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Arriving in Bangkok was certainly a shock. Things move at a million miles an hour you don't know whether to look up, down, left or right and you are instantly hit with the sound of men going 'Tuk Tuk?' Luckily we opted for a Taxi which just about managed to take us to our hostel (all the driver said on the way was 'I love Man Utd'). The hostel was actually off a busy street on a quiet 'Soi' there was a Hindu Temple at the end of the street which had all sorts of wonderful colours and sounds bouncing around it.
As hostels go the one we stayed at in the Silom district was pretty cool, you were able to hang out on the roof top garden and mingle with the other travelers. It was interesting to meet so many amazing people so quickly. After our days out in the city visiting the fabulous temples such as Wat Pho and The Grand Palace we went straight for the roof top to share our stories of the day - drinking a few Chang and Singha beers. It was interesting to hear people's different stories - Anneal from Germany had been travelling for 20 months and after going to Bali to complete his diving course he was going to return home/work 'To The Matrix' as he called it. Other people such as the couple from Milwaukee had just come for a couple of weeks and others were on a gap year. Khao San road was pretty touristy but cool to visit - even with all the great Thai food around we still couldn't resist 'a Maccies'
Nicholas was from Chile it was awesome to hear his stories and we had a great day cruising the Chao Phraya River and climbing up the steep stairs of Wat Arun with him. The stalls around Wat Arun were superb I tried corn balls with fresh coconut, Erin had Pad Thai which tasted much better with the chili sugar on and Nicholas had a small taco style wrap with meat, carrots and raisins + spicy sausage. There was also a school performing a dance and song which was pleasant.
The day we were due to set off for Chiang Mai we embarked with Nicolas into the streets of Bangkok to take part in the celebrations of the Thai New Year (Songkran) - armed with water pistols we took to the streets. It was amazing to witness although got very wet - think of that festival in Spain (La Tomatina I think it's called) where they launch tomatoes at each other - this was like that but with water - people just launch buckets of water at each other even over passing scooters - mental!
I haven't mentioned the amazing food we ate yet - Pad Thai etc from the street vendors was good but we really loved the fresh Mangos - I (Chris) had developed an obsession with them- we for our guilt enjoyed the iced coffee and spent some time in the 7-11 shop where we got our daily 'Chang' from and other nibbles.
There were a few bits of scamming that we came across in Bangkok such as Tuk Tuk drivers taking you to tour operators to sell you a tour or well spoken English Thai men who claimed to be Doctors - advised us to go to the 'tourist information' centre for a tour - these were of course small travel agents selling expensive tours. We fell for it once when we bought our bus tickets for Chiang Mai but lesson learnt!
We left our lovely hostel - noodle and Chang belly's full and headed for our overnight bus up to Chiang Mai - a place we were very looking forward to though it was sad to say goodbye to our friends especially Nicholas.
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