A day of travelling. Up at 5.30am with a taxi booked to take us the incredibly bumpy 3 ½ hr journey to the boarder town of Poipet - a right dump of a place so glad we were just passing through. Walked across the boarder, cleared customs (if you could call it that) and then booked ourselves on the 11:00 bus to Bangkok, which was due to take about 3 ½ hrs.
As we had arrived at 10 we had an hr to kill so I went in search of something edible... came back with some weird arse icecream and a dry bread roll - yum. At 10:45 we were told that the 11:00 bus was not allowing foreigners so we would have to be on the 12:00. 5 minutes later this changed to 12:30 - great. Turns out none of the public buses were allowing foreigners - no idea why, maybe they felt bad for charging us a million times more than the Thais - ha unlikely! In the end they organised for a private mini bus to take us. Sounds wonderful - not so. I believe that as we had been waiting the longest (about 2 hrs) and were by far the tallest of the group it would seem right to squish the two of us right at the back with the bags whilst 3 tiny Thais spread out in the front seats. Nice. To make matters worse the bus driver stopped 4 times in the space of 2 ½ hrs - twice for petrol, once for food and the other a toilet stop. Why he couldn't just combine all 4 I've no idea. So after a 4 and a bit hour drive we arrive in Bangkok - thankfully conveniently dropped just by Khao San. Went straight to bar along Rambuttri for a beer then checked into a hotel located right above - result. Purpose of going to Bangkok this time was to do some sightseeing since the last 2 times I've been there I've just shopped and ate - not that there's anything wrong with that of course! So got up and headed to Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha) and Grand Palace. Incredibly stunning buildings all encrusted with mosaics that shimmer in the light. Really beautiful. After that we headed on over to Wat Pho which contains the enormous reclining Buddha - it's 46m long and 15m high - HUGE! We had decided to leave that evening to head down to the place of the floating markets so ran around and did some more shopping (cause our bags aren't heavy enough already!) made a few calls home then hailed a cab to the bus station. On the way there the cabbie asked why we didn't just get him to drive us to the floating markets - much quicker and easier he said and just for the price of 14 quid... hmmmm why indeed don't we. So we did. Arrived in Damneon Saduak at 7pm and checked into hotel along a canal. Went and had dinner at a place doing Karaoke - horrific. Unfortunately we only realised once we had ordered so too late to bail. There were no prices on the menu. As it was pretty much in the middle of nowhere we thought it would be cheap. How wrong we were. Cost a bloody fortune (in Thai standards). Way more expensive then we ever paid in Bangkok, especially as it was only basic Thai and nothing special. The feeling of being ripped off was compounded by the fact that we pretty much knew they had charged us probably twice as much as the rest of the "locals" dining. Oh well. At least we adjourned to our room with bellies full. Halfway through the night we were both awoken by the most disgusting smell we've ever smelt. Even India didn't produce such a stench... and that's saying something. Ended up lasting a few hours so could only put it down to something floating in the canal. Either way it was horrid and made us really look forward to our boat ride in the morning.
Where I stayed:
Somewhere along Rambuttri
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