New Year's Day in Bangkok

We awoke early on New Year's Day to wish each other a happy new year GMT, which was 7am in Thailand and then made it down for breakfast an hour or so later. When we walked into the hotel restaurant all of Ric's dreams came true; it was an international all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast! He managed about four plates whilst I feebly sipped my coffee and nibbled a piece of pineapple.

Our game plan was to get up early and have a busy day sight seeing and shopping, then hopefully we would be so tired by 10 o'clock that we would be able to sleep on our night flight back to Korea.

We wandered through the streets in the vague direction of the river and stumbled upon Bangkok's famous flower market. It was amazing, the flower arrangements were so intricate and detailed, and they had every colour rose you could imagine, it was beautiful.

A temple we came across on our walk, just before the start of the flower market.

It wasn't on our map so I don't know the name of it!

The flower market

Beautiful roses

From there we went to a traditional farmer's market selling all sorts of strange looking fruits and veg, and in the centre of the market there were people chanting and banging drums. We'd managed to stumble upon a monk's tea party! Hundreds of Buddhist monks were sitting at tables having a rather elaborate meal, music was playing and there was a general party atmosphere. Somebody even gave us some ice cream.

We eventually found the river and Ric took some pictures of the ornate barges.

A Stopher family favourite

We then went on a rather frivolous shopping spree and made the most of the cheap prices, the hippy style clothing, the bartering and the real people-sized clothes on offer. At the first stall we visited we displayed our in-expertise in bartering with a funny exchange with the Indian stall owner:

me: how much?
owner: 500 Baht
me: discount?
owner: ok, for you, 490 Baht
me: too expensive. 100 Baht?
owner: no, no, ok, very special new year price, 480 Baht
me: no, too expensive, bye bye (walks away)
owner: wait wait, no! What are you doing? We do it high-low high-low!!

The guy was outraged that I'd refused to play the bartering game. I just don't have the patience for it.
In the end I paid 150 Baht.

Having spent up, eaten a kebab and drank a fruit shake we jumped into a tuk-tuk and went to the main palace. We had no intention of going inside, we weren't dressed appropriately and there were far too many people there, but it was nice to see it from outside the walls, be surrounded in the crowds and look at the other temples and parks that surround the palace.

Opposite the palace

A temple across from the palace

Finally it was time to go to the airport, where we boarded our plane an hour late, at 11pm. Luckily there was an empty row of seats across from me on the plane, so I managed to stretch out my humongous legs and get some sleep. Ric wasn't as fortunate. We landed in Korea at 6am, took a bus back to Cheonan which took an absurd amount of time because of the snow, the Seoul rush hour traffic and an elderly passenger who couldn't hold her bladder. We arrived back in Cheonan at 9.10, with only 10 minutes to spare before we were due to start teaching. Of course, every traffic light on the taxi ride to school was red, and we were eventually 10 minutes late, but all the same we arrived to a hero's welcome. With our backpacks still slung in the teacher's room, and with almost no sleep, we managed to teach a full 10-hour day, before collapsing into bed with a McDonalds at 8.30. It was a very long day.

Favourite People:
As I mentioned before, I was pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of the Thai people. I'm certain we did pay tourist rates for a lot of things, but we didn't care, it didn't feel like we were being ripped off.

One tuk-tuk driver, an old man with an ancient tuk-tuk falling to pieces, quotes us 50 Baht (£1) to take us back to our hotel (cheaper than any other tuk-tuk). When we got stuck in terrible traffic he explained to us the best way for us to walk home and said we didn't need to pay, even though he'd taken us half way. It was so sweet that he didn't want any money from us that we paid him anyway.

Another lady and her two children helped us order food in a local cafe where nobody spoke English. She was so kind and friendly and wore matching clothes with her children. Her name was Nok.

Nok and her delightfully coordinated children

We loved Bangkok so much that we're already planning our next trip.