Bangkok, Thailand
We arrived in Bangkok at about 6:30 am and headed out into the humidity in search of shuttle bus S1. As soon as we left the airport, we spotted it. It looked like it had been in service since the 1960s and smelt like a damp pair of old socks, but at least it had aircon :D
Siwan assured me that the ‘bus leaves every 30 minutes’ (she had been sensible and researched means of travel beforehand). An hour later and we were on our way!
Eventually we made it to our hostel, Ploen Bangkok. The staff were really nice and said we could check in straight away which was pretty good considering we arrived 5 hours early.
We had booked a private room for £15 a night. It was small, but clean and the bed was cooooomfy. We had a quick nap to shake off some of the jetlag and then headed out into the city.
Siwan had a pretty good idea of some places she wanted to go (she is the organised one in case anyone is still unsure about that). We approached a tuk tuk tour guide man person to see how much it would cost. He said 20 TBH (that’s about 50p!) but on the condition that we would look round some suit shop for 5 minutes and pretend that we were interested in buying something (I guess the owners of the shop were paying him to bring in customers or something along those lines). Anyway, we agreed and off we went.
First stop was to grab a quick bite to eat. Couple bowls of crispy noodles for under 3 quid, not bad :) Siwan sort of liked it, which meant I only had to eat most of her meal too (not that I have a problem with that).
Afterwards, we visited a giant golden statue of Buddha. Sounds good, right? I’m sure it would have been if the entire thing hadn't been clad from head to toe in scaffolding. Funny that the people in the entry ticket booth forgot to mention that... Needless to say, we didn't bother taking any photos.
On the way to the suit shop, we mentioned to the driver that we weren't interested in buying anything. He said to just ‘seem interested’ and walk around in there for five minutes or so. We did. It wasn't great. A guy with a shirt buttoned way too low sat us down and showed us a catalogue of basically pages out of other catalogues (gucci, versache, etc). I literally stared down blankly while flicking through the pages until I reached the end. Then I said thank you and we left.
In the evening, we headed over to a restaurant down Soi Rambuttri which was absolutely packed with bars and places to eat. Siwan pushed the boat out by ordering the most Asian of dishes, carbonara. To round the night off, we grabbed a few drinks at a few bars and listened to some pretty good live music.
The next morning, we took a tuk tuk over to the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.
It was hot and very busy, but definitely worth a visit. You aren’t allowed to wear shorts while in the grounds so take my advice and bring lightweight, airy trousers to prevent your legs from melting. Don’t come wearing jeans, especially black ones. In fact, don’t wear black at all, only a muggins would wear black on such a hot, sunny day...
After taking in the sights at the Palace, we used Grab to get a lift over to a weekend market.
The market was bustling with people when we arrived and was much larger than we had expected. The stalls there were selling clothes, bags, jewellery, statues and lots of other touristy things.
It was a pleasant experience at first.
Then the storm came.
The lightning was insane and boooooooooy did it rain. At one point, the lightning struck so close and the thunder was so loud, we thought a bomb had detonated behind us. It shut off the power for the entire market and sent people running in all directions.
We waited a while underneath some shelter but the rain just kept on pouring. Eventually, we decided to give up and head back to the hostel.
It was a shame that we had to leave the market before seeing it all, but it was still a pretty good day overall :)
