Bangkok

Bangkok

Our week in Bangkok was very enjoyable and a lot of fun.  Bangkok is a frantic place, lots of traffic, markets on every street and full of tourists.  It is also hot and sticky with smog shrouding the city. We stayed in the tourist district where all the low budget tourists stay and accommodation and food is inexpensive.  We met a local man, Sewit, who stopped to help us when we got lost .  We spent a couple of evenings in his company and learnt a bit about the locals.   We enjoyed the food enormously and found some favourite places where we ate regularly.  Breakfast was usually at the market near our hotel consisting of muesli, fresh tropical fruit with home made yoghurt then a smoothie, all for 100 baht – about $3.30 for the two of us.  We tried all sorts of stir fries and curries and Mike has developed a taste for Singha, the local beer.  We used the water taxis to get around where possible, this took us away from the busy polluted streets onto the river and we would get off at the many piers along the way.  We also had a ride on a Dragon boat which took us up the canals leading off from the river, Little Venice it is known as locally. The King’s photo is everywhere, in nearly every café and business, huge photos in the street and on every government building – he is very good at self promotion.  Buddhist temples are also everywhere, with ornate statues of the Buddha,  we visited a number of them.  We were impressed with the King’s Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, hand made tiles covered the buildings and many ornate statues of Gods and Godesses adorned steps and buildings.  We also took a trip to see the bridge over the River Kwai, visited the war graves there and went for a train ride on the old railway line. We also went for a bamboo raft ride down the Kwai River and had a ride on a Thai elephant.   Then it was time to set off on our bikes to Cambodia but were dreading the traffic we had to content with to  get out of the city of Bangkok.