24th October 2012
We arrive in Bangkok after an overnight stay in Chumporn.
We find our guest house - Roof View Place, tucked away down a back street off the main road, so it should be quiet. We are met by a not overly friendly receptionist. Most Thai people are very friendly (or sleep) when you arrive, so it was a little surprising when 'she' (I use the term loosely!) was so rude. Matt won 'her' over eventually! We stayed for 4 nights, the room was small, but had a mini fridge, a tiny balcony and hot water, so we were happy.
We go out to get some supper, it pouring down. In reception the lady-boy is offering a big butch bloke, a cerise pink umbrella to borrow. That put a smile on 'her face! He refused it, by the way.
We traipse to the other side of the city, to try to sort out our visa's for India, it turns out we will need to come back here and it will take 8 working days to get it sorted, so we will return after we have been to Cambodia.
We visit the National Museum (200B) and spend a good few hours here, then we take a walk to China Town.
We have always enjoyed China Towns in the other cities we have visited, but were actually a little disappointed with Bangkok's. It was almost too sprawling to get around, there were plenty of food stalls though, so managed to have a nice cheap meal.
At the weekend there is a huge market, (I think we read it is the largest in Asia) set in 30 acres of land with 15,000 stalls, it was so hot here, we didn't really enjoy it, especially when we came across a stall selling puppies and kittens. I asked the man why they had no water in the pen, 'I give them water and food' he said, but I couldn't get my point across that they should have water in the pen at all times. They were in the shade, but it's still 30+ and they were panting like mad. What can you do? I tried!
I did have to buy a new pair of sandals though, as my last ones broke, (300B for a pair of nice leather ones).
On our last night we walk up one of the side roads and there are a couple of young boys aged about 6 or 7 playing in the road, they kick a piece of fruit (looks like a lime) to us, so we have a game 'ball' with them, then continue on and find a bar called 'Wunderbar', where an aging hippie is setting up an amp for the evenings entertainment. (Regardless to what you all may think, we actually don't go out that often to drink!). We decided to see what he and his Thai wife are like. There is also a young white lad playing guitar with them (for the first time apparently). They were very good and afterwards we got chatting to Charlie and Rat, it turns out Charlie was born in Oz but moved to Thailand years ago, him and Rat had been married for over 30 years and had 3 kids. When we go back to sort our visa's, I have asked Charlie will give Matt some harmonica lessons. He teaches music to kids, so it should work out OK!!
On the way back to our room, the young boys are still out in the street (11PM now), so we go back to our room and find the tennis ball we have been carrying with us since Australia. We take it out to them, Matt throws it up the road to them, they miss it and it promptly goes down the nearest drain!
Heading North tomorrow.
(I don't know who is still reading our blog, but Thank You, we have amazingly had over 8000 hits in the last 9 months).
