Bangkok, Thailand

 

October 5th - October 11th 2011

We left Cambodia for Thailand by bus and were sad to say goodbye to our Siem Reap accomodation called 'Prohm Roth Guesthouse'. The guesthouse which is run by the Suon brothers couldn't have been more helpful and friendly. They offered a free breakfast every morning and on the day that we left were running a little late with the breakfasts so they packed up our American style pancakes and even a little bag of maple syrup for us to take before waving us goodbye. Definately recommended if you ever want to visit Angkor Wat. The journey by bus was another interesting one, I got the window seat and regretted in when cockroaches emerged and started running up and down the curtains, the bus broke down in the middle of nowhere too.



Street scene in Bangkok

We eventually got to the Thai border and had to walk with our heavy rucksacks to the immigration centre. We had a bit of a nightmare as we had Thai visa's which we didn't want to activate until we returned to Thailand from Laos in a few weeks time. Arriving at a Thai border overland gives you 15 days in the country visa free and we wanted to utilise this and use our actual visa when we would want to stay in Thailand for longer than 15 days after Laos. We had read online that we could do this in the forums but when we came to do it we had no choice but to use our visa as we already had the visa stamp in our passports. Annoying but at least we were over the border. It meant that after Laos we would either have to organise another visa or only stay in Thailand for 15 days.

We continued the journey by minivan in to Bangkok and got dropped off, luckily I had seen the street we were staying on as we passed so after a 10 minute walk we were there withour getting lost. We woke up on our first morning in Bangkok and had designs on going to the Grand Palace. We walked there from our guesthouse grabbing lunch at a Seven Eleven on the way. We walked through the open green space called Sanum Luang and ended up walking the long way round the Palace as we couldn't find the entrance. A tuk tuk driver came up to us telling us that the Palace was closed for the day but that he could take us on a tour of the city, he then took my guide book and map and started writing all over it demonstrating where we could go. I had read about this in my guidebook as it's a scam that is very common in Bangkok, they tell you an attraction is closed, promise a city tour and then take you to workshops and factories and force you in to buying things, they get a commision from it. I warned Craig while his back was turned and we started to walk away. He then threatened us with a fist gesture and said basically if he saw us get in another tuk tuk he would beat us up. He then watched us as we walked away. Not the best first impression of the city!

We got to the palace entrance but Craig was wearing cut off trousers and there is a strict dress code (no exposed legs, open toed shoes or flip flops, no exposed shoulders etc) so we decided to come back tomorrow when we were appropriately dressed. We were feeling a bit down after being threatened and our planned days activity which we'd looked forward to being a no-go. We had a sit down in the park and decided that as the Bangkok National Museum was just two minutes away we would do that instead. We paid 200 baht to enter and wandered around the exhibits. It wasn't the best museum and seemed quite run down in comparison with the Angkor museum but the exhibits got a bit more interesting towards the end. The museum showcased examples of wood carving, puppets, mother of pearl inlay, weaponry, ivory, textiles as well as a history of Thailand exhibition. After the museum we had a picnic in the park and walked to Khao San Road the infamous backpackers road in Bangkok. We found a bookshop and bought Herman Melville's Moby Dick and Dan Brown The Da Vinci Code, random combination!

Day two we booked the first day of our Stray Asia tour for the 11th and walked to The Grand Palace suitably covered up this time. The Grand Palace was an amazing sight to behold. The temples are covered in sparkling mirrors, brightly coloured plasterwork and mosaics and jewels. Gold shimmered everywhere you looked. Walls were covered in beautiful painted murals with gold leaf and statues were also adhourned with gold and jewels. We took our time walking around the Palace which is a maze of buildings and courtyards and took photos as we went. One of the temples showcases the famous Emerald Buddha which we admired sat on the floor of the temple. Unfortunately some areas of the palace were out of bounds due to prayer sessions or building works so we weren't able to see everything that the complex had to offer. On the way out we had a look in the coin museum before making our way out to the park. A group of uniformed soliders had made formation outside on the road and we watched as they marched into the palace presumably performing the changing of the guard. We sat on a bench in the park and were approached by several Thai men asking where we were from, where we were going etc, some were friendly enough and some were trying to scam us into a shopping tour like yesterday. We were polite but as soon as any converstaion moved on to a tour we moved away.



The Grand Palace

Detail of a mural in The Grand Palace



Changing of the guard

After the Grand Palace and the park we walked quite a distance to the Golden Mount. We began climbing the steps to the top and admired the beautiful views over the city.



Views from the top of The Golden Mount

As it was now the weekend we decided to go to the weekend market which was a walk and a bus ride away. It was probably the biggest market that we have ever been to. Full to the brim with stalls selling just about eveything including puppies, kittens, bunny rabbits, fish and aquariums, furniture, clothes, shoes, food and so much more. We wandered around the stands and stalls for hours and bought a few bits and pieces as well as little chocolate cupcakes. We eventually made our way home and had dinner down Khao San Road, the food was average and when it came to paying the bill the staff tried to con us into paying more. When we tried to argue it about 5 members of staff got involved making a big scene as they were claiming we had eaten food that we hadn't ordered. We paid more than we should have and left in a bad mood cursing Bangkok yet again!

Cupcakes from The Weekend Market

We decided to take a canal boat to MBK a massive shopping centre because Craig needed a new backpack and we had heard that there was a cinema there. As we're both big film fans, we really wanted to get back some normality and see a film on the big screen. We took the boat which was very cheap and offered views of the houses and people by the canal which was interesting to see. We got off at the Siam Square stop and made our way to MBK. Just like the market the day before the shopping mall was huge. We looked around the stalls and shops and bought cinema tickets to see Contagion which was in English with Thai subtitles. We enjoyed the film and the novelty of having to stand for the national anthem just before it played. The cinema also served the most amazing caramel popcorn too. Craig managed to get a great new backpack for a good price too so it was a good day at MBK!

We spent the morning of our last full day in Bangkok at the post office so that Craig could send home his Cambodian artwork and we walked to Dusit Zoo. The Zoo was ok but as we've found with a lot of Asian Zoo's the amount of space the animals are given is not very much. We enjoyed seeing the animals but felt bad for them as yet again they looked bored and weren't given enough room to roam. We fed the elephants banana's and one took the whole basket out of my hands, once it had fallen on the floor he scooped up all the fruit and then handed back the basket to be put away which was funny to watch. One of the elephants had been taught a variety of tricks which were mind blowing. I enjoyed watching the elephant but couldn't help wondering how they train them to do these tricks. The trainer was using a stick to lightly touch pressure points which the elephant responds to but who knows whether the elephant was hit with the stick in the training process.

Elephant at Dusit Zoo

Bangkok has probably been our least favourite place that we have visited on our travels. It's the first place that we have felt worried about people talking to us, mostly because of being threatened and then the numerous people that tried talking us into a tuk tuk tour when we were sat in the park or walking along. We tried not to let the experience in Bangkok ruin our impression of Thailand as cities tend to be completely different to the rest of the country. We were looking forward to the start of our Stray Asia tour where we would get to see Northern Thailand and the whole of Laos which we had heard great things about.