Bangkok!

After a long and uncomfortable journey, including a hot queue at the border, we made it into Thailand and to Bangkok. As it had been an early start (3.30am) we thought, let's dump our bags in the room and go for a wee kip! When we got to our room, it wasn't quite the dream we had in mind. The room wasn't so much a square, more a triangle squashed into the corner at the end of the corridor. And the air con was non-existent but we did have a very noisy fan to try and drive out the humidity. But in honesty, we could barely hear the fan over the builders on the floor above, two floors below and outside our window cutting down some trees. Sweet dreams....

Anyway, that sleep didn't happen. So we decided to go for a wander around the local streets and we stumbled upon Khoa San road. Anyone who has ever been to Bangkok as a tourist must have come to this place. It is a cultural explosion of people all over the world in a street filled with neon signs, food vendors and shop keepers furiously bartering. Other than the shop keepers and wandering prostitutes, there seemed to be no other Thais about, just tourists - a massive difference compared to anywhere else we have been so far, maybe excluding a little bit of Turkey.

So we decided to do whatever any other tourist would do and eat a scorpion on a stick. With the sting removed, the claws, legs and head tasted like pork scratchings but the body was an little more squelchy!

After surviving the street food, the next day we got up at a leisurely time (even though the builders started before 7am) and had a bit of a wander through the streets. There was a huge protest going on while we were there to try and get some woman out of power so we went to have a little snoop. Aside from the SWOT police and barbed wire, there were lots of parked cars and people sitting on chairs whistling and chanting. On a major roundabout, a stage had been set up and either side on the 6 lane motorway, sat thousands of people doing a very peaceful but loud protest! All exciting, we were offered whistles and ribbons and banners, but declined as we had no idea who they wanted out or why! All we knew was that it was a woman?

We managed to make it to China town and wandered around the bustling markets and eating donuts until we were thoroughly lost! With some help from a local, we managed to get on a bus back in the right direction! Imagine the night bus from Harry Potter. We hailed the right one down and the doors flung open, it slowed but didn't stop and we had to jump on, on the move, on a busy street in Bangkok! The bus did everything other than have beds or talking heads. There was a doddery old man driving (who we shall call Ern) and a conductor tottering around in high heels as Ern sped, screeched, swerved and squeezed through impossible gaps in traffic. When it was roughly time for us to leave, the doors flung open again and we jumped out of the moving bus! All very exciting!

The next day we wandered around the palace, several wats and visited a large reclining (Gill says I can't call it lying) Buddha in our day of cultural experiences. Not going to lie, the best bit of the day was when we went to visit Sean and Cara in their upgraded hotel on the 57th floor! The view over the city was amazing! We went up to the top of the third tallest building in Bangkok to the "sky bar" and sat and watched the city for a bit! The picture does not do it justice! So then we went out for western food and some hard rocking music. The lead guitarist was amazing, he played the whole of sweet child of mine on a double stemmed guitar behind his head....

Bangkok is actually very westernised, a city with recognisable shops, tarmac roads, modern cars that obey the rules of the road and even a sky train. In many ways, including the booming sex trade,  it felt like a super size Amsterdam or another European city rather than Asian.

Hopefully we will see a bit more of the real Thailand in the next place, Kanchanaburi.