Bangkok

IMGP1211
Originally uploaded by theslaad.

Help!
We're drowning in hippies..we can't breathe through the incense or see past all the dreadlocks - we must have reached the Khaosan road!

Wow - what a difference from China. The past 3 weeks, the only western people we've seen have been our group plus a few French & Dutch people at the odd tourist spot. We were so unusual we got starred at a lot and sometimes even photographed. Here, we are one of hundreds of white people looking to have a good time.

We fully expected to hate the Khaosan road but it's popular for a reason and we actually quite like it! You can switch off for a while. Most people speak English, there are nice stalls to buy Thai fishermans trousers (Jen is currently sporting a nice dark green pair!) and the restaurants all have English menus. In all its chaotic activity it's surprisingly relaxing to be here.

Our hotel room is fine for the 7 pounds we're spending on it a night and we've been splashing out a bit on dinners - 2 pounds each for a curry with rice and a drink!
It's so cheap here - you can see why so many people just spend ages hanging around before going to the beach.

Yesterday (4th October) we explored for a bit and then went to walk up the Golden Mount. It's not very easy to get around Bangkok and we wanted to see if we could go to the cinema so we caught a river taxi. Definetly the best way to travel here - no touts, not many car fumes and it's quick. Luckily we had a very helpful lady sitting next to us who told us which stop we needed and told the ticket guy what we wanted. It's unfortunate though that after just a few weeks of travelling we were a bit suspicious of her...what might she be trying to sell us?
Today we visited a huge monastary called Wat Pho. It was interesting to look around but we weren't very impressed by the state of the place. Needs a good clean & repaint! There was an amazingly large reclining gold Buddha though with mother of pearl feet - very impressive.
It was our plan to go to the Grand Palace after we'd looked around the Wat but we weren't really sure if it was open or if we could go in with t-shirts and sandals on so we walked back home instead.

Being in Bangkok has enabled us to discover another 2 rules of travelling:
1. Don't trust Tuk Tuk drivers. (they kept telling us places were closed so that they could take us further afield)
2. If someone asks you where you're from then they are trying to sell you something!

It's raining a lot here at the moment!

Catching a flight to Cambodia tomorrow so lots more to report soon!