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19/01/2008
Well have done a couple of the obligatory tourist things today and yesterday. Went to the weekend market on saturday with jess and cristelle, two aussie girls from my hostel. its really close to asha and they provide a free taxi. The market is HUGE! theres almost no way you can go and see it all, alex said that apparently if you visited each stall for two minutes youd be there for almost 2 months!! You can literally buy anything there. There were even animals in cages but i had to shut my eyes and run past.
Been feeling really tired, i think its the heat. its a bit sudden for me as well coming from 5 degrees england to this. cristelle and jess came from similar temperatures in aus so its not too bad for them! Got back from the market and slept for about 4 hours! Jess has a friend who knows this singer in one of the hotels, so we went on the skytrain. About 45 minutes after what was supposed to be a ten minute walk (due to very bad directions) we got to this very nice hotel, and me in my backpacker uniform of shorts and birkenstocks, felt decidedely undredressed. It didnt matter and we went in anyway to see Alison, who told us we should go to this other hotel bar where her friend was singing later too. So after another very expensive cocktail (actually about 3 pounds, but in comparison to a 60 pence beer) we went there.
20/01/2008
Got up earlier this morning to get the river ferry with alex to the grand palace and what pho.At the station for the river taxi theres a tout who tries to get unsuspecting tourists onto this river ferry which you pay 120 baht for, and most people don't know better so just tajke that one. the real taxi costs just 10 or 15 baht, and is quite amusing. Full of sweaty tourists and thai's, they crammed so many people onto the boat i was a bit worried it was going to sink... But we got there safely so they obviously know what theyre doing!!
The grand palace was amazing, despite the fact that i had to borrow a delightfully oversized polyester shirt as i was only wearing a sleeveless top. I thought i was ok as i had a shawl, but obviously not. ive taken loads of photos but im sure they all look the same, lots of statues and gold. everything is covered in mirrors of gold or something else shiny. The emerald buddah was a lot smaller than i thought it was going to be. Next we walked for about ten minutes to go and see What Pho. They're just around the corner from eachother so the streets are crawling with tourists. The reclining buddha was impressive, enormous!
Wewent to khao san road for a little bit afterwards too. you have to take the river taxi there as they havnt built the skytrain anywjhere near it, which i find really surprising as its the most touristy area. KSR was muchj quieter than i imagined, but it was the middle of the day. God knows what its like at night time, heaving i should imagine. There are loads of bars and food stalls.
Hading up to Chiang Mai tomorrow night on the sleeper train with Jess and Cristelle, will update from there!
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