Thailand: Bangkok

Well we finally arrived into Thailand starting in Bangkok. As usual, I find a busy city quite overwhelming and we had to go door to door looking for a room as Rambuttri was full at 10pm in the evening.

We settled on the first place we could find, which was a total dump, but next morning we were able to muscle our way into Rambuttri Village Inn near Kao San Rd.

This place was heaven. Very clean, super nice pool on the roof, and very convenient location to lots of shopping, great food for $1 a plate just outside our door, and lots of other traveler focused services.

Here is Rocky lounging in the pool.

Over our three days in Bangkok we were asked at least 20 times by the same 4 people if we needed a tailor, perhaps a suit made?

For Bangkok photos click here. (anyone can view, no need for Facebook acct)

Kao San Rd was crazier that I expected!!! It has a real riff raff Camden feel to it, with lots of loud bars, loud techno blaring from pirated music vendors, lots of scary looking street food, mountains of noodles, and endless stuff to buy.

We are still working on how to correctly upload videos to YouTube but will have a great one of Kao San Rd soon.

We loved our little Soi (sidestreet) that we stayed on. It was so much more laid back and pretty than Kao San. There are wheeled fruit, drink and noodle carts going by at all times, lots of people on scooters trying to get by, and of course every ten feet is a tuk tuk driver trying to get you into his death trap little vehicle.

There was a monastery/temple nearby and once of the days we could hear this repetitive chanting so we decided to check it out.

It was some kind of service on a Wednesday afternoon. We went inside and didn't see any other non-thais so we kneeled at the back of the temple and tried to blend in. I reminded Rocky not to point his feet toward the Buddha, as feet are the most dirty part.

Some highlights from Bangkok include the following:

Palace Visit

The Royal Family's main palace in Bangkok is open for tourists and there are some beautiful temples and sculptures of other temples on the grounds. We took the chance to take lots of photos there.

Click here to see more temple photos.

There were lots of Thai people who were actually there to worship. They dress very "respectfully" and quite formal all in black. We were in awe of their ability not to pass out from the heat.

While at the temple, Rocky and I both got interviewed by Thai students for their English class. It didn't seem like they understood much of our responses and they were so nervous.

Boat Ride

One of the means of transportation in Bangkok is to take a boat down the Chao Phraya river. We hopped on that and really enjoyed the fast trip down the river.

The skipper blew a whistle many times when approaching a stop, and then he'd leap onto the dock while the boat was still traveling quite fast. People scurried off and scurried on. There was also a designated space on the boat for monks to stand.

We got off and transfered to the Skytrain, which is very modern and clean. We took our friend Andrew's advice and went to a restaurant called Face Bar.

Face Bar - http://www.facebars.com/

We had a most delicious and very out of our budget meal here (main dishes cost similar to what they would in Vancouver). They had both an Indian restaurant and a Thai restaurant in different parts of the restaurant, we chose Indian for a change of pace.

It was the best Indian we've had and also had an incredible atmosphere. It's kind of what I would imagine a Tibetan mountain lodge to be like--dark wood, candlelit, high ceilings and lots of different levels and rooms. There were beautiful little details like orchids floating in water and very, very old asian antiques. We were impressed!

World's Largest Reclining Buddha

Yes, we saw it! How random you might be thinking...The significance of the reclining buddha is that it was the position he was in just before reaching Nirvana... I guess I reach Nirvana every night!

After looking at the buddha we walked along a long corridor where people dropped a small coin into each of the roughly 50 little metal jars lining the corridor. The tinkling sound like rain on a tin roof filled the temple.

Siam Center

For the most part Bangkok was pretty rough around the edges, but the more expensive hotel and shopping area had two very modern malls. We were looking for an extension chord and a laptop lock, so ventured there to peruse.

This was a very different Thailand, one very similar to what we might see when going to the mall. Mostly young teens shopping, but tourists here and there. We had dinner at a so-so Japanese restaurant, but the Green Tea Ice Cream Shakes were to die for!

We found our extension chord and laptop lock and then sat in massage chairs for about 15 minutes. Hey, tired travelers need some R and R...

An Oliphaunt!

One of the highlights for me was seeing an elephant on the street we were staying on. It was a baby elephant, but already well trained by his very young master who looked about 15 years old.

I bought some sugar cane from him to feed the elephant with. The long trunk was already inside the bag before I had time to get a piece out.

I was laughing a lot and it was also cool to see other people's reactions who had clearly never seen an elephant before. They seem like really sweet animals and we are really looking forward to an elephant ride when we go to Pai.

Check out the pics we've put up as they tell more of the story of Bangkok. Videos will be coming soon.