touching down on the khao san road!

11th December 2011

Bangkok

            So have just spent my first few days in South East Asia and as gateways go, Bangkok certainly is a great one. Having just come from India it's been a breath of fresh air arriving here - quite literally in fact, as Thai people actually seem to understand the concept of a bin, a notion sorely misunderstood in India where the ground serves as one large trash can! In any case my arrival in Bangkok has been far smoother than the hectic slap-in-the-face reception I received during those manic opening days in Delhi over two months ago. At 5am on the 11th December stepped off the plane at Suvarnabhumi airport after a brief three hour flight from Chennai and hopped onto a very modern sky train which sped towards downtown Bangkok whilst a rising sun greeted a new day in South East Asia's very own Krung Thep or 'City of Angels'. Glancing through weary eyes out the window, the large concrete walls lined with sandbags and swollen riverbanks which flashed by served as a grim reminder of the significant flooding which has crippled much of Thailand over the last two months. Received a fairly amusing text from my mum just before I left India which advised me to watch out for roaming crocodiles which may have been swept into town on rising water levels. Well I haven't seen any hungry crocs mooching along Khao San yet so think I'll be ok mother! Sharing the carriage with a legion of uniformed workers making their daily commute, my eyes met with a girl sitting opposite who had been rifling through a copy of the lonely planet. With no hotel booked, I asked if she had read about any good places to stay and she said a friend had recommended a cheap guesthouse in Banglamphu - an area about about five mins from the Khao San road - although she didn't know the name of it but did have a street name to go on. After agreeing that two heads are better than one in such matters (especially at six in the morning), we flagged down a taxi and finally managed to find the Korean run DDM guesthouse. After climbing the stairs to the dormitory on the third floor we crashed out after a night of very little sleep and awoke several hours later refreshed and ready to explore this vast metropolis. As with any new city I arrive at, one of the first things I tend to do is to go for a walk to familiarise myself with the local area. This usually results in getting myself hopelessly lost before resurfacing several hours later and this has certainly been the case in Bangkok. With it's labyrinthine network of alleyways which run throughout the downtown area and the myriad of eclectic markets which populate Chinatown, the city has enough to keep one exploring for days, weeks if you had the time! The plan at the moment has me staying in Bangkok for a few nights before slowly making my way north to Chang Mai for my first Christmas away from home!

Welcome to the Khao San Road!

The Khao San road by night. Full to the brim with wasted westerners, fake designer boxer shorts, sleazy old men asking if I wanted to see 'pong pong', English Premiership football matches being played on huge flat-screen televisions, fat white European men and their petite Thai brides, speakers blasting out everything from Bob Marley to the Black Eyed Peas, food stalls selling all types of fried creepy crawlies, tourist-hustling street kids, chang beer towers and much much more. Although very tacky its undeniable that the road has alot of energy and with so much to see there it's a novel introduction to the country.

One of the best ways to get around Bangkok is by the Chao Phraya Express which runs large water buses up and down the river. I took a ride from the pier up at Thewes all the way to the Krung Thep bridge and it only cost me 30baht (60p).

There are many temples in Bangkok and each of them have alot of Buddha statues. After visiting many already, in addition to at times feeling TEMPLED OUT, I have recently developed a new feeling of being BUDDHA'd out!

The enormous reclining Buddha at Wat Pho.

Whilst looking for a new towel to buy, found a department store which was essentially a Thai John Lewis. Having reached the top floor came across this incredibly surreal set up. Bangkok's very own OAP karaoke club. After discreetly sitting at the back to observe this bizarre scene, I was soon noticed and was enthusiastically approached by one of the old ladies who wanted me to get on stage and do a jingle. Needless to say, an escape plan was hatched on the spot and I was out of there in a flash.

Good to know that tourists are being looked after by Robocop.

The King's Grand Palace. The Wat Phra Kaeo within the compound houses the priceless Emerald Buddha.

The Grand Palace compound is full of extravagantly decorated statues.

Royal guards looking very dapper outside the grand palace.

As Bangkok, like any large city, gets very congested during rush hour, small motorbike taxi's are the best way to get around town. After finishing off in Chinatown one afternoon, hopped on the back of one and went for a hair raising dash through the early evening traffic. Zipping along through the congestion and taking short cuts down narrow alleyways reached the Khao San road in just under ten minutes. A journey which would have taken well over an hour by bus.

On the last night in Bangkok took the bus to MBK which is a large shopping mall in the center of town. The gigantic seven story shopping complex has everything you could possibly need and I ended up watching a movie on the multi-screen cinema on the top floor. After the film had ended stepped outside and came across the central lobby area where a muay thai ring had been erected and was putting on some fights for free. The women put the men to shame in terms of brutality as the girl in red got - to use the classic expression - "knocked the fuck out!"

Sure do.