Our time in Bangkok

  Bangkok, Thailand
Thursday, January 31, 2008

Bangkok.

Its a big city, for sure.

First Impression: It doesnt smell as bad as Kuala Lumpur and the air is a bit cleaner....

Second Impresion: Man, The Lonely Planet can really make things bad!



The busiest place for a tourist to hang out in, in Bangkok, is Ko San Road. We didnt want to stay here and so opted to stay in a "quieter, residential" neighborhood nearby, Ranbutri Road. The description was made by the Lonely Planet.

Well, of course EVERYONE reads the Lonely Planet. SO, when we got there, it was just as busy and crazy as Ko San Road. On top of being busy, EVERYTHING tripled in price. UGH. We tried to make the best of it.

The first night, it seemed that the entire city was booked, so we had to over pay for a dingy room with 2 beds and fake walls. Its really hard finding a good deal for a room, when you have a bulky backpack on...



The next day we got a better room (somewhat).

The streets are filled with street vendors, perormers and people dressed like "hilltribe people" trying to sell you wooden frogs that have ridges on the back so that it makes a "croaking" noise when you scrape against it.

Ko San Road is a crazy place in itself. You can get ANYTHING here: from fried bugs to a full head of someone elses' dreadlocks to fake ID cards. I will never trust a dreadlock again! So many people were getting these extentions here!



Mathew and I were pretty overwhelmed by it all, watching all the people run around and baby elephants roaming the busy streets....

We DID end up getting international student ID cards! All we needed was a passport photo! We figured it would be good to have in Europe (so many student disounts). I also had a cashmere suit custom made for myself.

There are so many tailors in the area and they make them in 24 hours! We also ended up finding a nice little hangout at the GAS STATION. YEs, someone converted a gas station into a restaurant/bar. Pretty neat!

We spent our days walking the city and going into underground fleamarkets (where there is a city of stalls that repair and sell everything from PS2's to cell phones.) It was in the market, where I got my cell phone fixed for $5!



Overall, we wish we couchsurfed here, because we would have had a better perspective of Bangkok. From what we did see, we didnt really like it too much.

IF we had a locals perspective, I am sure we would have appreciated it much more... Its time to head North!