Bangkok -19th June 2009

Wow! What a start! After a sleepless night in Heathrow airport and an almost 24 hour flight with Royal Brunei Airlines we finally arrived in Bangkok. The flights were brilliant, the foodabsolutely amazing!! An apple stuffedwith an almondand cinammon centre and icing, restaurant standards of interesting vegetable based mains! It wasso delicious! We were kept well filledfor the entire journey,and I was sat beside a very nice young lady who was very interesting. A recent medic graduate (post grad degree) who was visiting herArmy boyfriend in Brunei and then travelling on to Malaysia together. She had a really nice smile!
We had to stop for fuel in Dubai which I thought was pretty cool! There wasn't much to take photo evidence of unfortunatly as we were only off the plane for about 20 minutes. Lucy bought a coffee as she was desperate for one, but got slightly ripped off, $7!! :O
Next stop was Brunei which was a surprisingly small airport. It had a lovely wee gift shop that sold globes made 0f different types of gems in it.
When we arrived in Bangkok we headed through in search of a bus/taxi to take us to the city. A small lady approached us, stressing off the buses and saying we could get a taxi for 200 Baht each (4 Pounds). She lead us to a man waiting beside a car (an unmarked/unofficial taxi) which made us a bit nervous, but we went for it anyway. The lady took a small child out the car, which was a bit random! We didn't really have any idea where we were going, but we'd given the address of the Youth Hostel of Bangkok (the cheaper one) and hoped it was going to be okay. The drive took around an hour. Thankfully when we arrived at the hostel (3pm) they had space. Lucy and I decided to share a private room so we could lock our things in and Robbie was going to stay in a dorm. We were pleasantly surprised by the price, and also by the condition of the room. It was not only air conditioned, but had a nice (but cold) shower! Oh, and a TV which didn't work!! Lucy sat down on one of the beds and it was very hard, although I thought it felt more comfortable than the beds at the halls at uni.
We were all exhausted but thought we should make use of the day, and not confuse our body clocks any more, so went out for a walk. Only a few metres down the road we were standing around looking at the buildings and discussing how to cross a road (apparently the Thai people just ignore the traffic and walk at a steady speed thus allowing the cars to dodge them!) we weren't as confident though! Whilst we were loitering, a very friendly man started talking to us in English. It was such a lovely welcome to the country. We got out our map and he showed us where we should go, and told us to take a tuk-tuk. We set off in search of a tuk-tuk and as we came across one, we were anxious to not be scammed, so were in deliberations about whether we should go with him or not but low and behold, our friendly random tour guide turned up out of the blue and told us to get in which was handy. It was a bit daunting at first; a bit like being on a white water raft, with lots of rapids and ever so often a bump in the road would feet like we were meeting a bit rock in the way. The scariest part was when he did a "u-ey" in the road, where we felt we were about to fall out! We got used to it and were able to enjoy ourselves! It was quite a thrill overtaking people and seeing a fellow tourist in another tuk tuk so we turned and waved which was entertaining! Our first stop was to a Buddhist temple. As it was Buddha day, Buddha would bring us luck if we prayed in the temple. We were unsure whether we should take our shoes off, and whether we were wearing appropriate clothing, but thanfully the school next to the temple had just closed for the day, so the English teacher who had come down himself to pray was able to help us out, and also to guide us in how to pray. The temple itself was really beautiful, and so peaceful. We had to kneel, and put our hands together, then bow down three times, for a minute or so we made a wish, and then to close the prayer we bowed down three more times. It was a really great experience. When we were finishing off, it was almost 5pm, so the local monks came in to do their prayers also. It was really strange to see such a beautiful temple right next to some really run down buildings, although it seems quite common in most of Thailand.
The next stop was to Top-Ten; a personalised tailor shop. It was quite interesting when we arrived as the shop assistants swarmed to us and were treating us really well and letting us try on things and flick through the brochures. We were all quite tempted by the offer of $300, but felt like we shouldn't spend all our money on the first day. The shop assistants got quite grumpy when we said we didn't think we could afford it.
Next stop was to see the Giant Gold Buddha; an absolutely enormous Buddha which was right next to a really pretty mosaiced temple. The were quite a few monks around, getting ready for something that was happening in the evening I think.
We saw quite a few cats and dogs about which I instantly fell in love with, but Robbie seems to have a bit of an obsession with them all having rabies!
We were taken by the tuk-tuk man to another tailor shop, which we instantly thought "oh no!" to; but thankfully they weren't as pushy and they didn't try to guilt trip us when we left. It was full of lots of really beautiful materials, although obviously, being in Asia, a lot is silk, but I was still able to admire the range of colours. The tuk-tuk man gets a fuel voucher for every customer he brings in apparently which is why we'd agreed to be taken in there.
Next stop was the tourist information, it was getting dark by this time, and it rained quite heavily whilst we were in. I was quite thankful for not being out when it poured it down. The man in the tourist information was really funny and charming! They gave us some free water and he was cracking jokes all the time which really made me feel happy. He suggested various things we should do, including going to the old capital, going to a beach, going on a tiger tour, elephant ride, various things in the city, and also to head south to the famous full moon party, which I'd never heard of before. It all sounded really amasing (there is no " " on the keyboard!), but the price he was quoting us was ridiculously high, so we felt we couldn't really afford it. We decided to just settle on doing the Tiger Temple and the Elephant ride, although little did we know we were being majorly ripped off (grh!!) - it cost $120 (75 pounds) for the whole day trip, which we booked for tomorrow. We were really excited about it though, and at the time, we hadn't known what prices to expect, although in future we shall definetly barter quite a bit!
We had taken quite a bit of time in the tourist office, and were anxious about the tuk-tuk driver, who was extremely friendly and ever knew about Newcastle united being relegated!! and offered his sympathies which we found very amusing!! We asked him to take us back to the Youth Hostel as we too were pretty exhausted. We then set out again in search of the internet and food. We didn't have to look far before we came across a small cafe which sold various curries and breakfasts. There wasn't much choice for me... chips or chips! but I was quite happy with them, and I had an amasing pineapple smoothie which made up for it!! Absolutely delicious! Altogether it cost 60 baht (just over a pound! - bargain!!) There was the most beautiful dog in the world in the cafe, so gorgeous. I attempted to speak Thai to her, but she didn't really understand my accent I think. I got a lick out of her though ;) I'm definetly planning on coming back here for the dog and the smoothies!! Lucy and Robbie really enjoyed there curries too; Robbie was at the point of scraping away the varnish on the plate he was really trying to get every last drop!
We then headed off to an internet cafe, which we thought would be everywhere, but it took a while to find one, and when we did, we found three; a bit like buses! It was so nice to get online finally! It was super cheap too, as long as we're not getting scammed, the prices here are amasing!!
We had thought about going to see the ladyboys of Bangkok today, but due to our tiring day, and a 7am start the following morning, we thought we better have an early night. On our way back from the cafe we walked past a ladyboy, definetly not as convincing as the ladyboys in the show seemed to be!
We got back to the hostel, and it didn't take long to get to sleep, we were all completely exhausted!