Sophie & Ollie´s Travels

Hey everyone,

I wrote the below three days ago while in Bangkok but this is the first chance i have to upload it. Will let you know all about Vietnam as soon as i have the time to write about it - but so far its going great.

Greetings from hectic Bangkok. We have been in Bangkok since Friday morning and are leaving today. It was sad to leave Brisbane but now we feel like we have really gone away and left all parents behind.

It was a nine hour flight from Brisbane to here and we slept uncomfortable for about five of those hours. When we boarded our Thai airways flight we had to walk through business class to economy so it makes you pretty jealous thinking of the lounging monks and business men when you're sat almost vertical trying to sleep with four other people less than 40cm away. The flight was fine though and Bangkok airport is flash with a concrete-window-plants only theme and super clean. It makes it all the more of a shock when you go outside and gag on the smell of cooking rubbish and smog that settles over the sprawling city as far as you can see.

We got through the airport easily, and were waved through customs. They asked no questions and said we needn't bother putting our bags through the x-ray machine. It was crazily easy to get through especially when the movies always make it seem scary with armed guards and drug fears etc.

Anyway, once outside we took the airport transfer to our hotel, the Indra Regent. The drive took about 40 minutes and was also pretty crazy. Drivers barely obey any traffic laws. They drive on the shoulder lane, making a fourth lane out of a three lane road, merge rapidly across all lanes of the road in these massive American 4x4 utes with 5 men sitting in the back while tiny scooters and tuktuks dodge everyone.

The hotel we are staying at is good. Its central to a lot of the big shopping malls and markets. On our first day we had a look round the shopping arcade attached to the hotel. There are a million clothes shops here selling everything for about NZ$10 and under. We went to another mall on Saturday called Central World, apparently South-East Asia's largest mall, which has five floors of mainly clothing stores but also watch, handbag and shoe stores. There were about 100-150 stores per floor. If you had a nearly empty suitcase you could go completely crazy here on clothes. I just bought one dress for approx. NZ$9. Ol bought Shrek 3 on dvd, but they don't have hardly any electrical stuff on sale. To get to the mall you have to walk through a street lined with 100s of market stalls with dark green awnings overhanging the pavement. The walk takes 15minutes, as you go past Gucci bags, Louis Vitton wallets, ninja stars, samurai swords, billabong caps and heaps of other crap where the temperature from the enclosed awnings and people rises to at least 40 degrees. Its chaotic but everyone is polite and gives you enough personal space for it to be ok.

We also went on a cities and temples tour on Saturday. It was a good way to see the different parts of the city including rundown Chinatown, the flash Government buildings surrounded by moats, shops where they sell only Buddha statues, the flower markets and the temples. It was a long tour, 2 1/2 hours, but in 38 degree heat where we saw a solid gold, 5-ton Buddha, a 46m long reclining Buddha, sitting, standing and walking buddhas and had to listen to the boring guide yabber on about the different positions of the buddhas. At one of the stops you get off the bus and random people take your photo unexpectedly - I stubbed by toe it was so unexpected. Then, when you leave the temple they have made all these badges with your face on it and try to sell them to you. The temples were good to see and pretty amazingly decorated with great sculptures. At the end of the tour the guide takes you through a gem factory where they show a cheesy 80s movie about gem mining where Russia is still shown as the Soviet Union. They then force you into this giant room with 100s of pieces of jewellery. We just managed to escape despite their best efforts to sell to us.

The rest of the time we have been relaxing in the hotel room or sitting by the pool. The pool water is so hot but rather nice. We had an Asian buffet lunch on Friday and a Thai dinner and pina coladas on Saturday night. The food is much spicier than at home - I had to pull out whole chilies in my tofu dish and could barely eat it. We didn't have dinner on Friday night because I was asleep by 7. I got terrible jetlag with dizzy spells all day where I would nearly fall over, then, around 6pm I wrote a quick email and felt incredible nausea so went to bed in a rapidly spinning room. Ol went to find panadol at about 7pm and got offered Thai girls twice by dodgy Thai men. However, I have no dizzy spells or nausea since, next time I will be taking jetlag ease pills though.

Leaving for Hanoi shortly to start our Vietnam tour and I will email when I can. We had a good time in Bangkok though. The people are really nice, though maybe only to get near your money, but they aren't pushy and don’t grab you to look at stuff, except the tuktuk drivers who are annoying every time you leave a building. It was a really hot and quite smelly and hectic experience but we did enjoy looking round the shops and temples and relaxing in the hotel. We felt pretty safe everywhere as well. When I get the time I will update the photos because we have taken a few now and so you can see what i am on about.

From
Sophie and Ollie.