Bangkok - Golden Palace, Huge Markets, Airport Entertainment

Our second (and last) full day in Bangkok was incredibly busy. We woke up after our eventful evening all slightly sluggish but ready to tackle the day. We had a plan to hit as many temples and palaces as possible in the morning before going to the weekend market at the north end of the city.

After checking out we headed out to tackle the Golden Palace and the Emerald Buddha. We were given conflicting information about the opening time of both places (this is apparently a tourist scam where cabbies will tell you a place is closed and then take you a million other places first) but decided to take our chances and go anyway. 

The day was incredibly hot and humid but we made it through - we wandered around the Golden Palace and enjoyed some coconut juice right from the coconut. 

After we'd had enough temples for the day we hailed a taxi and had them take us to the huge market at the north of the city. When I say huge, I mean huge. 1000 stalls huge - see above map for an idea. We decided to get food at the market and wander around and see what kind of fun things we could find. It was packed. Herds of people moving slowly, stopping, turning around, etc. I realized too late that I was just not in the mood to deal with huge crowds. We shopped for about 2 hours before calling it quits. Instead of hailing a cab we figured we would take the bus - I saw a bus that said it would go to our area of the city. It was a nice change - and only a few B!! 

Back in the old city we went to the hostel to drop off our stuff and then headed out for dinner. We decided to go to the same place we had gone to the first night. We hung out as long as we could before wandering around doing some last minute shopping before heading back to the hostel to grab our things. Our flight wasn't until early in the morning but we wouldn't be able to take the light rail early enough, so we'd opted to spend the night in the airport (also would make sleeping on the plane that much easier.). 

Back to the aiport we went, waving goodbye to Bangkok and Thailand. 

Bangkok - From Temples to Gastro-Delights

Our second day in Bangkok started with us wandering down to Khao San Road to find something to eat for breakfast. Almost positive it consisted of random food from street vendors - fried bananas or donuts or something similar.

We had lunch plans with a girl I had met on Twitter, but figured we should try to cover some of the (free) cultural things that were meant to be seen around the city. We took a tuk tuk to one of the ports on the riverside and went to visit Wat Arun and the Reclining Buddah. We wandered around the wat taking photos and enjoying the views before heading off to meet up with Dao.

Lunch was good - Dao picked some wonderful food for us to try (I had some Tom Yum rice - amazing!) and then treated us to some delicious smoothies after.

After lunch we got back in a taxi and asked to be dropped off at the train station so that we could venture towards China Town (I love when asian cities have China Towns.). We were told there was a good market area that we should explore. A few wrong turns and we managed to figure out where to go. Up and down the stalls we went, squeezing past people and giant bags full of dried cure-alls.

Exhausted, we headed back to the hostel. Because it was our last night in Bangkok, we opted to have one more big night of drinking. After a bit of a nap/rest we went back to find something for dinner. We picked a different restaurant for dinner and set to work consuming as many Beer Changs as needed to work up the courage to eat some sort of insects. 

The only real plan we had was to buy some tacky cheap souvenirs for the people back home and eat some crickets. While we were eating we were constantly approached by various "hilltribe" (debatable whether they were actually from the hilltribes) women selling small wooden frogs that made a "frog" sound when you run the little wooden stick down their back. Eventually we had had enough and decided that if we could get one for 30B (about $1) we would buy one. It took a few different frog ladies, but we did eventually convince one to part with a frog for what was likely cost for them. From that point on, each time one of the ladies came around to sell us a frog we pulled ours out and played it for her. 

The rest of the night became a blur - Ren and I happily ate a bag of crickets, which were surprisingly very delicious, we consumed many many large bottles of Beer Chang and eventually ended up back at the hostel. Not unlike the movie that was set in the same city, we were setting ourselves up for a hangover... 

Thailand Planning

In about 5 weeks I'm taking off on my next adventure. As I mentioned before I'm off to Thailand with two of my good friends. We've only got about 10 days to see as much of the country as possible. We are all photographers, so we want to be able to hit all the photogenic sites (and a beach or two for me, hopefully...)

Here's the itinerary (for the most part) if you're interested. We're trying to not plan too much of the trip and just let it happen, but with only 10 days we're forced to set a few parameters:


Depart from Toronto at 10am. Convince myself to sleep on the plane so that I can function when we arrive in Hong Kong. Spend 24 hours in Hong Kong just because we can. Hopefully do a whirlwind tour of the city and see what we can in a short period of time. I'd love to hit a night market if possible.

Hong Kong at Night  (Google Image)

We fly out of Hong Kong in the afternoon and arrive into Bangkok in the late afternoon. We've got an airport hotel booked, so we'll drop off our stuff and probably take a bus into the city (or maybe just sleep, it's hard to say).







Next morning we have a relatively early morning flight to Chiang Mai. We have about 3 days in Chiang Mai to check out the temples, elephants, markets and hilltribes.

I've been given a heads up that we know a family that operates a bar/restaurant that we should check out, The Lost Hut, so we will definitely do that. I've also heard that if you're going to do a cooking class in Thailand, the northern part is the place to do it.

Long Neck Tribe (Google Image)

 


After that we head to Phuket to take in some beach action. The guys aren't as stoked about the beach as I am but I refuse to go to Thailand and not see at least SOME sun. They're more than welcome to go do their own thing while I frolic in the water. I have full intentions of attempting to surf ... and probably doing some snorkelling. Will probably look here for more ideas on what to do in Phuket

Koh Phi Phi (Google Image)

From here we're going to hit up Krabi province and it's islands (Ko Phi Phi for example), the backdrop for the movie The Beach.

After some beach time, which I'm sure will also include lots of party time, we're heading back up to Bangkok for the last few days before returning home. I've already made some Twitter friends that we are going to meet up with to get a photo tour. Since it's our last stop before heading back, I'm really looking forward to some night markets and maybe the Ampawa Floating Market, if we have time.

There are so many things I'm looking forward to doing on this trip - eating being a huge part of it. I love Thai food. Well, lets be frank, I love food. I'll try just about anything once... and if this includes some of the stranger things like roasted tarantulas or crickets, I'll give it a go. Rice and rice noodles, I live for those things. I think I'm going to be the only person who comes back from Thailand having put on weight.

 

 

 

image courtesy of wikipedia

Overall, I can't wait. It will be a fantastic trip and I'm sure I'll have a million awesome photos to share when I get back so that I'm not forced to steal images off the internet to fill my blog with :)