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Bangkok!
After my long night of swapping between planes I eventually arrived at Bangkok!
I managed to grab a taxi to a hostel I had seen online which looked really good! Fingers crossed they still have a bed! The hostel was only a few minute walk from the world famous Khoa San road and I knew it would be a good place to start my South east Asia leg of the trip!
The hostel was great, the beds were more like capsules each with there own fan and tv with movies but although I was tired I had a few admin bits I needed to get sorted first before I could fully relax! I had my laundry sent off first as It was nearly impossible to keep things clean and sand free in the beach hut! Later I went for a walk around the local streets and markets to get a feel to Bangkok, and to m surprise I have to say that I'm impressed... Well... impressed after a month in India isn't that hard really, but at least I can't smell waste and the roads are much quieter both in traffic and in the dam horns I have came to hate!!
Walking past all the amazing street food of sushi, noodles, and what look like beef steaks I decided that I was really hungry! I don't want to be too adventurous on my first day in Thailand and don't want to risk the Bangkok belly"?" Just yet so After walking for ages I couldn't wait any longer I walked into what looked like a noodle chain bar but I think it's more of a local Chinese place... I say local as no one speaks English, I end up sitting at the only empty table... It was laid out for eight people! I felt committed once I sat down, the menus look like an aliens wrote them and I'm the only non-Chinese looking person in the whole place... And I can feel people looking at me!
When the young girl came I just pointed at something that looked like vegetable noodles and asked for a coke. The food came fast and it was really good... Of course I had to use chopsticks too which was probable funny for the people watching. The noodles were great but it did have some meat in it which I couldn't work out what it was... Hopefully not dog!
I slept for a few hours that afternoon as I was so tired, when I woke up I didn't know what to do so I climbed out of my bed for the toilet when a Scottish girl started chatting to me and asked if I wanted to go and watch some Thai boxing with her and another guy... Why not, sounds good! This is why I love hostels so much, everyone always talks to each other and everyone wants to so different things so you get a good mix of activities!
The Thai boxing was really expensive but we did get ringside seats! In Thai boxing you can use both punches, kicking and even elbows! They have 6 rounds in a match and each round is 3 minutes. The first 2 rounds are always a little slow and neither one wants to wear out to quickly but after that they go mad! It was a good night and we had decided to meet up the following night for a few beers!
The next morning I was up surprisingly early but I was looking forward to seeing some more of what Bangkok has to offer!
Over breakfast I met another 2 people who also wanted to get out and see some sights so we figured out a route we could walk to take in the best of Bangkok.
We first visited Wat Po the famous leaning Buddha, impressive but ... Seen 1 buddy you have seen them all! We then left for China town! China town was really hectic loads of street food and shops of every kind. We decided to have lunch at another Chinese place and much like the day before we didn't really know what to order but I ended up with the best Krispy duck ever!
We had walked all over the city and our feet were tired but we decided we would walk back stopping off at another one of the top sights for Bangkok. I forget what it's called now but its an artificial hill made in the city with a temple on top. We had a great view of the city and an even better ice cream at the top!
That afternoon we all chilled out before heading out to the infamous Koh San road, I invited out the 2 people from the Thai boxing and then as a group of 6 we had dinner and then a large number of beers, Shisha and even scorpions! The scorpions are one of the very touristy things that get sold on the streets around ko San road. You can buy anything from cockroaches, crickets lizards and even big spiders!
The next morning we certainly felt the hangover but nothing we could do as we had already booked a day trip to the bridge over the river Kwai.
The bus, although new was in fact extremely uncomfortable. all we wanted to do was sleep for the 3 hour drive and try to shift the hangover ASAP.
The bridge was of course not the real one as it had been blown up at the end of the war, But it was still an interesting experience and makes you think about the 90,000 people who died making the death railway including 6500 British soldiers.
We took the train for about an hour north to the next station where we rode elephants which was another great experience as was the bamboo rafting trip!
The final experience of the day was to visit a waterfall which was nice and we cooled off under the mist before the long, painful drive back to Bangkok and the onward journey to my next GAdventures tour.
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