Amazing Bangkok, Amazing House!

We finally made it to Thailand, home of the bum gun, gender ambiguity and my favourite kind of food. It may have taken us six months longer to get here than originally planned, but we're here, I'm excited to get back into some writing. 

Our Egypt Air flight was comparable to Ryanair. It sat on the tarmac for an hour and a half at Manchester Airport, leaving us with only 30 minutes to dash for our connection in Cairo. We flew to Bangkok where we stayed three nights in the ironically named 'Amazing House Guest House'. The only thing amazing about it was the price, at £5 per night.

I love Bangkok, in spite of its stifling humidity, for its distinct neighbourhoods that are so different to one another that you can feel like you're in a different city just by hopping across town in a taxi.

Bangkok, from the Chao Phraya River.

To get around we mainly used the river taxis that run up and down the Chao Phraya, at only 15Baht (30p) a time they're far cheaper than any tuk-tuk or meter taxi and it's a great way to see some of the sights along the river, such as Wat Arun, the Grand Palace and numerous other temples. There are four different lines that operate on the river, each with a different colour flag, we used only the orange boats as they seem to be the most frequent. 

River taxi.

We took a river taxi to China Town (Yaowarat), one of the city's oldest districts. Be warned that the boats don't hang around; you have to fight your way off during busy periods, else be stuck at the back and miss your stop - like we did! From the boat pier narrow winding streets lead past mechanic's work shops and heaps of engines to Wat Traimit. On the top level of the four tiered temple is a 5.5 tonne solid gold Buddha, the largest seated, solid gold Buddah in the world! (Entrance fee: 40baht, no short sleeves/short pants)

Solid gold Buddah at Wat Traimit

6% beer and duck noodles, mmmmm!

From the gold Buddah we crossed the road through China Gate to one of the cities most vibrant night markets. Both sides of the street were lined with food stalls, the pavements packed with groups of friends and families packed around plastic tables and chairs. It was so bustling that passers-by had to walk on the road. The market was a dizzying mix of bright lights, delicious smells and mystery foods. We settled on a bowl of hoi sin duck noodle soup from a stall conveniently set up outside a 7-Eleven shop, where we could get cold beers from inside and enjoy a blast of aircon every time the door opened! After that we had pork noodle soup - some of the nicest pork I've tasted, and finally finished with a scoop of home made tamarind ice cream. Most of the dished are priced between 30-50baht (60p-£1).

China Town food market.

Another famous Buddah of Bangkok is the 32m high gold-leafed statue at Wat Indraviharn, about 20 minutes walk north of backpacker central Khao San Road. We managed to get in for free as it's low season and the ticket office was closed! Outside the temple there are women selling tiny cages stuffed with birds, "Give freedom to the birds for good luck", and nearby there are similar women with plastic bags containing terrapins "Give freedom to the turtles for good luck". It's hard to know which is worse, paying the £2 to set the animals free and financing the cruel trade, or not buying them and allowing them suffer on.

Signs indicated that we should leave offerings of "eggs, flowers and fish of the mackerel kind" at the feet of the giant Buddah.

Big Budddah at Wat Indraviharn.

The clouds cleared on the day we visited Wat Arun, and the temperature reached a scorching 40 degrees. We used the river taxi again to get to the temple and paid the 50baht entrance fee. I'd come prepared with my sarong to cover my exposed legs but that wasn't enough for the prudey guard who insisted I cover my shoulders too. Unprepared to hire a scarf, I not-so-discretely whipped off my skirt from under my sarong and used it as a shawl. I don't know if the guard was amused, impressed or offended at my resourceful technique but he let me in with a sly smirk. The temple is really beautiful, decorated with a porcelain mosaic and depictions of the Buddah. We climbed the very steep stairs up to the top and enjoyed the beautiful view.

Wat Arun.

Looking north from Wat Arun.

Once the sun had started to sink behind the sky scrapers we venture out again to the Siam district where my parents will be staying in the New Year. Siam is the modern, expensive area of town where we cooled off in air conditioned shopping malls and felt drastically under dressed compared to the city's upper classes. On the streets surrounding Central World shopping centre we found a Korean market!  We felt strangely at home surrounded by Korean food stalls, clothing and make up.

Siam district from outside Central World.

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.