Today we woke up late (I blame the room not having any outside windows!!) and decided to do as the locals do… we walked towards Wat Saket and caught the Khlong Taxi river boat up the canal to Siam Square – very cool!! Literally, the breeze from the boat made the temperature very pleasant! The trip to Siam Square was pretty quick, only about 15 mins, much better than a tuk-tuk or taxi. The river boat took us straight from derelict looking houses alongside the river to very swanky expensive shopping malls! We walked around for a bit, not buying anything of course, and then found a place doing an all you can eat lunch for only 59 baht (about AU$2.50!), so we chowed down on awesome Thai curry and rice vermicelli noodles – yum! After that we decided a trip on the Sky Train was in order, so we took that out to Mo Chit station where the Catachuk weekend market is… omg, SO MANY PEOPLE!! Some more stats from the Lonely Planet guide – 15,000 stalls and 200,000 visitors per day! We saw the extent of the market from the Sky Train, and reckon we only walked thru the fringes of the market in the hour that we spent there.
In the evening we sat at a bar on Soi Rambuttri (near Khao San but not as touristy) and had beer and played games of 500 for a couple of hours. After that we wandered down Khao San and the surrounding streets, and funnily enough found a bar playing psy trance! The “father” of the bar (an older guy with long hair and a tattoo of an American Indian head on his arm) waved us over, probably because we had dreads and therefore looked like hippies… so we sat and drank Vodka-Red Bull drinks while listening to thumping psy trance – nice! We took a break for Pad Thai noodles from a street vendor and then pancakes with banana and chocolate, and then went back for some more psy trance… the 2nd time that we were there, just sitting there enjoying the music, along walks some guy with a baby elephant!!!! No shit, it was kinda cool, but I sort of felt a bit sorry for the poor animal. Tomorrow we’re off on a tour to the floating market and tiger sanctuary, so better get to bed for some sleep.
