Our Big Explore: Bangkok part 2

Thursday 20th Feb.

The night in the airport went smoother than expected, although it had been quite cold during the night, due to the air condition. We waited for Helle & Jan to arrive, and eventually they came. A great reunion. We had been very excited and had been looking forward to well known company. After all It was good to see some familiar faces again.

We all took the skytrain to the city, and after loading a tuk-tuk with 4 times luggage and four western people (we barely fitted), we found a good valued hotel (Patumwan) in the heart of Bangkok. Helle & Jan insisted to pay all hotel bills the next two weeks, it's was really overwhelming, but much appreciated.

We got an apartment, with two huge bedrooms, kitchen, livingroom and hot water (first hot water shower in almost a month). The day went by with relaxing, and catching up. We got some nice gifts from home, like danish dark bread and candy. When we went out at night we realized that we had located usselves, not only in the heart of Bangkok, but also in the heart of the demonstrations. Several of the mainroads in Bangkok is closed, due to the demonstrations. It's actually a calm affair. A lot of people have put up tents and are living on the streets, there's big market along the streets, it reminds me most of a festival. Lots of stalls, most of them selling accessories with the Thailand flag printed on. It's really not as bad as the news makes it seem like. They just want the current goverment to resign, so they can get a less corrupt country. Their motto: Shutdown Bangkok, and restart Thailand. We walked by all this and eventhough Helle had seemed quite skeptical before, she remained calm and relaxed. Later we took the BTS train to the Sukhumvit area. Erik and I had been dreaming about the food from one of the food stalls in Soi 11. So we just HAD to go back. This place makes the best fried noodles in Asia (as far as we know).

We walked around the area and ended up in Soi 4, in the middle of the big "meat" market with thai girls and ladyboys. And just as last time, a lot of old western men, and curious tourists. We sat at a bar, had a drink and did our favorite occupation: people watching! Good entertainment. Helle & Jan was just as shocked and outraged as we were the first time we went here.

We went home with a cab later, and I really haven't missed all this bargaining with the prices, it takes so much energy, but when we're four persons it's cheaper to take a cap than the train.

Sleeping in the airport

The two tuk-tuk virgins..!

Sweeeeeet..!

The best gifts we could get.

Demonstrations

Demonstrations, calm right???

Food at Soi 11

Friday 21st Feb.

Temple day... We went with the BTS down to Phraya river, and then took the public boat north, to visit the grand palace temple and Wat Arun (the temple of dawn). Stupid as we are, we forgot everything about dressing proberly (apparently it's only the women who needs to be covered), really annoying, but luckily we could rent some clothes at the temples entrances.

We were impressed of the stunning temples, and the carvings, but but but it also gets kind of boring to see the same gold decorations over and over again, specially when we're not into the history. But it's still something you have to see when you're in Bangkok. After several arguments with tuk-tuk drivers, we found one that drove us to Khao San road, for a reasonable price. It's hard to get a good price, and tuk-tuks overcharge most of the tourists, but we kind of know the prices by now, so it's all about being patience and waiting for the right one to come by, and it's not always easy, but most of the times we get it, to our suggested price. We ate lunch and did some more people watching on Khao san road, then shopped around, had a massge and a few drinks, before we headed back to our nice hotel.

Our visitors in front of Wat Arun

Ahem ahem.. Who's the most ugly??

Grand Palace Temples

Lying Buddha

Drinks and shisha at Khao San road

Saturday 22rd Feb.

We were going to Asias biggest market, the Chatuchak weekend market outside of Bangkok.
We got there early enough to have some space around us, walked around a few hours before it started to get packed with people. It's a massive market, and it's easy to get lost. Lonely planet is right when they write "if you see something you like - buy it - because you'll never find the same shop again". After wearing the same 6-7 sets of clothes for almost 6 months, we really needed some new clothes, and this was the perfect place to find some. Indeed I was happy that I was "allowed" to shop a bit this day. In the afternoon when more and more people showed up on the market, we decided to leave, we were all easily annoyed and tired of walking around in the hot weather. It didn't get better when we got dropped off near our hotel, had to walk through the demonstration area, and it was hard to get around the crowd there aswell. We struggled our way through and when we reached our hotel, we all needed to cool down and relax after a stressfull afternoon.
Sadly Erik got sick already the day before (after the airport night), with a cold and fever, so when he was in bed, he was hard to drag out of it again. We enjoyed dinner at the restaurant belonging to the hotel. We didn't notice that Helle ordered green curry (one of Thailands most spicy dishes), and she really had a hard time finishing her food. It's a tough dish to get through, if you're not use to the spices. Opsi..! Just relaxing in the evening.

Poor dogs

Demonstations at National Stadium

Sunday 23rd Feb.

Erik didn't feel any better. None of us had been sick for 5 months (except for food poison in China), so off cause now when we had visitors from home, one of us is sick.. Typical! We stayed in and had a quiet and calm morning. We booked flight tickets to Chiang Mai (5000 bath for two), for the next day.
After noon we took a cab to Taling Chan "floating market". A disappointing experience, and not really a floating market, but a small pier with food and souvenirs. We went on a boat tour down the river, but still didn't see any floating markets. Somewhere along the river we got dropped off, and were dragged into a puppet show.. Oh my Buddha, that's the weirdest thing we have seen in a while, sadly a tourist trap like this, isn't hard to find in Asia. We left the show in the very beginning, we all agreed that our life was too short for that crap. After the show the boat took us back to the pier, and we took a cab home to our hotel to finish packing and getting ready for next days travels.