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Sawadii-ka from Thailand!! (that means 'hello' in Thai for the less travelled!!!!!!!!!). Bangkok is surprisingly fab! I'm not sure if it's just because we've travelled the most difficult part first (India!) or if we just love it here, but everybody seems to find Bangkok a real culture shock and quite difficult, dirty and smelly, but we've found the total opposite! I think after Delhi nothing can surprise us! We were only supposed to stay here 2 nights before heading South to a beach/island for New Year, but we stayed here for 5 nights!!!
We landed at about 7pm after a great 4 hour flight from Mumbai with Jet Airways (from which we stole some pillow cases to put on our stolen pillows from our Virgin flight!), and from the airport caught a clean AC bus, arrived on a clean (but busy!) Khao San Road, and checked in to an immaculate guest house... with a real mattress!!! It cost us 350 baht (about £7) which is more than we'd been paying in India but cheap for Bangkok, but we felt like we were in a 5*!!!!!!! A REAL mattress!!!! And a HUGE one at that! And the bathroom was spotless! And free wifi, so we can use our netbook, yeay! After a wonder around (and a Pad Thai (i.e. fresh stir fried noodles for 50p!) for Rich) we slept the best we had in ages! Bliss!
Khao San Rod is where it's all happening! There is neon everywhere - bars, restaurants, hotels, fish massages (yep, fish which massage your feet by sucking them!), loads of market and street food stalls. etc. The Thai's try to get you into their bar with enticing signs such as 'STRONG cocktails only 50 baht' and 'we do not check ID cards'!!!!!!!!!! Haha! It's very Westernised here - not even half the amount of culture of India, which is quite sad - it's so full of partying holiday-makers, seedy pervy men after a cheap night with a Thai lady (or maybe ladyboy!) and lots of chavs unfortunately, but the Thai's make the most of it. We knew what it might be like after visiting Thailand before though, so no surprises, although Bangkok is worse for chavs! No 'real' hippy travellers here like in India (so far!), but we're travelling for the different experiences, so we're glad it's different!
Anyway, what we've been up to... we actually just lazed around the first day and took advantage of the free wifi at the hotel to catch-up with everyone and update the blog. That night we went for another stroll down Khao San Road and bumped into 2 familiar faces - Fern and Alex... the couple we shared the houseboat with in Alleppey, and who we bumped into in Arambol and spent Christmas with! We can't get rid of 'em!!! We were so pleased ot see them and arranged to meet them for New Year. After our lazy day we shopped and did some sight-seeing - we were intending to walk around the sights but a tuk-tuk offered to take us round for only 20 baht (40p) so we agreed... knowing fully that for this price it was a scam and he was gonna try to take us to shops to earn commission, which he did! We went to one shop to satisfy the driver in between sights, but refused to go to a second shop which he really wasn't happy about, and on returning from the final temple we wanted to see we realised the driver had bumped us!!!!! Haha! But we hadn't paid him so we got a days sight-seeing for free! And the temples here are amazing, really gorgeous. They're nothing like Indian temples - Indian temples have amazing carvings and it's unbelievable how they're built by hand, but the colours and designs of the Thai temples make them much more pleasing to the eye! Some of them are covered in shiny mosaic tiles so they glitter in the light at night! And the Buddah's are HUGE! In one temple there was a laying golden Buddah measuring 45m long and 15m high! After being bumped by our driver we had quite a walk back, so we caught a river bus (boat!) some of the way which was great... and somehow managed to get away without paying again! So a really cheap day!
New Year in Bangkok was great! I even wore a bit of make-up for the occasion and felt like a film-star! It's been so long since I looked half decent... I LOVE MAKE-UP!!! Haha! Anyway, we met Fern and Alex, had our own beer on tap (you'll see the pics!), got hammered... and missed the fireworks! :(. We got to where we thought they were, but at the stroke of midnight after an amazing countdown with hundreds of people followed by no fireworks, we realised we'd come to the wrong area!!! Nevermind, still a great night had by all... and a horrid hangover the following day, despite a Burger King to soak up the booze before bed! We spent New Years Day recovering and left Bangkok the following morning to head for Kanchanaburi... TBC!!! Lotsa love. xxx
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