Christmas in Bangkok

Monday 23rd Dec. 

Had the best and nicest sleep for a very long time, we just wanted to stay in bed, because it was so comfortable.
Anyway, we had to go to the hospital for tropical diseases, to get our last injection for Hepatitis A & B. First we forgot our vaccination cards, so after two stops with the train, we had to go back and get the cards, then when we got to the hospital we realized that it hadn’t been 6 months since we had our last injection (it was only 4), so we couldn’t get the last one now anyway. We'll have to wait another 2 months. So that was a waste of time and money (on the train). To little research and too little thinking!
But the good thing is that we actually are coming back to Bangkok in 2 months, because recently Erik’s mom and stepdad announced that they would come and visit us. So we will meet them in Bangkok and get the injections at that time.
We read about a huge duty free mall, which should be near by the hospital, so we walked to check that out. And to our big surprise there was test samples on all kinds of candy, crackers, chocolate and dried fruits. So after walking two rounds around the food area, it sure felt like Christmas in our stomachs.
When we got back to the hostel we got in contact with Lluis (one of our travel friends). We arranged to meet up for beers with him, and his friend Lucy, in our area and taste a little bit of the nightlife in Bangkok. This area (Sukhumvit Road) is apparently the biggest area for prostituted in Bangkok, so we saw a lot of them and some dodgy bars. One place was just filled with old dirty fat western men, and their young sexy beautiful asian girls. It's a more common sight than we ever thought it would be. It's really disqusting. And I'm not sure who's the smartest one, the girl or the guy..!? Of cause there was a lot of ladyboys aswell, and I never thought it would be that obvious, but they're really everywhere.
Bangkok sure has EVERYTHING! We celebrated christmas in one of the many street bar vans, that opens up every night and creates a good and cosy atmosphere.


The organized mess in the reception area..

A wolkwagen transformed into a street bar.. What a great invention..!

Showing off in the bar..

Tuesday 24th Dec.

We were really tired and lazy after our night out, we got out of bed in the late afternoon, and forced ourselves to eat something, before we were going out for christmas dinner.

In that way we would be able to eat more at night, and we really wanted to take advantage over the food that we've been looking forward to eat, for a long time.

At 7pm we had a reservation at the danish owned restaurant, Stable lodge, where they served the traditional danish christmas food. We were impressed of how well it tasted and the service was brilliant. The place was very nicely decorated and it felt homely with all the danish people there.

It was the most perfect christmas eve that we could imagine us, when we're that far away from home. We got very full after all the delicious food. We brought home a doggy bag, so we could eat leftovers the next day, just as we would do at home. A nice christmas eve.

We skyped with my family who was all together, so I got to say hi to everyone of them. Really nice and a good way to end the day.

The greatest food is eaten at the most dirty places

Christmas at Stable Lodge

A big and nice dinner is ready to be served

Danish style appetizer

Wednesday 25th Dec.


The end of our glamoures days in the nice hostel was over, and it was time to move into Khao San road, that never sleeps and where all the backpackers are.
It took us ages to reach the area, with the bad public transportation. First a train, then an hour boat ride and then we walked around the area for ages, to find a clean place for reasonable money. It was almost impossible. And the more places we saw, the worser it got.
Eventually we gave up and was tired of walking around. So we took a crappy wooden room (300bath), with a simple hard bed, and a shared dirty bathroom, that haven't been cleaned for several months. Such a rathole. We were happy that we had a mosquito net to hang up, so we wouldn't be eaten up during the night.
We checked out Khao San road and the near by area, it was actually more relaxed and easy-going than we thought, and filled with round-eyed. Compared to Nam, Laos and Cambodia, it's really expensive here, like 4 times the prices we're use to. So that's kind of frustrating and annoying.
We had some great streetfood, and realized how much we missed the bigger cities, where they serve street food everywhere, it's amazing and the best food you can get.
We asked on a few hotels about price and availability for the upcoming days, since we didn't want to spend more than one night in the room that we found. We found a available room, to a reasonable price, so next morning we would swop room.

Christmas "party" with leftovers from christmas eve. 

Mae Nam Chao Phraya river 

Thursday 26th Dec.

We tried in vain to find a taxi that would drive us to the famous snake farm, on the taximeter, but apparently it's impossible to find a driver that wanna drive on the meter, particulary around Khao San road.
One driver told us that he didn't want to drive us that far, because of the political protests. He was affraid of getting into troubles, and risk his life. So fair enough, we didn't want to risk anything either, so we took the public boat down south, and then found the metrostation.
In Bangkok the public transportation is really complicated and takes a long time. But eventually we got to the snake farm. This is runned by the thai red cross institute, and produces anti-venom serum, for snake-bite-victims nation and worldwide. They even do a demonstation of how venom is obtained, from snakes to make the anti-venom.
The farm has a wide variety of local snakes in all sizes and colours. Everyday they do a show where they inform the audience about the different snakes, their habitat, the different dangers and so on.
It's very usefull information, and it's nice to know more about the local snakes, since we're in a risk to meet then every day.
After this we went to a near by park to relax and wait for the sun to set, then we wanted to go to State Tower (the tall and fancy hotel from the movie Hangover in Thailand) and watch the sunset from there. We heard it should be amazing, and a fantastic view over Bangkok. We got to the hotel and went up on 64th floor, and first then we were told that there was a dresscode; closed shoes, nicely dressed and knee and shoulders should be covered. We didn't have any of the mentioned, so we barely got out of the elevator, before we were on our way down again. Damn it!
We felt gutted and went back on the noisy streets again, trying to find our way back to the public boat, so we could get back to our guesthouse, and have some dinner. We had a quiet night.

Khao San Road, at daytime!

Khao San Road, at nighttime!

Royal Pyton

The sign speaks for itself 

Transportable ATM machine.. ohh yeah Bangkok has everything!!

Bangkok Snake Farm Video

Friday 27th Dec.

We were suppose to go to the weekend market, and buy some new clothes.
It's so unusual not to have shopped for several months, and after wearing the same for ages, we actually really needed some new clothes. Apparently the weekend market isn't on before saturday, so we got really annoyed, both for the reason that we wouldn't get any new clothes, but also because we got up early to get to the market before everyone else. Oh well, we will shop when we get back to Bangkok later on our travels.
Now we had time for a little nab, before we would meet up with Lluis and go and visit Diana & Marco (that we met first time at the great wall in China, and second time on Cat Ba Island). They invited us for dinner & drinks.
We got there around 2pm, and catched up during the whole afternoon, a great reunion and we continued drinking on Khao San Road afterwards. We celebrated Erik's birthday and had a late night.

If you look long enough you will be able to see a man behind all the trash

Saturday 28th Dec.

Since we're not 20 anymore, we woke up with hangovers, so who are we kidding, of cause it gets harder and harder to get out of bed, the older you get. We sure felt old in the morning, but after checking out and getting some breakfast, we started feeling better.

It was time to celebrate Erik again, so when his uncle Christian & Tanya, his girlfriend, arrived, we started drinking again. Oh yeah, the beers tasted good, and we pubcrawled around Khao San Road with Lluis, Tara, Christian & Tanya. A great and funny day with loads of laughter and silly conversations.

Erik's biggest wish was to eat dinner at Burger King, and we didn't make any protest. After that we lined up for check in, to a bus to Chumphon and a boat to Koh Tao, that we booked in advance.

It took ages to check in, and after that we waited for another era for the bus to arrive. Eventually our numbers was up, and as soon as we hit our seats in the over-night bus, we got tired and slept most of the night.

Tara, Lluis, Christian and the birthday boy

Waiting for the bus to arrive

Bangkok Video