Bangkok (1st Visit)

In true backpaker style, we started our Thai adventure on Th Khao San - the grimy & dirty but enormously characterful location that grew notoriety through the film The Beach. After such a long journey even the worst flea pit would seem appealing, so we gladly checked into Lek Ghesthouse at the heart of the main drag. The rooms were like shoe boxes and the bathroom facilities can't exactly be described as five star (or any star for that matter), but the three little Thai women who lived behind reception (and by live I mean shower, s*** & shave - literally) were delightfully friendly & welcoming.

Anyway, we weren't here to sleep (debatable in Allan's case) and so we ventured out onto the street. Khao San Road can best be described as a developing world version of Camden Market, and whilst it's obviously now geared towards the backpacking hoardes, with all the downsides that entails, it's still a pretty amazing place. Most notable are the myriad street vendors - they're certainly friendly but my God they want to sell you something. In fact it didn't take long to build up a vocabulary of standad phrases to escape the constant sales pitches:

Q - "Sir, Sir, you buy lovely well made suit?"

A - "Why thank you, but I bought a lovely well made suit from you only yesterday."

Q - "You want lighter? It very good. Has flame."

A - "Oh no thank you, smoking is a most awful habit."

Q - "You want Tuk Tuk 10 Baht 1 hour? I take you to Temple & Big Buddha."

A - "I've already been but thank you anyway." (I lied)

Q - "Sir, Sir, I read your palm Sir."

A - "Oh just piss off you pikey b****** & get a proper job!"

Despite the constant sales pitches there is actually quite a lot of stuff worth buying (if you fancy yourself as a bit of a hippy), and the Pad Thai & fresh fruit they sell on the street is amazing. Whilst at first I was dubious of buying cooked food off the steet, in all honesty it's probasbly safer as at leat you can see how it's been cooked. Despite the heat, there seems to be a concerning lack of refrigeration of perishable foodstuffs in Thailand, and one can't help but wonder why the scant regard for prevention of cross-contamination between raw & cooked meats does not lead to a much higher incidence of food poisoning & longer queues for the non-squat toilet.

I'm not entirely sure what the Thai life expectancy is, but I would expect it to be relatively low, not only because of the questionable handling of what goes into one's mouth and how it is disposed of after (more on that to follow), but because almost every driver in the land, sorry I mean EVERY driver in the land, controls their vehicle like a maniac on speed. Furthermore, whether two thirds of said vehicles would pass their MOT is also debatable.

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Near Death Experience # 1 - The Tuk Tuk Ride

Being sat on the back of a flimsy looking shelf attached to a 3 wheeled motorbike is hair-rasing enough. Being sat on the back of a flimsy looking shelf attached to a 3 wheeled motorbike whilst crossing ten lanes of speeding traffic and then proceeding to ride down the road in the wrong direction is frankly terrifying. Oh well, at least I could say at the end of it that yes I had actually seen the temple & the Big Buddha. Damn them for being so persuasive!

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The key thing that I noticed about Bangkok is the heat and the smell that envelops you at all times. The hot & humid tropical air (Bahrain - 10C) carries the cooking smells from the street vendors & catches the pollution from the busy roads, and every so often a rotten drain will turn your stomach. It makes you dirty & sweaty and the cold showers that are so common in Thailand become very welcoming indeed.

Nothing, however, clears the air like a monsoon storm. I knew that when the rains came that it would be spectacular, but the amount of rain that came down in just over an hour was phenomenal. Jamie was already soaked from frollicking in the rain earlier but we were all drenched completely by the time we got from the restaraunt where we had seen the storm start to our hotel, which was literally just around the corner. Within minutes the streets has become shin-deep rivers & all anyone could so was stop & watch the rain. But what makes the whole spectacle so remarkable is how quickly the water subsides and life on the street returns to normal. When that much rain falls on central Enbgland in a month, rivers burst their banks, rail services are disrupted for weeks, the news channels get wet with excitement (excuse the pun) & billions of Pounds of damage is causeed to property & the economy. So what does this teach us in the UK? Don't build on the bloody flood plain - that's what!

But no need to worry about the rain anyway, in a couple of days it would be getting VERY hot!