Krung Thep
The City of Angels
Sun 26 Apr 2009 - Fri 1 May 2009
35 °C
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Where On Earth Are Ian And Helen?
on IanYates's travel map.
As Helen said, Hong Kong could have been so much better, but it wasn't all bad.
When we finally left, we got to enjoy a very modern airport and treated ourselves to some Popeye's fried chicken before the flight.
Unfortunately (from my point of view) it was Cathay Pacific again, but only a short (2h15) flight, so we were in Bangkok before too long.
Bangkok took some getting used to - it's loud, fast, and extremely polluted. We were staying in a great little oasis of a guesthouse near the main train station, a 60 Baht tuk-tuk ride from the centre of the city and the big attractions.
Like the rest of Thailand (well, that I've experienced so far), you can pretty much eat anywhere and be guaranteed of a good (and very cheap) meal; the green curries I've had have been amazing.
We took a canal cruise (not worth the money, if anybody's going there), visited the Grand Palace and attached temple, and a few other minor sites (including a tailors, a jewellers, and two not-so-official travel agent's, at our tuk-tuk driver's behest - but that's another story).
We tried to travel by local bus or ferry where we could, which adds a whole new level to the hot and bustling experience.
We were there four nights, but it was only on our third that we decided to visit the infamous Khoasan road and loved the completely different atmosphere to the rest of Bangkok (which I also came to really enjoy after the culture-shock). We went back with some people from our guesthouse the next night and stayed out with a group of Canadians who were starting a tutoring year over there... we eventually climbed in to bed at about 0230!
The next day we went for a walk to the big shopping centre and then prepared for our 12-hour overnight train journey to Chiang Mai which, as it turned out, was actually pretty good. We left Bangkok at 1800 on seats and at 1930 the guard came and converted them in to bunks.
Helen had the top one, as she was already asleep when the guard came, and we each had our own little area of privacy. Before, we had both been fearing packed, ancient, hot cabins with uncomfortable beds; so anything was better than that.
We've only been in Chiang Mai a day, so not long enough to make any real comments on it, but we've visited the zoo and National Museum and we have a cooking class already booked for tomorrow. I'm sure Helen will tell you all about that in due course.
We're here a week, so expect a blog in a few days.
Chiao.
Posted by IanYates Fri 1 May 2009 04:24 Archived in Thailand Tagged backpacking
