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Sa wat dee!
As we write this, we're sat in our luxury hostel in central Bangkok named Baan Dinso (if anyone's planning on coming to B'kok - this is the place to stay - luxury for £10 a night). To say that we feel a million miles away from home would be an understatement. We arrived in a state of lucid confusion after 16 hours flying from NZ via Sydney and arrived 11pm in a hot and sweaty airport. We soon found a taxi and made our way towards central Bangkok. The taxi ride almost broke us, but what it lacked in saftey it made up for in excitement as we hurtled through the city in torrential rain, with little to no visibility through the windscreen. Rainy season is living up to its name.
We've been here 4 days now which has taken some adjustment after a pretty familiar New Zealand lifestyle, but have come through the culture shock and are loving being in such a different place. It's been a learning curve getting accustomed to the ways of Thailand such as hailing a cab and convincing the driver to take you somewhere (i know what you're thinking "but they're taxi drivers, they're paid to take you places" - not the case, you work around their schedule), buying a meal and realising it really did just cost £0.50p, the amount of street food available - nobody seems to make food at home as its cheaper and easier to eat out at the food stalls (which we've taken full advantage of), seeing pint sized kids clinging on for dear life to tuk tuks and motorbikes, seeing five people on one scooter, the huge divide between the rich and the poor and through it all you're being permanently hugged by the heat and humidity - sweat has replaced Mal as our third wheel. Mainly its feeling like a total outsider in a country where you don't speak the language - everything you say and do has to be thought about.
Our main objective in Bangkok was to get our Mongolia and Vietnam visas sorted before we head for Laos - without too much pain we managed to get these sorted, as well as fit in some essential tourist activity activities such as:
- Trooped around Siam Paragon and MBK which are both monstrous shopping malls in the heart of Bangkok, unfortunately on the way home we were hit by another down pour - which was more like a monsoon and made for an interesting trip home. After attempting to brave the rain and walk, we quickly aborted that idea and hopped in a tuk tuk. Relief was shortlived and turned to fear as the driver went warp speed through red lights, traffic, exhaust fumes and dark lonely alleys. We paid far too much for the priviledge but were so happy to get back to our 'home', we would have paid anything.
- Went to Chatuchak Market - the largest market in Thailand with over 8,000 stalls, it welcomes over 200K people every weekend and sells everything includng puppies, furniture, clothes, food, silk, antiques, you name it, they'll have it. Most of our Asia budget was left at the market on items that strangely seemed far more appealing on the stalls than they do on us!
- Paid a visit to the famous Reclining Buddha, Grand Palace and Tiger God Shrine - our first taste of buddhist and asian culture, we liked it and are hungry for more. It's also cool to see the mini shrines throughout the city which are loaded with offerings everyday to bring good fortune to the local people.
- Went to the Khao San Road, an infamous spot for travellers - filled with tacky souviniers and touts who want to make you 'very nice suit'. Not for us... we discovered our favourite road in B'kok is the alley way by our hostel, ramshackle but charming filled with locals playing cards and washing hanging out to dry.
- Had our feet nibbled by fish - these hungry little suckers clean the dead skin cells from your feet. This was by far the weirdest way to spend an afternoon yet, but our feet are catalogue quality.
Tomorrow we board an overnight bus for Laos, which wasn't originally the plan but after meeting other people who loved it so much, we've squeezed it in. We're off to China Town now to eat and be blinded by neon!
Lah Gorn
xx
- comments
Mum (Jackie) Thanks for your text Carly announcing your arrival in Bangkok. Thank goodness you're still in one piece after those horrendous taxi and tuk tuk journeys! Hope you'll be able to relax on your bus journey to Laos tomorrow. Keep safe and if in doubt, miss it out!! Lots of Love, Mum xxxx
Mum (Sara) Hi you guys - all sounds wonderfully exciting - please wear seat belts as much as possible (do they even have seat belts!!) love your blogs so much, they make me laugh and can picture your faces in these situations. Totally agree with Jackie keep safe and be careful. Lots of love and missing you lots xxxxx
Cousin Paul Are these blogs co-written by professional writers?? :-) Keep having fun dudes x
Ruthie BUY ME A PUPPY!!!!! All sounds so exciting guys, bet Carly found lots of weird and wonderful things to buy at the market. Luxury at £10 a night sounds perfect to me. Yeah your blogs are written beautifully I love reading them. Can't wait to hear more, love you both xxxx
Papa Vince Sa Wat Dee to you back! Funny, funny blog ! Have you tried the deep fried locust, cockroach and various other delicacies? Yum yum a veritable smorgasbord... love the bit about the tuk tuk, whatever you do don't tempt the driver with another 40 baht to get you somewhere quickly, you will travel the whole way doing a wheelie!!Great stuff about the shrines etc...right up your street Carly. I hear in Cambodia they do that fish nibbling thing on your feet as well, except they use piranhas..I think you should get yourself a suit Al, and you should wear it for the duration of your adventure. Keep having fun and be safe, love you both, Dad xxx
Tim You know that tuk tuk drivers will try and charge you 5 times the normal amount sillies! You need to haggle them down in an insane way. Anyhow you are out of there now. Again its probably too late but if your getting coaches get the top first clss seat, it has tv/movies/massage its crazy, and all for a £2 more....as always missing you losers x x