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The mini bus was pretty early picking us up but we were happy to finally be on our way. After the usual pickups squeezing as many people in as possible we headed out of town, to be picked up by another mini van.. now with a sticker on my top, noticing the 'do not leave valuables in your bag' sign. Then off to a sort of cafe where we waited for over an hour before finally, the bus came. As it was an overnight bus we settled in with our blankets and watched Thailand fly by the window. We stopped at about midnight for some quick yummy noodles. At just gone 5am the bus flooded with light and the repeated shouting of "Bangkok, Bangkok, Bangkok already!" woke everyone with a shock. We were hurried off the bus to find our bags on the pavement and the bus pulling away. If that wasn't enough to get us up and going the swarm of taxi drivers and touts was almost unbearable. We jostled through and eventually lost the few persistent ones that followed us up the road. Not really knowing where we were and more than a little dazed we decided that the best place to start was at the top of the road. Bangkok at 5am is still manic. Millions of motorised tuk-tuks, taxi's and people starting their day. Born from that fact that we just wanted to get to the hostel we had booked (actually this was the second hostel we had reserved but i won't bore you with that) kev stopped a cab and agreed to give him 200baht to take us to Silom (at least double what the meter would have asked for). A dodgy alley and an argument with the hostel owner later, after we refused to pay for an extra day to check-in at 5.55am instead of 6am, we were walking in the dark to the hostel our friends had been booked into (i'm not going to lie i may have had a little girly moment). Lub d is classed as a 'flash packer' hostel mostly due to its slightly over inflated prices, but after a very very long night i just wanted to be in bed! We booked into their railway room which is basically a private room with a bunkbed, not ideal but the mattress was extremely comfy and after a week on a thai bed (hard as nails) i was finally happy, and had stopped blubbering like a 5year old. We had 2 nights in Bangkok so after meeting up with friends and having a yummy breaky of banana, croissant and coffee, with just the afternoon left we decided to go to the shopping mall. I had had to throw my walking shoes away in Oz and have had some problems getting a replacement, women in Asia just do not go walking it seems. After a couple of hours the best we came up with was a pair of trainers, however we did manage to save a fortune on anti-malaria tablets by not paying the 4500baht Boots wanted and finding a government run pharmacy who only changed 240baht! In the evening we ventured in to Silom to the night market home to some amazing street food, pork noodles and rice in this case. Bangkok shows its colours when the sun goes down. Dozens of touts attempting to get you into the brothels and shows with the girls standing outside in colour coordinated outfits line the streets. Its an unusual sight but one that you have to accept if you come to see the real Bangkok.
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