So it turns out, it flipping rains in Asia… trust us to turn up at the end of rainy season. Imagine our worry when we landed into Bangkok Airport after a 16 hour journey from grey Dublin, to an even greyer, over-cast and torrentially raining Bangkok!
However, as we discovered to our en-pinkened delight, it’s still sunny most of the time 🙂
In a delirious state we managed to catch a taxi to Koasan Road, and check into the New Siam III hotel (that I had booked in advance @ 790 BAHT/night) and immediately found the nearest bar to get something to eat… mmnn Pad Thai (50baht)! Following this we slept for quite a while before stumbling out into the night in search of beers and street food. Mission accomplished (I ate BBQ Red Snapper (700Baht) and drank tasty beer! (60 Baht)), we headed home and had an extremely long sleep!
The next day it didn’t rain, which was nice, and we walked to the Grand Palace to look at some shiny temples (Wats) and found the most expensive place in the universe to buy a mango sorbet and orange juice drink (240 BAHT). Strangely interesting was the textiles museum in the grounds of the Palace, which was quiet (and had Air Con!!!) and described how the Queen of Thailand introduced a the new Thai style to the country during her extended visit to Europe and America.
Suitably refreshed we wandered into the Amulet market in the area next to the Palace.
In the evening we experienced the craziness of Koasan road and surrounding areas, we met some interesting people and enjoyed people watching from a bar called Cool Corner – and played the game: Spot the ‘XXX’ – in this case I won with ‘Lady boy’, ‘Newly Married Couple’ and “Person who has been here for a while, knows what they are doing, and doesn’t’ get hassled by locals who are selling stuff”.
Today we Tuk-tuk’d (60BAHT) on over to the Golden Mount(ain?) which offers fantastic views over Bangkok, and, as we discovered as English people abroad, is flipping hot at lunchtime.
We also shopped it up at Siam Square, where I spent A LOT of time looking at camera stuff, got my phone ‘fixed’ in one of the hundreds of mobile phone stores on the 4th floor of the MBK mega-shopping center, bought some knock-off camera gear, and ate tasty fish salad (Tuna salad and something random that Laura ordered, that wasn’t what she ordered – but was full of fishy things like squid and baby squids or octopi).
Finally, we left shopping-land and tuk-tuk’d (120BAHT) to China town, where we wandered around for a bit, then picked a random street restaurant and ate super tasty but cheap food and shared beer. Oh, and we also saw the prime-minister of Thailand, who happened to drop into the restaurant next door – she didn’t stop for a chat, but she ‘posed’ for a photo with Laura.
I will upload some photos to Facebook shortly 🙂 Just have to pay the 30 Baht/day fee … or go to the bar next door that has free wifi.
Next stop, Ayathuya … temple-tastical