3 nights in Bangkok
Trip Start
Dec 23, 2004
1
3
Trip End
Jan 02, 2005
Bangkok,
Thailand
Sunday, December 26, 2004
Dan and I stepped off the plane to be greeted through customs by taxi drivers, bus drivers, tour group organisers, accommodation organisers all wanting to scam the fresh tourists! I think the most common phrase I heard while in Thailand was "I do deal for you ma'am". We got towed into checking out a tour company and checked out the prices for tours to the famous floating markets - 1995B. Luckily we didn't purchase as we got into Khao San Rd to find the same tour for 150B!!! Im not sure a time I have ever been worried about getting into a taxi until the taxi that took us into the city from the airport. Cars everywhere, horns honking - doesn't help that all the taxis have big dents in them and the driver in his funny harsh sounding English accent demands you take the highway, make the decision in about 3 seconds all of which he is semi shouting at us and demanding we hand over extra baht. Arrived in 1 piece to our hotel the Viengtai. We were in strong need of a cold beer and a real Thai feed which we found at Silk Bar on Khaosan Rd. First impressions of authentic Thai food was better than I imagined - green curry (the 1st of many), spicy beef salad and a pud Thai all washed down with a cold Chang.
Our first morning of holiday and we were up about 6.30am and off to a Thai cooking course run by the Shangri La hotel. A very swanky hotel on the river side. The course started with a tour of the Chatuchak morning food markets.
Buildings of Wat Phra Kaeo
I totally enjoyed this tour where we got to sample a few interesting foods, see the street food stalls and all of the raw ingredients used in Thai cooking. This market was amazing - fresh chillies, garlic in enormous sacks, fresh curry pastes piled into large bowls, fresh herbs hanging by string, bizzar fruits and vegetables all piled up, fish and meats dangling off hooks or sitting on ice in the shade from the morning heat. An amazing trip for the senses! Back to the hotel we then had a semi hands on go at preparing green curry, a ground pork salad and a nasty dessert made of egg yolk cooked in a pot of boiling syrup and unfortunately that is exactly what it tasted like too. We followed the trusty Lonley Planet for most of our sightseeing and took in Grand Palace, Wat Phra Kaew, Wat Pho - temple of the reclining Buddha, saw Wat Arun - Temple of the Dawn. Stinking hot day and we tired easily. My personal fav of the lot was the temple of the reclining buddha. What an awesome buddha - and she was a 46m long lady buddha all coated in gold with mother of pearl toenails! Off on a river boat cruise for dinner. Yet another green curry was served to us! Lovely Thai dinner, traditional dancing and traditional live music playing gazing out the windows to the banks of Bangkok.
Had our first tuk tuk experience wanting to get to the weekend Chatuchak markets - these guys are unbelievable! The first guy tells us that the markets do not open till lunch time so he should take us on a personal tour of Bangkok then onto the markets when they open - we knew they opened at 9am! After many attempts at negoating prices with many a tuk tuk driver we finally agreed on 1 - 20B from the city to the markets with only 1 stop at a giant gem shop and factory - all we had to do was walk through the doors, grab a free drink and some food if we wanted, do a lap of the shop, walk out and we could be on our way again.
Damneon Saduak Floating Markets
The shop was huge with more sparkly gems than I have seen in my lifetime! No too painful for us and the bonus was the tuk tuk driver got a free tank of fuel for taking us there. Hilarious to see all the buses of Japanese tourists!!! Their driving is even more unbelievable! More adrenaline riding a tuktuk in rush hour in Bangkok than riding the Knots Berry Farm roller coaster - minus the excitment! The markets were huge. We spent 3 hours there and saw only a small part of it. Made some great purchases - tops, imitation Birkenstocks, imitation levis engineered skirt, cheap bead jewllery. Dan managed to kit himself out too - much better shopping in Thailand than Japan for him! Batering is great fun. A little scary to start with but once you get into the swing of things it is a fun challenge. Our japanese money counting came in handy here and suprised/confused the minds of the shop owners at times.
Xmas day was unlike any other - No Xmas carols, no decorations, no tree, no Santa (although Dan gave me a new suitcase with wheels to take to Thailand), no Xmas BBQ, no family. That was the day we went on a tour to the famous floating markets - Dameon Floating Markets so another early start. By the time we got to the markets they were busy - tourist everywhere! Didnt buy anything but had a good nosey round in the long tail boats. Xmas lunch was spent with 2 Japanese ladies and another couple from somewhere I cannot remember. Little conversation was had but sharing a meal was interesting, everyone trying to be so polite and not eat too much of one dish even though we were starving.
Dan and I at the grounds of the Grand Palace
More green curry! Luckly for Xmas dinner we meet up with Sharon Carey and her boyfriend Steve and had a few cocktails and Thai dinner - no green curry! Great to have a catch up with familiar faces.Although Thai food has been one of my fav cusines for many years, we did get a little over it by the 3rd day in Thailand - maybe it was just the overdose in Thai green curry that did it (note: we did not actually personally order green curry any of the 4 times we ate it in 3 days!. On the 3rd day in Bangkok, we stumbled over an Australian steak house - yeehhaaa. Exactly what we needed and we filled ourselves silly on massive ozzy beef burgers and delicious salads and beetroot (we cannot get beetroot in Japan so this was a treat!). Our other tasty delight was the Turkish falafel kebab from the street cart down Khaosan Rd - just awesome!
Arrived home the night of the 26th to the horrid news of the Tsunami. The earthquakes had woken us up that morning and the news gave us gut wrenching feelings. On arrival in Bangkok we were chatting with excitement to another young kiwi couple and 3 young Canadians all who were heading to Puhket to see in the New Year. Didnt know them very well at all but just the fact that we knew they were there was sad enough. It could have easily enough been us holidaying in Puhket.
The 27th rolled around pretty quickly and we were on the plane again and off to Surat Thani. After the madness of the big, polluted, busy, noisy city, its off to the Beach!
