Bangkok

21.07.2011

We left the idyllic island of ko tao at lunchtime on the 20^th and after an adventurous combination of ferry, bus and sleeper train we made it to Bangkok very early the next day.

Our sleeper train (the best one so far!)

Eager to see Bangkok before the rest of the city woke up and the heat set in, we left our backpacks in a hostel and caught a river ferry to the (more) historic part of town. Bangkok was once the ‘Venice of Asia’ (so the books say) but unfortunately the similarity now extends solely to a couple of dirty canals.

Once in the historic quarter we rented a tuc tuc which drove us around a number of Buddhist temples. And so we met the golden Buddha, the black Buddha, the laughing Buddha and the lucky Buddha. Quite the collection.

 Big standing Buddah

We then hunted down a little restaurant which specialised in roti (the indian bread we hadn’t eaten since Malaysia). The food there was delicious. And so we had some salty roti (although the roti itself was nearly sweet, containing sweated caramelised vegetables layered with spicy salty chicken) followed by a couple of sweet roti just to be sure!

We then headed to the backpacker market to see what we could buy. We bought joergen his first pair of flip flops (only a Norwegian - and dad - could spend 10 days by the beach wearing socks and trainers) and we even bought him a beautiful baby blue sleeveless vest. Unfortunately he refuses to be caught on camera wearing it.

Having had our fill of Bangkok, we returned to the hostel around mid-afternoon. Joergen rejoiced and set out to buy himself a beer whilst I decided to head to the massage parlour down the road. There I made the mistake of choosing an hour of foot reflexology and what followed was possibly the most pleasant painful experience I have ever had. Admittedly though I did feel very good afterwards, once I had recovered the ability to walk again. We finished off the day with dinner and an early night.

Another big temple in Bangkok