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Day 2 - Bangkok
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After a patchy night's sleep we had breakfast in the hotel (I went for chilli rice soup and it nearly blew my head off !!) and set off on foot to the Sky Train monorail, heading for Bangkok central train station to buy our tickets for the train north on Thursday.
We debated getting a sleeper/night train and thought we might enjoy the view so went for an 08:30 instead.
We then headed to the river to get a water taxi up to the older side of town, to see some of the temples. Below is the Wat Arun, not unlike the Ankor Wat complex in Cambodia, which was on the left side of the river as we sped down it.
We've got used to the heat & humidity (& smell !) now, but today was also cloudy so I suspect there's worse (better ?!) to come...
Our first stop was a temple which houses the largest "reclining Buddha" in Thailand. I've seen a few amazing Buddha statues in Japan but this the first I've seen that was lying down...
It's 45 metres long from head to foot, and 15 metres tall, so very impressive. Apparently "reclining" is the last physical & mental state before ascending to Nirvana (a bit like Nine Inch Nails in my alphabetical cd collection), so this was evidently one happy Buddha.
Next was the Grand Palace, relocated home of the King & royal family. Also home to the "emerald Buddha", apparently the most special of all the Buddha statues to the Thai people. It's actually made of Jade, but whatever, emerald schemerald...
When you get into the grounds of the Grand Palace, you need to change into borrowed clothes if you are showing any shoulders or legs. We didn't know about this, so both had to go in and borrow some more "appropriate" clothing, which were rather dodgy cotton trousers (with no pockets, very handy) and even MORE dodgy cotton short-sleeved shirts ! Thankfully I was wearing a t-shirt so only Katie needed to wear a shirt.
I didn't mind too much but Katie was NOT impressed !! She said her shirt smelled of sweat and that she wanted to get out of it as soon as possible, so she did up about one button I think. Move over Britney Spears ! She also had to wrap her sarong around her shorts, to avoid wearing an even more attractive cotton skirt.
Anyway, once we got inside it was very impressive, here's a photo of the temple/hall housing the emerald buddha:
Rather than our usual ambling, Katie was on a mission to look at most of the sights in the grounds and then get the hell out of Dodge, in fact she practically SPRINTED back to change her clothes... Can't understand why ?!?! Maybe because she looks like a school dinner lady ?!?!?
(In case you hadn't guessed, I was threatened with divorce if I took a photo of Katie in these clothes, so I had to use the 10 x zoom from across the courtyard ! Sssshhh, she'll never know...)
Ok, I'm probably slightly exaggerating Katie's reaction (exaggerate ? moi ?!), she was fine really, but I think's it safe to say that she didn't enjoy her temporary clothes.
From outside the Palace we got another river taxi back down to the Sky Train interchange and came back to the hotel for another cold shower... Katie is currently sleeping like a baby, no doubt having nightmares about the profusely sweating woman who was the previous user of her borrowed shirt !
This humid weather certainly saps the energy out of you, but the jet-lag probably isn't helping...
Ok, we've just got back after a few drinks on the Sukhumvit Road, which was a bit mental. They say that people who don't want the noise of Khao San road (backpackers central) go to Sukhumvit, and that seemed quite true because people seemed a bit older but it was still very busy.
Market stalls fill the pavements/sidewalks on both sides, so it's very narrow and quite claustraphobic. I guess we're both used to the night markets in Hong Kong, so we were happy to stroll through and play "spot the perv", or in other words observe the white male 60 yr old sex tourists with their 15 yr old "partners", which was pretty gross and VERY obvious. Not that they seemed to care...
In the backstreets we found a little gem called "Charlie's Bar" which was a little bit off the main drag, so a bit less heavily touristed... Drinks were cheap (1GBP/$2 a beer) and there were enough boob & willy artifacts to keep our mate Ste happy for years !
We then walked down the main road to find another bar and were passed down a side street by an ELEPHANT ON A LEASH ?!?!?
Sadly my flash took a while to warm up so the photo proves nothing, but I swear it's true... Katie and I had drunk a few beers but still looked at each other like "?!?!?!?!?!?!?!". Look carefully...
A short walk later we found a cocktail bar which was essentially a VW camper van with the top lifted off, but hey, it did some pretty mean cocktails...
Before I forget, apologies if I still haven't completely worked out this website, it's not the most user-friendly I've ever used, but I will get the hang of it, I promise !! Bear with me ;)
For example, I think that anyone in my Hotmail inbox who is also in my Facebook "friends" list will be getting duplicate emails from this site ? If that is the case, and if it's driving you crazy, please let me know and I'll take you out of the Travelpod address book.
Right, better go, quite a bit to do tomorrow and nearly 1am here...
We miss you all loads but we're having a great time so far,
Al & Katie xx
Latest Comments (1)
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indiana eat your heart out (reply)
Sep 15, 2007 15:25 EST by clareymott
Hello brave adventurers,
Thanks for all the updates - they cheered up possibly my most depressing birthday ever - spent in an abattoir in Oldham - and they say television is glamorous.
Gloriously, I am now back in London, having been personally responsible for the (humane) despatch of 8 piglets and 7 kid goats. Meanwhile, my errant boyfriend got so botched at Bestival that he... show all
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