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We made it, be it a week late, we safely arrived on one piece. And with all our belongings.
The flight was looooong, and the trip emotional.... But nothing a champagne breakfast, m'n'ms and a bag of star bursts couldn't alleviate!!!? I managed an hour or so of dozing, but otherwise was pretty uncomfortable and bored. I'm so relieved we have broken up our flight to the uk with a month in Asia.... You couldn't have paid me to sit on another flight for 12 hours!!!!!
Bangkok is insane, there is no other way to describe it! it completely bombards all your senses. It's a hot prickly heat that saps your energy almost immediately. The sweat runs off you, even when sitting still. The 7-11's have become a regular of ours, even if we don't need anything, they're air conditioned and amazing!
It's busy! There is always something going on or something to look at, whether it's people washing all their household dishes with a hose on the side of the the main road, or people going places it's fascinating to watch and completely overwhelming. 8 million people live in Bangkok, and it both feels and smells like it. Wherever you go there are people. We are constantly harassed by taxi and tuk tuk drivers, people trying to sell us this and that -and being foreign and blonde doesn't help the cause I have never had to say "no thank you" so frequently in all my life. People though are friendly for the most part, they're all just trying to make a living.
The noise is constant, scooters and horns. That's more or less all you hear, with a few shouts thrown in just for good measure. The constant chatter in a different language where you recognise nothing soon melts into the background, except when you're trying to communicate- which is definitely not easy. There has been some interesting miming already!
The smell of the place is what I have found the most fascinating. Every step you take is a different aroma. One step its the delicious smells from a street food stall and next it's the smell of piles of old rubbish, closely followed by sewerage and then flowers from the floral wreaths that seem to be everywhere. It's crazy. It smells like Bangkok.
We had a pretty long train ride and then walk to the hotel when we arrived. The trip wouldn't have felt anywhere near as long if we weren't having to lug around massive packs!! I've already emptied half of all my bottles of toiletries and have and have thrown away a pair of jeans. It doesnt really feel like it's made that much of a difference but unfortunately I need the rest of the stuff so there is nothing else to go at this stage.
The walk to the hotel was good though because it immediately immersed us into the Thai culture and the Bangkok way of life. Where we stayed was located in a area where a lot of Thai people lived. It wasn't much of a residential area, but more the small shop front with a small room out the back type of area. There were lots of people, more scooters and lots of street food vendors.
The food is amazing ( and cheap)- my ideal travel experience would be to eat my way around the world, and I have started off well. Pork noodle soup for dinner (NZD 1.60)- the soups broth was delicious- with lots of coriander and chilli. Breakfast was an interesting mix of vegetable spring rolls (to fill the gap) while we found something at a street stall that we thought we might be able to stomach at such an early hour. Our western stomachs aren't used to fish and rice soups yet. We eventually found a little place and decided on a basil pork and rice combo. It was delicious, but I'm not entirely sold on it as my first meal of the day, however when in Rome....or Bangkok?? Do it like the locals do. During the day I find the heat really kills my appetite so we've just been snacking on fresh fruit, mangoes and tree apples (Wallaces, do you remember see from the Solomons??). I also tried a mango sticky rice, a friend back home said it was a must and possibly the most amazing thing in the world. She's not far off being correct, it's a sticky coconut rice- sort of like a rice pudding, that then has coconut cream poured on top and is finished off with slices of deliciously sweet mango. Yum yum yum yum yum!!!!
We spent our first day roaming the streets. We wanted to visit Kho San Road, a popular tourist destination, and managed to get ourselves scammed trying to get there. As we were reading our map a friendly local "on holiday from Phuket" offered to help us with directions. Conveniently, not long after telling us it was a long way to walk to the river where we needed to catch a river taxi- which we did need to do- a tuk tuk pulled up in front of us and offered as an okay rate which Jazmin used her bartering skills and managed to get us down to a better rate. At this stage, I had my suspicions about it being a scam but the others were happy with the deal so we went along with it. The traffic is crazy, there are no rules- everyone does what they like, including ride their scooter on the second road they have in Bangkok, the footpath. Tuk tuks make for an interesting way of getting about, they really are a death trap! Anyway, we ended up being taken down a random street to a private pier where they had a boat that could take us to where we wanted to go, after taking us on a canal tour, for only 600bhat. We declined, walked back out to the main road and along there for about 500m until we came across the public pier where we purchased a direct ticket for 15bhat. That'll learn us!!
The boat trip was very cool. It gave us a different perspective of the city as we got a good view of it all. The city is a mix of sky rise apartments, pretty run down and with interesting looking electricals, small rooms behind a small shop front that you can see right into with nothing but a metal gate as a front door and wonky, multilevel huts with collapsed corrugated iron rooves on stilts over the water and many other throw together shelters. I guess it's the only way you can fit that many people into one city.
As I write this I am sitting on the floor of the public train station, it's packed- well except one small area that is served for monks. Tonight we are leaving Bangkok and heading north on the overnight train to Chiangmai. That will be a whole new adventure I am sure.
Xoxo
- comments
Emily Sounds amazing Hun xx