Bangkok - Getting familiar with Asia

One of the smelly small rivers

The China Town

Another characteristic feature in Bangkok and in many other cities in Asia is the smell. It seems like their sewers are from the 19th century and combined with the heat the smell can almost knock a man down. The small rivers or channels slowly flowing through the city don't smell any better either. It's possible to find places without any bad smell, but on the street it's certainly not too common.

We started the day by eating a dragon fruit, our first exotic fruit in Asia. The first task for the day was to buy some train tickets because we wanted to get to the sea to swim and snorkel. At the railway station they have a lot of workers helping tourists with the tickets. We didn't know this and thought that the friendly woman was trying to fool us in one way or another. She showed us a travel agency where a man told us about the islands in Thailand and offered us a package tour to three of the islands. He assured us that it would be cheaper to take the tour from him and that we wouldn't find any cheap accommodation by ourselves. We decided to try to find a place by ourselves anyway and walked back to the railway station to buy tickets to the coastal city of Chumphon.

The railway station

It's a frog!

The day continued with a walk in the China Town, checking what they were selling and trying to stay together, which was hard at times because of the really narrow passings through the shops and boutiques. Somehow walking in Bangkok can be quite a stressful experience because you always have to be careful with other people, take care of your belongings because of pick pockets and often times you can't really talk either. In one of the street shops in China Town I found something that I had been looking for: a small compass for a survival kit. The price was 20 Baht so I didn't even feel like haggling and bought it without questions.

We had eaten pork in the morning so now it was time to try something different again. We saw another street restaurant and decided to try. We ordered some meat with bamboo and coconut. Once again it was fairly spicy, but luckily the portions in Thailand aren't that huge and the price is always minimal. The absolute downside of these street restaurants is the aforementioned smell. Also in this restaurant the smell pretty much ruined the nice meal. For a dessert I ate a small maggot and we both tried some deep fried frogs. The frogs were really tasty but the maggot was not.

Inna with Buddhas

Another historical building

With our stomachs full we headed towards the Rattanakosin Island, the historic center of Bangkok. We weren't in a hurry and on our way there we visited a big and beautiful Buddhist temple. We had heard of some dress codes, but at least in this one it didn't seem to matter that we were both wearing short trousers and I was wearing a t-shirt. Inside the temple we had to take our shoes off. It was somehow relaxing to walk there without shoes in almost total silence. All the monks we met or saw were really polite too. If I cared for religions, this could be for me.

It was already getting dark (it gets dark in Thailand around 7 pm) and we were only entering the Rattanakosin island. We stopped to relax for a while in a small park surrounded by really beautifully lit temples. Very quickly a local man appreached us and started telling about this special day that's only once every month. He told that today the government pays gasoline for the tuk-tuk drivers and that it would be really cheap to drive around now. We were more than a bit sceptical about it but decided to try anyway.

The Big Buddha

At first we visited a big Buddha statue not too far from the island. Everything went well so far. Then the problems began. On the way to our second destination, which was a palace a bit further, the driver told us that we'd visit some tailor shops on the way. We of course had no idea about this beforehand. Soon we stopped in front of a tailor shop and entered it. I didn't feel so comfortable there since I was wearing a pair of sandals and some sweaty t-shirt. A salesman inside showed us their collection and tried to sell us dresses and suits. Only he had no idea whom he was trying to sell to. I basically never wear a suit and there was no chance I'd carry one for five weeks anyway. Soon we made it clear that we weren't going to buy anything and left the place as politely as we could.

Khao San Road

When we finally got to the palace, it was already closed because of the time wasted in the tailor shop and when the driver told us that we should visit another shop I got a bit angry. After a short verbal fight we agreed to enter one more shop. This time the salesman didn't give up so easily. He showed us how he's using only real camel wool by burning it a bit with a lighter. Eventually we were able to leave the shop, of course without buying anything, and the salesman was visibly disappointed.

Our final destination was the Khao San Road, the biggest hub for backpackers in Bangkok. It was nothing as spectacular as I had expected and we only walked through and left. The funniest thing happened when a local came to me and without asking any questions he knew that I was from Finland. Maybe he had been spying on us before or something, but it felt strange anyway :).

It was getting late so we started walking back. Before sleeping we wanted to see the Golden Mount but it was already closed and it was impossible to see it well without entering the area. We were a bit tired after the long day and took a tuk-tuk back to our guest house.