Quick stopover in Bangkok

Prior to arriving in Bangkok, I'd contacted my friend Jase from my ski season as he lives in Bangkok and was happy to show us around.

We met him at the airport and he helped us navigate the rather complicated rail system. Most of the lines are owned by different companies and there’s no integration so you have to buy separate tickets for each part of the journey. We took the airport line followed by the MRT to our hostel, checked into our room, which had a slightly odd drawing of a face above the bed, and then headed straight out to a craft beer place round the corner.

Bangkok is not cheap. A pint of beer costs around £8-10, and that isn’t even for a fancy craft beer! We therefore only had one at the Craft bar before heading to HOBs for some more beers and dinner with Jase’s wife Pranee. It was really nice to catch up and hear all about their recent wedding.

The next morning we did some washing, then met up with Jase and took the boat along the river to Wat Arun. This was a really pretty Buddhist temple with floral pillars and some fancy murals on the walls inside the shrine.

From there, we took the ferry across the river where we stopped for a spot of lunch. As with most of South East Asia, there was a lot of rubbish in the river, mainly plastic bottles. However, unlike the rest of South East Asia, while we sat and ate our lunch, two boats came along and cleaned the rubbish up! We were incredibly surprised, but very impressed!

After lunch, we visited Wat Pho, another Buddhist temple. This was also very pretty, with a stunning central temple with some lovely murals. At the entrance you can shake a pot with numbered sticks and the first one to fall out tells your fortune. Firstly, I struggled to even get a stick out, which wasn’t a good start, but when I did, the fortune wasn’t exactly positive, although apparently I’m going to have a positive outcome from a legal case! Reading some of the other ones, they were also pretty depressing!

The complex is pretty big and we wandered around looking at the various intricately decorated shrines. However, the main attraction is the world’s largest reclining Buddha. It’s huge, with giant feet decorated on the base with mother of pearl.

From the Wat, we continued along to the river, where we went to a really fancy ice cream place. The weather in Bangkok was really hot and humid so an ice cream was definitely required! We ate them by the river before getting the boat and train back to our hostel.

That evening, we went to a rooftop bar for sunset, with fantastic views over the city. We then jumped in a taxi to our restaurant for dinner.

Now when Jase said we were going to a place called Cabbages and Condoms, I have to say, with us being in Bangkok, I was a bit worried about where he was taking us! But the restaurant was actually set up to highlight the issues of sexual health being faced particularly by Thai women. The idea is that condoms should be as readily available to people as cabbages. The restaurant is uniquely decorated using condoms and it’s a really buzzing place. The food was very tasty too. A very good recommendation!

The next morning, we checked out of the hotel and headed towards Khao San Road, the legendary backpacker district. As expected, it was pretty touristy and I saw two Boots shops on the same street, clearly catering for the western market! I’m glad we went to see it, but it wasn’t very authentic! We took a tuk tuk back to the station, which in itself was an experience on Bangkok’s busy roads.

For lunch, which also happened to be our last meal in South East Asia, we went for pizza! But not just any pizza, proper Italian pizza and it was delicious! It was a little restaurant under the Asok BTS station, which we’d passed a couple of times and just had to try, it did not disappoint!

We made our way to the airport, only to encounter the longest queue I’ve ever seen to check into our flight. It took us an hour to get to the counter, meaning James had enough time to go buy a beer and drink it in the queue! Luckily we were told our flight was delayed by 40 minutes so it wasn’t a problem. However this turned out to be an hour and a half, so by the time we boarded the plane, we were quite bored! While we were sad to leave South East Asia, we were excited for our next country, Nepal.