It is high time I got this blog up to date. I am sat on gorgeous tropical island with no-one for company. I have exhausted exploring, sated the need for swimming, and the one open restaurant on the island is expensive, so I have very few excuses to not do this.
Well, the view is a smidgen distracting ;)
FOCUS!!!!
In South East Asia, all roads seem to lead to Bangkok. It’s the biggest city in the region, and because of Thailand’s popularity with tourists, it is the most effective and cheapest hub for air travel. It is also just located right in the centre of the region, which basically means if, say, you want to travel from Laos in the north to Malaysia in the south, you need to change transport in Bangkok. Which is what I planned to do.
I also had the little problem of the broken phone, which again could only be fixed in Bangkok.
So by necessity I had to spend at least a day in Bangkok dealing with phone repairs and arranging onward transport.
I however ended up spending five days in the city. This was partly necessitated by needing to repair my busted phone, but was more because I simply enjoy spending time in Bangkok. It is a very easy city to spend time in as no-one really tries to rip you off anymore than they would a local. Taxis, though ran by the mafia, are plentiful; food is available everywhere, and is some of the cheapest you’ll find in Thailand; and there is always more sights to see and more areas to explore.
Also, after a few hectic weeks in Laos, I was happy to spend a few days just hanging around in malls and coffee shops, and shying away from organising future plans and transport.
The fact that Niko arrived in the city a day after me did not help my resolve, as he had made several promises to share his local food and drinking tips. It would have been foolish to ignore the offer of a near-local to share his hard-earned city tips.
So here’s what I did with five extra days in the city.
MBK Floor 3: Mobile Phones, Repairs, Accessories
I have spent more time in this part of Bangkok than I care to mention...
The mall is a beast, and a complete maze to navigate, but it also has the widest selection of goods under one roof. So it was here I kept returning.
...I repaired my phone here - VISITS x2
...I replaced my repaired phone here - VISIT x1
...I accompanied newly-met Couchsurfer Nick around the mall - VISITS x2
I believe I spent around seven hours in the mall over the five days I stayed in the city...it was not a waste of my time….but it does seem a shame to have spent so long in there!!
Siam Mall Exploring
I had attempted some exploring of the crazy mall complexes in Siam, Bangkok’s commercial centre, with Philip last month. However, he wasn’t interested, and I had places I wanted to see more urgently, so we only made a token twenty minute foray into the urban jungle.
This time however, I was determined to explore more, and was accompanied by equally-eager Nick.
I feel here I should explain here briefly how we met. I was catching the river ferry back to Bangrak from a wander around Khao San, and bumped into Nong, the host of the cycling event I went to last month in Bangkok, who was showing around her current surfer Nick. He mentionned that he needed to sort out a local SIM, and I offered to show him where to do that, and then we spent the afternoon exploring Siam and Banglamphu. He was good company, and as he was new to travelling, his curiosity and enthusiasm compelled me to actually see some more of Bangkok!!!
Siam is actually composed of around half a dozen huge, sprawling mall complexes that are connected to each other through the Siam BTS Skytrain station, meaning that you can walk for kilometres without actually setting foot outside. The nearest we have to the scale of the Thai malls is the Westfield centres in London; imagine five or six of these next to each other, connected by raised walkways, and with more glitz and extravagance. That is Siam.
There is even a Harrods in one of the malls, which serves afternoon tea for £25 per person. I was again sorely tempted, but I resisted and decided to see how much money I have when I return to Bangkok for my flight home.
Part of my reason for returning to the malls was to finally find the Marks and Spencers branch which I knew was I knew was in Siam somewhere. It took around fifteen minutes of consulting maps and asking security guards, but finally I stumbled upon it. It was nice to feel, at least for a minute, like I was back in the UK. It did however reinforce how glad I am to be travelling and not working there any longer.
Nearby to M&S there were several hallways filled with painted elephants, reminiscent of the collection of painted eggs which on display in Covent Garden a few Easters ago.
Eating and Drinking with Niko:
Previously, I had left Niko, my travel buddy for Laos, in Udon Thani, as I wanted to head on to Bangkok and resolve my phone issues. However, we realised that the hostel where he stays long-term is less than a kilometre from my Bangkok hostel in Bangrak, so we had no excuses for seeing each other.
Not that I need an excuse to continue seeing the awesome, ratchet-hot-mess that is the fabulous Niko.
So the day after I arrived in Bangkok, I hopped off the ferry a few stops short of my regular stop Saphan Taksin to meet up with Niko at Marine Pier and grab some food nearby. His initial suggestion of his favourite street food stall was scuppered by it being Vesak, or the Buddha’s Birthday. This meant much of Bangkok was shut down, and alcohol unavailable everywhere. See the next post for my exploration of surprisingly sober Khao San Road during Vesak.
Our saviour was nearby Chinatown, which is ever contrary and was not celebrating Vesak. This meant, despite the national ban on selling alcohol, it was being sold and consumed freely, and the district was generally running like normal, which for us meant plenty of street food.
Our first stop was a restaurant for some Roast Duck with noodles. It was only after our meal that we realised what we were sitting beside…
Yes, that is Shark Fin, and beside it is what we think is Bird’s Nest. It’s lovely to be sitting beside endangered animal products. Yummy! Sadly however, they are staple parts of Chinese cooking.
Horrifying animal products aside, I love Chinatown for its bright lights and sheer diversity of food available on the street.
After grabbing a few snacks on the street, I braved some Thai dessert. I usually stay well away from puddings in Asia; they are inevitably (if not fruit) sweet and sickly, and not my taste at all. But I thought I would be safe with some water chestnuts in coconut milk.
I like water chestnuts, and I like coconut milk.
However I do not like coconut milk with lumps of ice in. And I do not like water chestnuts that are half jelly, half crunchy. Think tapioca pearls with crunchy water chestnut in the centre. It was not nice.
It was horrible, and I do not want to ever eat anything like it again.
We parted ways after a while, and decided to try again tomorrow to find Niko’s favourite food stall.
Sure enough, tomorrow, the stall was reopened, and the papaya salad there was delicious. It was only later that we realised that the stall is actually ran by Laotians, not Thais, which gave us some faith back in Laos food, and what we had eaten whilst in Laos was nothing to write home about.
After food, we parted ways, but agreed to head out later for drinks.
One shower, and several hours of blogging later, we found ourselves in Silom soi 2, the centre of the gay district in Bangkok.
We had a drink.
We had another drink.
Then we had a few more.
At some point in the evening, I decided I was not drunk enough, so ordered three G&Ts at once to make up for this.
I don’t remember much after that.
We ended up in a club, where we did some fierce dancing. In the morning I found these pictures.
I reckon it was a good night. Niko had to send me home in a taxi….
;)
This is half of what I got up to in Bangkok. Check out Part 2 where I actually act like a tourist and wander around in the heat and humidity photographing forts and statues.
DSP
Useful Information:
- The MBK Centre is reached from the National Stadium BTS station. Taxi drivers will also recognise the name.
- For the major Siam malls, use the main Siam BTS Station.
- Chinatown’s street food stalls are concetrated along Yaowarat Rd, around 500 metres west from the Chinese Arch.
- Niko’s recommended street food can be easily found. Take the river ferry to Marine Pier (No.4), and walk out on the main road to a T-junction, where you should turn right. When you reach a small square with a 7/11, the food stall is on the right of the stall, with salt-baked fish featuring prominently.
No comments:
Post a Comment