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Published: February 4th 2009
So after a comfortable (but dirty) overnight train from Surathani we arrived at Bangkok Central Station at 6am. We headed off to our hostel in a taxi and after dumping our bags we took a walk to the nearby Lumphini Park, the largest park in Bangkok.
The first thing we noticed about Bangkok was how clean and orderly it was, this completely took us by surprise as we expected something completely different! Bangkok was more like Hong Kong than what we'd come to expect, perhaps from our time in the Philippine Cities!
The park was lovely and we couldn't believe how busy it was at 7am, full of joggers and groups of old Thai people practicing Yoga and Tai Chi on every corner, it was a real nice introduction to the city! The lake and streams had resident lizards the size of crocodiles swimming around which kept us firmly away from the edge haha!
At 8 o'clock the national anthem started on the loudspeakers and everyone stopped dead in their tracks and were silent, of course we followed suit! Thai's are extremely patriotic and we were soon to discover just how important the king is hear, held almost
in a god like esteem.
The anthem is played twice a day, even (we discovered) at the cinema before every film! Again everyone stands and watches a short film showing the king in various situations. This was mirrored all over the city with monuments and huge pictures of him everywhere.
We then took the Skytrain to Siam Square the main shopping district and spent a few hours walking around one of the biggest malls we'd ever seen. This was so big it even had a Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborghini showroom on the fifth floor..although we were tempted we didn't buy one. Besides, the traffic here is terrible, so again we opted for the Skytrain!
Day two was spent visiting the various famous sights and attractions. We bought a pass for the river boat for a bargain 120 bhat (2 pound forty) which let us ride the longtail boats all day up and down stopping off wherever.
First we went the Grand Palace and nearby temples and shrines. The dress code said long pants only so we wandered around all morning sweating like hell in 35 degree sunshine. Next up was the reclining buddah, a 46m long
gold statue, which was really cool! Then we went to the massive flower market before a walk around little India.
The lonely planet directed us to Royal Indian for lunch, a quality little curry house down the dingiest alley every, but superb cheap food, as good as a Bradford curry haha!
Finally we walked home via china town which was an experience in itself..completely chaotic! 3 lanes of stand still traffic and vendors selling everything and anything on every spare inch of pavement. After around 20 miles we ended up in a traditional Thai pub..the Duke of Wellington!
We stared the next day again in the park and having read a rave review about a restaurant buffet in the Bangkok Post decided to try and find it for lunch. After 2 hours of wandering around we eventually found it only to discover we walked had past it twice..and yes, we'd missed lunch..never mind.
Before leaving Bangkok we wanted to visit the famous Kho San Road, where the majority of backpackers stay. This was really cool and much more lively than our part of town, next time we'll stay here for sure! We also spent a morning
wandering around the zoo which was nice.
The transport in Bangkok is excellent and cheap, riverboats, skytrain and underground all help to keep you off of the roads which are chaos, but we couldn't resist taking the odd tuk tuk here and there..when in Rome and all that. The drivers of these things deserve a special mention, having taken the level of sneakiness to a whole new degree! "Hey mister, where you go?", "No you cant go there, its closed, jump in, I take you somewhere better!" haha, this was a common trick! Even stood outside the Grand Palace with huge ques "its closed mister for Thai ceremony!".
Apparently people fall for this then end up in a jewellery store owned by the tuktuks mate and shell out hundreds for worthless "gems". It was quite funny though, everything was pretty light hearted and comical. In general we've been surprised again by how open and friendly most people are, it only takes a couple of seconds stood looking at the map before someone stops to help.
So after 3 nights we again took the night train, this time the super clean Express (our new all time favourite way
to travel, as you can see on page 3 of the photo's!) further north to Chiang Mai, where we've just arrived at our lodgings the Queen Victoria Inn. We've just had a killer full English with Abba playing on the stereo..very traditional haha! Chiang Mai looks great so far and is at least 10 degrees cooler than Bangkok which is really really nice. We're planning on staying around a week and going on an overnight hilltribe trek in the middle so details of this to follow!
Hope you're all well as always!
Steve and Maja
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Kristina
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Åh, så många fina bilder och så roligt det är att följa er resa via bloggen. Önskar att jag kunde göra en liknande tur. Jag har just kommit hem från Wales, Cardiff. Det snöade mycket i engelska mått mätt, måndag tom onsdag och skolbarnen fick 3 dagar lov pga snöhinder!! - kanske också föräldrarna. I helgen har vi inget planerat. Det känns bra. Maja, du har fått brev från CSN som bekräftar det du redan vet. I dag har vi ätit en fisk thai soppa, vi tror att den smakade som något ni kan köpa och äta i ett gathörn där ni är. Ha en fortsatt trevlig resa. Vi saknar er mycket. Kram från Kristina