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Arriving in Bangkok was like nothing we had ever experienced before. It is a complete hive of activity with people and cars everywhere at all times of day and night. Everyone has something to sell you wether it be a Tuk Tuk tour, a ping pong show (and they dont mean table tennis!!) knock off designer clothes or a suit. We absolutely loved Bangkok though and as we were only staying for 2 nights we decided we would definatley stay on for a few days after the trip had finished.
On our first evening in Bangkok we went on a tour of China town which involved us taking our first ride on a Tuk Tuk. This was an experience we are never likely to forget!! The traffic in Bangkok is very hetic but this did not seem to deter our Tuk Tuk driver from weaving in and out of the traffic at what seemed to us like 100mph! At times we were hanging on for dear life as our driver did his best Lewis Hamilton impression.
After our tour of China town, which included the night market and the flower market (which Viv would of loved), we had our final meal with Pete, Stuart and Shannon (Manjit had flown home a day early). We ate at a sea food restaraunt which was absolutely gorgeous (like Malaysia the food in Thailand is delicious) and a great way to round off the two weeks with our group.
On sunday before meeting up with our new group Mandy and I visited Bangkok's most famous temple Wat Po more commonly known as the Reclining Buddha. The highly impressive Budda is gold plated, 15 meters high, 46 meters long and represents Budda passing into nivana.
We knew before we got to Bangkok that their would be alot people who would try to con us, but we did not reailse how good some people would be at it. After we left Wat Po we wandered around and were approched on the street by what we would call a very honest looking man. His was in his fifties and we got chatting, he told us he was a school teacher and recommended a few hidden gems for us to visit. He wrote us a list and soon hailed us a tuk-tuk. He told us to visit the lucky buddha, the marble buddha, and told us of a factory outlet that sold suits and on this particular weekend there happened to be a sale on. We had no interest in buying a suit but wanted to see the temples.
Once we got to the lucky buddha we were approached by another well dressed man who had just finished praying and got talking to us telling us the history of the statue as well as Bangkok. We told him where we were going and he confirmed the sale at the tailors saying he had bought one as he worked in a bank. We then got back on the tuk-tuk and asked the driver to head straight to the marble buddha rather than the tailors. He still proceeded to take us to the tailors.
Once in their we were approached by a tailor but told him we were not interested and came straight out. The tuk-tuk driver was not very happy with this and took us to the marble buddha were he refused to wait and take us back to our hotel. We thought he was rude but still thought the other two guys were genuine and helpful. It was not until a few days later when telling someone how nice the people in Bangkok were that we were told all three of the guys were a team trying to get us into the tailors!!
In the evening we met up with our new group at our hotel and were pleased that we were in a group of twelve. Our tour leader Kate seemed fun and enthuastic and our fellow travellers seemed nice. They were four friends from Durham uni, an American called Chris from Atlanta, Lucy and Natasa two friends from London, Coco a guy from London and finally Courtney and Evan an Australian couple from Melboure. We did not realise at the time but some of these people would turn out to be great friends.
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