sit on that bloody poofy and sits outside your bedroom door making that moronic noiseshe does so well, up 3 times in the night to go out , so that is great fun but I'm sure she will settle down eventually. What is the actual temparature wit you? It is still miserable as sin and drizzly here - the great british summer then -nothing changes! Well I am goiung to hand over to dad now,take care and look forward to hearing again soon. lots of love mum xxx hi dan sounds like youre having quite an experience, a bit like chatteris on a saturday night, the hammers got parker but luckily not barton , no news on tevez yet. whats the local beer like don,t drink to many or you might end up with one of the lady boys