Crazy, busy, sporty, loud but lovely Bangkok
Battangbang was a quiet but lovely place in Cambodia but not too well connected to other areas except Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. I actually wanted to go to the north west of Cambodia cause there is very little tourism as it is quite remote. It would have take us at least 2 days of traveling and we would have needed to go back at least to Siem Reap, which we really did not want to. Therefore we just changed plans on the spot and took a bus to Bangkok. I was slightly worried as we would cross the border between Thailand and Cambodia and just recently there had been gunfires at exactly that border. But wen asking several locals, all of them told me that it is fine and I didn t need to worry.
When we arrived there we had to walk over the border and get on another bus. While crossing the border on foot, there was no sign of any armed disagreement. At the otherside the Thai's crammed us in a minibus and drove like crazy in the direction of Bangkok. Fabian was convinced that it could not be far and kept on telling us that. ACTUALLY it was still far ... another 5 hours of crazy thai driving, stopping twice for gas and pineapple :-)
The driver dropped us off close to Kaosan Road, which is the main tourist – guesthouse area. Perfect for us, as we needed anyway to find a guesthouse. Everything seemed to be occupied except one really cheap one – 250 THB for a double room = 1,5 Euro per person. Well.... it was very basic and we both were slightly afraid of bedbugs but for one night it would do. As we were back to REAL civilisation, we had a night out! Kaosan Road is not only famous for its load of guest houses but also for its party area.
This backpacking community is really small and obviously most follow a similar route. When walking through Kaoson Road we met two Canadians for the 3 time on our trip... to celebrate our reunion we went for a beer and it turned into a great night. Around 5 a clock in the morning it started to rain and people were dancing on the street. If we would be dancing on the street when it is raining in Austria, we would not stop dancing i guess.
The next day we changed to a much nicer but also more expensive guest house and took it easy.... walking around, having nice food and SHOPPING. We took the water taxi to the MBK shopping mall, which is famous for its lot of crap and the need to bargain for every single piece. 2 hourse later, I had bought a new (well secondhand) mobile phone, a Thai sim card, hotpants and earphones for around 1200 THB = 20 euro ! Please if anybody of you is Thai and would get a much better price, please do not tell me. I am actually quite content with my bargaining power.
The next day started again rather late, as we went out again :-) While Fabi was still hanging out in bed, i got up and went to see the royal palace which he had seen anyways already. This time I went on foot, as the watertaxi really confuses me. I was perfectly prepared as I had brought a longsleeve shirt and long pants, as you need to be dressed „appropriatly“ for the king. When I arrived there, the palace just closed (15.00). So I had a walk around and found a really nice park. Inside people were using a Hulahup – it is a ring which they circle around their waste. They invited me to join.
After that I moved on and found some fitness devises, just standing in the park, open for use to everybody – 30 minutes of stepping! After that i continued to walk through the park and met a lot of Thais playing table tennis, again I was invited to joind – 20 minutes of very poor table tennis (poor on my side). After the embarrassment of playing table tennis agains a pro I joined a yoga class in the park! I finished of with a bit of apes training and decided to call it a day. When passing the royal palace, it turned out that there „sound and light show“ on the history and the kings of Thailand was talking place. As we had anyway no plans I just went for it! The lady at the entrance was totally convinced that I would understand EVERYTHING..... VERY EASY!!!! Actually it turned out after 5 minutes that I wouldn t understand most of it.
BUT a Thai whiteknight was sitting next to me and volunteered to translate the whole show (1,5 hours) for me. So now I have a pretty good impression about the Thai king and his hobbies, past and family. :-)
This evening some more nice street food and a couple of beers with 2 German girls... nothing much as we would leave tomorrow for Chiang Mae in the north of Thailand.
PS: sorry for the lack of fotos, but it is difficult to show the multitude of facets of Bangkok - and maybe I was a little lazy this time ;-)
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen