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Trish and Dan's Stroll Around the World
Blog Day 48 Thurs 23rd June 2011
Ok so we've made it to Bangkok, woo hooo, but OMG the humidity is immense, we are not used to this. Once off the plane we have directions to get a bus to the hostel we are staying at but typically they stopped running the buses on the 1st June so we drag our bags around trying to find another cheap way without getting stung. We end up on the Express train for about 15mins & get off having to find a way from there as well. It's a mission & we are tired from the very long flight. This guy walks up to us & starts talking about public holidays & voting days coming up & how places on tours will be busy, he turns out to be a legitimate sales rep for the Government Tourist Agency out here but at the time we are dubious, he puts us in a Tuk-Tuk for 20B (about 40p) to go to the office. Once there it looks official & it's busy & there is a license number on the door but this means nothing to us at this stage. We get talking to the guy & he is so helpful, full of ideas & tips, Do's & don'ts & ways of saving money. We book up for the next 10 days just to take the hassle out of things, we think it's pretty reasonable & see other people making bookings for much longer, we have decided to do a 2 day 1 night Elephant training camp so that bumped up the price, but we are at ease & happy to have the next week or so planned. We get a Tuk-Tuk to Lub-D, the hostel we are booked in at. It takes a while to get there & the street smell is vile, at one point we stopped at a set of traffic lights and Dan was actually gagging! the Tuk-Tuk had stopped right next to an open drain and it smelt like rotten chicken. Charming. The hostel is very nice, simple but clean. There is a big notice board up in the hostel and on it is a warning saying that some of these government agencies are scams and shouldn't be trusted. Great! So it sounds like weve had a 15 hour flight, got off the plane, spent an hour trying to get out of the airport, and got a Tuk-Tuk straight into a scam office! Welcome to sodding Bangkok! We take our tickets down to the reception desk to see if anyone there can advise us. The girl on the desk assures us that this office was all ok and we shouldn't worry. Tomorrow will tell when the office is open again and we pick up our tickets! After a quick we head to a Thai restaurant to try an authentic Green Thai curry, it's nice but spicier than we expected, to be honest we both think that Lloyd Grossmans stir in sauces that mum uses have the edge. We wander around the market & then it's time for bed by this time it's around midnight anyway.
Blog Day 49 Fri 24th June 2011
We don't wake until around midday which is not a good start, we shower then go straight to the office to pick up our tickets or not as the case may be. Phew it all turns out ok. We were going to go to the Grand Palace but we discover that we aren't dressed for it so head to the biggest shopping mall in Bangkok for some Brunch. All I can say is we have seen some malls but this one just tops them all, each floor has shops & then basically various areas of what can only be described as market sections, there are 7 floors to this place it's huge. We are starving so we head to good old Burger King!! We stroll around for hours & buy a few bits here & there, once we are satisfied with our purchases & the haggling we had to do to get them we decide to head back to the hostel. Everyone in our dorm room is in the bar so we join them for a drink, which then turns into going out to party on the famous Khao San Road. There are about 10 of us & we all cram into 2 Tuk-Tuk & pretty much race to the Khao San Road, it was fun & we won even though we set off second. Seriously 1 beer out here gets you feeling drunk because it's just so humid, (not that we are light weights) we really don't know how the other people are managing, but it makes it a cheap night for us! We start in a place called Shamrock for a few drinks, then onto a club simply called The Club, it's basically a free for all & we head straight to the dance floor to start throwing some serious shapes, it's extremely hot in here & Dan decides to go off & get some drink's with a guy called Danny funnily enough who is staying in our dorm, Trish is left dancing away with all the girl's. What seems like an hour or so later Dan returns with no drinks?!? Apparently the bar was too busy so they went somewhere else & he ended up doing some magic on some Thai dudes in the street & watching some street Mauy Thai boxing. He's back now so some more dancing & then we call it a night & head back to the hostel. The good thing is going out wearing flip flops means my feet don't hurt at all but it's not the same dancing without wearing heel's & I miss my girlies!!
It gets to around 4am & some of the people decide to stay up playing cards, but we are just about ready to call it a night, so of to bed we go.
Blog Day 50 Sat 25th June 2011
Today we awake around midday again, everyone else is still asleep, we had planned to go to the Grand Palace so we are up & out quickly. We jump into a metered taxi as we think this will be the best way to get there, we had been told it's about 30mins away & a taxi will be much more comfortable. The taxi driver clearly doesn't want to drive us all the way there & he says the roads are very busy today, lots of traffic, like this makes any difference to us, it's where we want to go. He takes us down this little alley way & tells us to get out & take a boat as it will be easier, while Trish waits in the car in case he drives off, Dan goes to investigate but as we had presumed they want a ridiculous amount of money & knowing that the taxi driver probably gets commission from doing this we tell him to take us by taxi or we will get out & not pay for the journey so far! Reluctantly he takes us. Once there we find out that the President is visiting because there are upcoming elections & therefore it is closed, we have been told about various scams with people saying this and they seem to be letting Thai people in, after walking to 3 different entries we get told we will not be allowed in until 5pm, its far too hot to wait around so we head back to the hostel & spend the afternoon chilling out. In the evening we go to a Japanese restaurant that we had found yesterday & it looked really nice. James a guy who is in our dorm accompanies us, the meal is very nice indeed, the service however was shocking. After dinner we hit the Pat Pong night market where there are all kinds of weird & things going on. Guys standing there making puck noises with their mouth & tapping you to try get you to go into their bar to watch a Ping Pong show, not the kind of ping pong you think it should be however, & girls the girls do not know how to use a pole to save their life, they all looked so bored & are literally just dragging themselves walking around it, Dan had to hold Trish back before she went to show them a thing or 2, on the pole that is! It's get to about 11.30 & we head back to the hostel, we have a very early start tomorrow.
- comments
Nan Hi, Welcome to Bangkok, glad I'm not there too hot for me. You certainly are getting around sightseeing. Keep safe.