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And so, another blog set in Bangkok. How much more can there be to see and/or do in this place on the 4th time you visit? We'll as it turns out, LOTS. Im writing this now sitting in my sister Maiken's kitchen in Besancon,France, so the blog will be a picture drawn from memory, thankgod it was a very unforgettable week!
I last checked in just after arriving in Thailand after leaving Cambodia. My good friend Emil went home to Copenhagen and I am now traveling with my new Korean friend Hwang. This turned out to be the reason I had such a good time during my last days in Bangkok, she had not been in the capital before and with a fresh mind she had the best idea's of what would be fun to do. Here's the recap.
Thursday Jan 27: Our first move was to check into a Korean Guesthouse (Dong Dae Moon) at a very reasonable 200baht a night for a bed in a 22 person dormitory (as expected mostly Korean guests so that was fun for me!). We spent the first half of the day in Bangkok's Chinatown, a grand place if I dont say so myself! Shopping, wandering and general sightseeing before eating a delicious roast duck for lunch. It was so hot today that she also came up with the idea to go ice-skating! We jumped in a tuk-tuk and set our sights for the Central World Mall. We actually did the "cheap tuk-tuk ride if you have One stop" meaning that the driver takes you to a random tailor's shop where you have to pretend for about 10minutes your interested in maybe buying a suit so that the driver gets a petrol coupon. Amusing and annoying all at once.
We were at first bummed out to learn that the ice-skating was closed on that particular day when we got to the mall, BUT, reason being it was closed was that there was a huge fashion show taking place on the actual ice rink itself. So we got treated to a massivley entertaining show with Thai's on ice, gorgeous models and even a celebrity singer who came out and did a tune or 2. We even got filmed for TV holding the event's sponsered energy drink! Coool. We left at around sunset time and decided to walk the 15 mins from the mall over to the Baiyoke Hotel which is the largest building in Bangkok and the largest hotel in Thailand. We took the lift up to the 83 floor and stood out on the revolving veiwing deck. A grand finale to a great day.
Friday 28th: I didnt think we could top yesterday with all its random awesomeness but Man what a day this was. Hwang had this idea to go have a look at this medical forensic museum, the Siriraj Hospital Museum, turning today into one of the most interesting and obscure days of my entire journey, After almost 2 hours of walking around following our Bangkok city map and one crazy spontanious motorbike ride, we made it to the hospital grounds. *Readers be warned for slightly graphic content beyond this point* hehe. I was not at all prepared for what we were about to see. For the low low cost of 40B (10kr) we walked in to this museum, met by hall's of forensic specimens. Instructional posters on the birds and the bee's, followed closely by jar's of what can only be reported as dead babies, kept in liquid and horribly deformed. Siamese twins, a mermaid girl, cyclops baby, anything you can think of, they had it in this Bangkok hospital museum. Bare in mind, this place is ment to be educational and we did see school classes of young teenagers, holding their hands infront of their mouths and pointing. Have you ever seen a person, big or small, cut directly in half, split down the middle with all the parts still intact? I have. The next hall had an exhibition of basically what I would call "Ways to die". Any way you can imagine a person dying whether it be a stab wound, gunshot, car accident or anything medical such as a disease, they had either a bone specimen, a photo or and actual person on display teaching us about the subject at hand. I havent seen this many skulls since the Killing Fields in Cambodia. After just over an hour I think we had enough and went out for some much needed fresh air.
The day took a complete 180 after the museum as we decided to take a taxi to the Bangkok Zoo! I love zoo's and this would be my second after the Beijing zoo in October. We saw elephants and got to feed them, flamingos, hippos, bears, a two-headed turtle!, crocks, an orangutan, tigers (love 'em), an albino tiger with tiny albino tiger cubs, a plethera of african animals e.g giraffe, zebra and ostrich, we saw otters feeding, snakes and I got to hold a skunk, just to name a few!
Back at the Korean hostel the day came to a perfect end seeing as Hwangs father knew the owner, we got a huge Korean bbq dinner with all the trimmings + soju, for FREE! Had the pleasure of this fine food 2 nights in a row actually and would (if i could) have enjoyed it many more times.
Saturday 29th: Last day with Hwang. Made our way back to Chinatown for more duck. Went to a cool temple down a very tight shopping street, lots and lots of people out seeing as the chinese new year was just around the corner (feb 3rd) and enjoyed that before heading back over the Central World mall for our final shot at going ice-skating. Stopped at a free art exhibition which was very cool indeed and i appreciated it alot. Finally! we got to go ice-skating on this not so big rink inside the thai shopping mall. I was clearly the only foreigner in the place which made it even more fun perhaps skating the music of disney-on-ice. So much fun! In the evening I had to say yet another sad goodbye, as you do when you backpack and had a relaxing evening in with my book and some music. The next day I spent largely collecting my thought's and slowly planning my departure from Asia. Changed hostel's to Charondee guesthouse in the middle of Khao-San Road, did a little bit of shopping, skype'd the family and wrote my blog.
January 31st: My last full day in Bangkok. Had a few things to do today including buying some shoes for the harsh cold european weather so I headed over to the MBK centre and purchased some awesome white Nike's. Got in my last Tuk-tuk for the forseable future and chilled out. This wasn't originally one of my plans but seeing as its so cheap I invested in a much needed 'touch up' job on one of my tattoo's. Very pleased indeed. Watched Inglorious Basterd's with a fellow hostel buddy Lisa and had my last night's sleep in Asia.
Final Day: 137 days of travelling under my belt and strong mixed feeling's about going home. I'll leave my general summary of the journey for a later blog. What an INCREDIBLE last day this turned out to be. They say "its not about where you go, its about the people you go with" and that sums up my entire journey. My good good friend's Lana and Regan showed up out of the blue from Cambodia and got in touch with me in the morning and I had a blast and half with them on my last day. I would almost damn them for showing up because it made leaving that much harder. We shared a few bottles of Chang, spoke about the good times and swapped details for future postcards and travels. I also ran into my friend Sonia from Sweden who I will be seeing hopefully sooner than later. The taxi ride to the airport was only 45mins but it felt like an Eternity.
Next entry will be from France, reunited with ma soeur, and will indeed be just as eventful as this one. I'll make sure of it :) Untill then peep's! We speaks.
Mattis
- comments
Sander I thought this was going to be a France blog?
mattisup the title, but its coming:) i know, messed
Malin Så kjekkt å se at di siste dagene ble bra for deg mattis! :D Glede meg t å se deg ijen nå snart!! :D hørre rykter om at du e tuback i norge?? hørre fra deg kompis! :D håbe alt e bra me deg! :) superhugs from meee