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Bangkok is Thailand's capital city with 8 million people living in the skyscraper covered centre and an extra 14 million on the surrounding metropolitan areas. With a metro line, subway and sky train to get around, the city its one of the most modern cities in southeast Asia. The Chao Phraya Delta runs through the city, which has a ferry transportation system on it used by both locals and tourists. Its nothing like Londons stunning views and modern boats. The river is quiet polluted and littered like most of the Asian waterways we have seen. The city actually had a wannabe Tokyo feeling, with all the reliable public transport and traffic wardens on the train platforms making sure everyone follows the rules. It felt very different to the busy, smelly and dirty cities of Cambodia, China and some of Vietnam. The airport was the first sign that we had arrived in a different city to the rest. The huge glass modern terminals had clear signs and modern facilities. At the passport checking area TV screens showed short clips in English and Chinese of the customs and rules of Thailand. Signs covered the area about not buying ivory or any Buddha ornaments. Actually they are very strict on the no Buddha's as decoration, being a 90% Buddhist country, even a tattoo of Buddha can get you fined here. It felt more stable than other countries from the get go but it also felt richer. A lot richer!
We learnt two important lessons here in our 3 day stay. Number one was always check that there isn't any huge transport halting festivals on the day you arrive. Jumping off our 9th plane journey we confidently made our way to the airport train system to head into town. It took us 4 hours to get to the hostel, instead of the normal 1 hour travel time. It consited of an airport overground train, an underground metro train, 45 minute walk to the skytrain stop which was closed so we then had to walk another 45 minutes to our hostel. This was all with heavy bags on our backs, rucksacks on our front and the midday heat blasting down on us. At one point we had to walk past crowds of people sat on the pavement unwilling to budge as guards told us to get off the road. We seemed to have arrived on a huge cycle advent called Bike for Dad, the whole centre of the city was on lock down with no cars or trains running. The bikers didn't seem to start coming through the city till night time!
The Grand Palace is one of the top tourist attractions in Bangkok, but is not the official residence of their current king. Unlike Buckingham, the Palace is a walled collection of buildings divided into sections. The most famous is the Emerald Buddha Temple, built to house one of the most important Buddha statues in Thailand. However the, rather small, Buddha is not made out of Emerald but Jade from Chiang Mai. We have seen many a Buddha in our travels, but we were more inspired by the decoration of the temple that housed the Buddha. Small gems and reflective titles covered the entire temple, with gold painted spires and statues covering the enclosure of the temple. In the midday sun the building were beautiful and unlike every other Buddhist temple we had seen. The palace also contains other sections of houses for important royal events but they seemed unimpressive compared to the temple. Also the midday heat didn't help us ignore the crowds of Chinese tour groups.
Thai food is one of the many things people enjoy Thailand. We enjoyed our first tastes at our hostel which had a great resturant. What's interesting is how similar the food is around this part of the world. Every country eats meals based on noodles, rice and meat. The only difference is the spices and vegetables. But this also brings us onto lesson number two...the Thai love nuts! They love them all from peanuts to cashews, and of course in Bangkok on the third day of our visit Nicole had an allergic to Tom Yum soup, that she had previously eaten many times before in different countries without a problem. Obviously the Thai people feel that it needed the addition of a nut or two. Everything was fine as antihistamines were taken and the situation was under control. Another reminder and lesson learnt to ask about nuts for everything even sandwiches, and not to get complacent.
One thing we haven't mentioned is that our flight from Siem Reap to Bangkok was in a tiny propeller plane. Neither of us has ever been in a propeller plane, we kept getting an Indiana Jones feeling as it flew down the runway, just expecting it to crash into a nearby bush and burst into flames. Luckily that didn't happen and we had a reasonably easy flight, but we doubt you'd see one in London Heathrow!
Sadly on a whole Bangkok was not all we had raved it up to be in our heads. Having visited many more stunning and fascinating cities this one just felt dull. It's a place for shopping with massive shopping malls all over town right next to each other on streets. But you would need a huge budget to do much shopping here, with its western shops and designer brands. Not sure why Boots is here?! Which was not what we were after with our strict budget and small bags.
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