Belated Bangkok

Bangkok!

We arrived after, ooh, too long in the air. 6.30 in the morning, to be precise, when our body clocks understandably expected it to be 11.30 the night before. On adrenaline and toll roads we made it to our first stop, the Anantara Sathorn Hotel. You’d think a 38 storey building with its name on the roof would be easy to find, but not in a city of 8 million plus and seemingly a skyscraper for every citizen! Anyway, I exaggerate. Our taxi took us to where we needed, and we lounged around by the pool until our room was ready, taking a couple of breaks for all you can eat dim sum (more like dim YUM), and an impromptu nap in the shade.

We had made a point of booking somewhere that looked especially comfortable for our first few nights, and we were amazed at what we had found for our money. That night, we enjoyed rooftop beers overlooking the megacity and marvelling at the scale of everything.

Next day was a breakfast buffet so big it couldn’t fit indoors, then an ambitious excursion on public transport as far as we could get (via metro and Sky Train), then what looked like a brief stroll through Chinatown before arriving at the centre of the action - Kaohsan Road, tourist central.

As you can possible imagine, this turned out to be a bit ambitious. The public transport was fine, and efficient, but the walk was nigh on impossible - after over an hour walking in the sweltering heat, we were barely halfway to our destination! We had an emergency McDonalds stop whilst I recovered from this crisis with an Ice Tea, then we (I) swallowed our (MY) pride and we jumped into the nearest Tuk-tuk. Kaohsan Road was down as tourist central, so that was where we headed. It was mercifully pedestrianised, and also heaving with people from all over the world. We couldn’t move without being offered pad thai, t-shirts, beer or scorpions on sticks. It was nice to find somewhere we could stroll around without being caught in a traffic jam. Needless to say, we found a few quiet haunts for some cheapish drinks, steering clear of the sports bars and the places blaring club music midfternoon, clearly catering for the classic ‘gap year’ backpackers, spilled out of universities.

So, we learned that Bangkok is pretty big, which I may have mentioned once or twice.

Day three at Anantara we elected to spend by the pool, recuperating from the previous day’s ordeal with a filthy burger or two, and plenty of quiet contempation in the shade and breeze, well away from the high thirties that the rest of the city was labouring under. At the end of the day, as dusk was settling in, we ventured out to a nearby park, which was surprisingly excellent, all the more so as the peace it offered was in marked contrast to the dozens of skyscrapers and thousands of vehicles swirling around the outside. It is here that Zoe spotted giant (3ft) lizards, possibly monitors, just strolling about as if they owned the place! Also, hundreds of Thai people got together for an open air aerobics class, complete with banging club music. It was surreal, and stopped only when the national anthem came on (when all in public spaces are expected to stop what they are doing, and think nice thoughts about the lovely king and queen).

That evening, we treated ourselves to some very tasty street food outside of our hotel. With cheap beer! It felt good to be sitting on some plastic furniture, watching the world go by.

On our last day at the grand Anantara, we went seeking some culture, and decided to start with the grand temple of the emerald buddha (sounds like an Indiana Jones movie in the making), but! We realised after one hot tuk-tuk ride there, that we were not dressed appropriately, and would have to come back another time! This was briefly annoying, but we coped, and instead took ourselves to the river, and navigated the waterways for a while, visiting Wat Arun (temple of the dawn, very beatiful though undergoing restoration), and afterwards being taken on a private tour of some old canals running through Bangkok. That was really intersting, and we saw some truly beautiful sights - a contrast between quiet canal and noisy engine, crumbling buildings in the process of slipping into the water, and bright colourful temples. I didn’t know this before, but in years gone by, Bangkok was called the Venice of Asia! Things have moved on recently, and for practical reasons canals have given way to roads, but we were glad to get this snapshot.

That evening, we were back in Kaohsan road where Zoe had an excellent Massaman curry (I had a mediocre Red one), then back to make the most of our rooftop bar one more time.

After 4 days at the Anantara, we elected to move a little closer to the centre of the action, to somewhere a little more wallet-friendly. Enter, The Region! We got there via taxi and some heroic GPS navigation by yours truly. This was a cosy little place, overlooking a canal and near a temple called the Golden Mount. We felt very welcome there! One day we succeeded in breaking in to the palace, and afterwards we explored another palace, full to to brim of giant gold and silk gifts that the Thai people had bestowed on their royals. Like, how many golden plinths decorated with pearlescent beetle wings do two people need? I think they had the same dilemma, so had happened upon the solution of opening up their garage to Joe Public. Might have been a bit out of place at a car boot sale.

One thing that I feel the need to record for posterity - the mineral water served at the Region was blue! Not transparent, like real-life water is, but blue-coloured! It tasted of nothing, and seemed fine, but we continue to scratch our heads over that one.

Eventually, we  figured we had run out of things to do in Bangkok for the moment, and we decided to move on (knowing that we will likely come back at least once during our remaining adventures). So, we had a brief excursion to the temple of the Golden Mount (which became a bit of a temple of death after a cholera outbreak, apparently??), got a taxi to the (other) airport, and flew to Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia!