Bangkok

After 6 weeks travelling around Thailand, we finally got back to where we started… Bangkok. We had left it till the end and had only given ourselves a tight squeeze of 4 days to see what there was in town. We had heard differing opinions on Bangkok and it is definitely a city of contradictions., from the hustle and bustle of the Khao San Road to the quiet of the Royal Palace.

The first day in town we had decided to do a bit of shopping as we were planning on picking up a replacement laptop. There is a large specific shopping district in Bangkok with lots of large malls, there is even a specific electronic mall called Panthip Plaza which we headed to.This place is truly gadget heaven…it has 6 floors of computers, accessories and all sorts of techie stuff. We eventually found a laptop we liked and bought it, but it took up a large portion of our day. While we waited for the shop to install the virus software and office on the laptop, we went down the road to have a look at another mall. This was another huge mall with clothes, and a large food court on the top floor.The food court had lots of small kitchens along the wall and each has their own specialty. To buy food, you buy a card at the centre of the food court and charge it with money (a bit like an oyster card).Then you give that to each of the kitchens and no money changes hands.

We also picked up an extra traveler while we were in Bangkok as our friend Richard was working there for a few days, as a result, we had a drinking buddy for the weekend. We started in Khao San Road and pottered along that for the evening, getting a few drinksin a few different places.

The Khao San Road is the heart of everything backpacker in Thailand, its where every westerner comes and finds just about anything you could possibly want. We had heard from people who didn't like it and found it manic or over the top. Maybe we had become immune to it after 6 weeks in Thaialnd, but it wasn't anywhere as bad as the stories we heard. Yes, the market stalls were everywhere and everyone was trying to sell you something and pestering you, but that is true across all of Thailand (and Asia it seems, based on our future travels). It is quite a small road, about 500m long, but absolutely stuffed with market stalls, bars, restaurants and shops. During the day, it is fairly sedate, with all the street space being taken up by stalls selling souvenirs, knock off t-shirts and dodgy DVDs. At night, a lot of these disappear and are replaced by carts selling buckets of alcohol with all sorts of random concoctions available. There are also foodstalls everywhere in Bangkok. Most only selling 2 or 3 items, but doing them really well and cheaply. One of the many pleasures of Thailand is snacking from these stalls, whether they do Spring Rolls for 30 Baht (50p) or Pad Thai for 60 Baht, you can eat well and (reasonably) healthily all evening. There were also a lot of stalls selling drinks, our personal favourite did fresh fruit shakes (just fruit and ice, no milk) for 20 Baht. If you are what you eat, after 6 weeks in Thailand, I'm some sort of Squid-Banana combination and Emma is a Cashew Nut-Mango.

After recovering the next morning, we had arranged to go to the big weekend market at Chatuchak on the outskirts of Bangkok. We initially had to head into the posh part of town where Richard was staying and this was our first use of Bangkok public transport. It was a revelation, the city is built on a river and has a regular and cheap network of river taxis which run up and down it.These river taxis intersect with the Skytrain (elevated railway) and MRT (underground trains) which cross Bangkok. We took the skytrain to Sukhumvit to meet Richard and then headed north to the market. We had headed to the market hoping to pick up some counterfeit clothes, but it was much more setup for locals and a proper market. Whilst that curbed our shopping instinct, there was plenty there to be interested in…particularly the pet section. This is a large section which sells all sorts of animals, everything from bunnies dressed in little dresses to pet hedgehogs. There is a huge fish section as well which sells just about anything you could want….from stingrays to Nemo's.Check some of the photos and you'll see what I mean.We then took the train back to town and settled in for a few beers and a Sunday roast in the pub. Sometimes, you just have to have a taste of home.

There are only a few must-see sights in Bangkok if you are there for a short trip, one of these is the Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha. We somehow managed to visit this on what was a ridiculously hot day. To make things worse for me, the temple is very strict about dress code and whereas my3/ 4 length shorts are normally good enough, they weren't here. Luckily (?) they will loan you a pair of trousers or a top for the duration of your visit if you are not dressed appropriately. They were awful shiny blue things, but at least there was lots of people wearing them so you blend in. The majority of the Palace is still of limits as it's a working palace. They were also holding the lying in state of the kings sister, who had died in January and has been there all this time and there were still loads of Thai people coming and going to see the body. It is a fantastic building and even compared to the number of temples we had seen already, these were quite impressive.All around the exterior of the wall is a mural which represents the Ramakien. This is the Thai version of a hindu myth called the Ramayana which was also present in Cambodia and Angkor.

Afterthe Grand Palace and Temple, we went to see Wat Pho, one of the most well known wats (temples) in Thailand. This is home to the reclining Buddha which is a well known, large statue of the Buddha ascending to nirvana. It is HUGE - 46m long and 15m high. Its feet alone, are 3m high and inlaid with mother of pearl to highlight the 108 characteristics of the Buddha. There are also 108 collection pots alongside one wall, which apparently give good luck if you donate into each one.(The Catholics could learn a lot from the Buddhist about getting more money out of followers) Wat Pho is also famous as the home of Thai Massage and is still home to an ancient medical school. As a result, there are old teaching diagrams showing acupressure points around the exterior walls and pavilions.

After 4 days in Bangkok it was time to move on…. Sad but I am sure I'll be back in Thailand sometime soon.The next morning we headed to the airport and on to our next destination-Cambodia.