Busy in Bangkok

Leaving Manchester at 9.30pm, we had a pretty effortless journey to Bangkok overall. Our first flight to Qatar was very hot and stuffy, but our second flight was a lot more comfortable- allowing us to get some much needed sleep. Our taxi was a little awkward. Sam decided he wanted to ask the taxi driver how to say ‘thank you’ in Thai. Unfortunately he had no idea what we were asking him, so insisted on handing Sam his phone to speak to it and automatically translate to Thai. However, a technical error led to the phone displaying ‘how do you say f**k you in Thai’ - which wasn’t the ideal start for our cultural conversations!

We had booked 2 nights accommodation in an 8 person dorm at a hostel called Bed Station, which was just off Khao San road. The hostel was pretty good overall, bed curtains and lockers made it private and secure, which was ideal for our first couple of nights . The only downside was the fact we were located on the 5th floor, and there was no aircon in the toilets, meaning that it was 40•+ in the bathrooms- not ideal after a refreshing shower. We had a fairly chilled night, grabbing some chicken noodles from a street vendor and a few Chang beers from a bar on Khao San road .

The day after, we went for a bit of an explore around the city, we had some nice street food and wandered around the grand palace. We were constantly hassled by local scammers who told us we weren’t allowed near the temple in our shorts and that they would take us to other places we were allowed. Having read up on this before hand, I knew that we wouldn’t be able to go inside the grand palace without covering up, but it was actually shut for the day anyway as the King was staying there for the Thai bank holiday. Shortly after, the heat got a little bit much so we headed back to the hostel for a dip in the pool. We made a few friends from various places , and partook in the beer pong tournament. We made the final but unfortunately our journey stopped with a second place finish. We told one of the bar staff that we wanted to go to a night market and he recommended Jodd Fairs as a good place to get some authentic food , so we caught a cab 20 minutes into town and had some lovely belly pork.

This morning we left the hostel at 10am and travelled to the bus terminal, where we booked a 3hour bus to Kanchanaburi, a more rural and cultural spot where we will be spending the next three nights. We were a bit wary of our accommodation, as £3 per night for a private room seemed a little too good to be true, but upon arrival we were pleasantly greeted by the owner of the homestay, who showed us to our room and gave us a much needed bottle of cold water. We will shortly be heading into town to see what it has to offer!

Highlight of Bangkok: A Tuk tuk driver cheekily offering us a lift from 7-11 to our hostel which was literally across the road for the price of 1 Thai baht (0.024pence)!

Beer choice : Chang (650ml) 100THB( £2.59)

That’s it for now until we leave Kanchanaburi!