September 7 - Thursday
We flew into Bangkok on the first of September after over 12 hours of travel. Just over six hours of flights between London and Dubai and Dubai to Bangkok. We had a three hours lay over in Dubai which was cool except that it was at 1230 at night so you couldn't see anything outside. The duty free shopping was pretty good and the gold was cheap - didn't buy any though. By the time we got to Bangkok we were pretty much wiped out. It was hot and humid by early afternoon. We hired a taxi to take us straight to our hostel that I found on hostels.com - the Tavee Guest house. I knew where it was and it took nearly an hour to get there with traffic.
Travelling from the London countryside and suburbs to the heart of Bangkok does lend itself to a bit of culture shock.
The taxi stopped at the address I gave them and we saw the sign leading us down a little pedestrian alleyway. It was lush with tropical plants and flowers. The guesthouse itself is family run and the owners live on the premises. I had read a lot of good reviews about the place - many people had written about how they plan to return so I took that as a good sign. I walked into the outdoor patio where there was a large alter to my left and teak furniture, a large fountain and the "laundry room" area with washer and dryer to my right. There was a woman sitting on the floor doing some wash and she motioned me to the bar/restaurant area consisting of one table and one sitting area and the bar with teak tree trunks for seats. It was all very exotic and tropical looking.
We didn't have reservations but I figured we'd give this place a go, knowing that there were plenty of places to stay in Bangkok. There was a vacancy, no a/c but a ceiling fan - we'd take it. It was a shared bathroom/shower so really it was just fancy camping. We unpacked and walked around the area a bit and came upon a wat that was closed for the day but you could look inside the gate. I stuck my face up to one of the openings of the tile wall and looked right at a buddhist monk looking at me while he was watering the plants on the temple grounds!
A very tourist moment.
We walked out to the river and watched the water taxis arrive and depart, filled with people with the bright orange/gold color of the monks garb brightening the crowd. We were in an area where the locals lived so we got a lot of stares. As we walked back toward our guesthouse we heard some really loud pop music and I thought it sounded like music you would do aerobics too - sure enough we walked past a courtyard and there was a group of women doing aerobics! It was very basic, there was no exercise clothes, aerobics shoes, wooden floors with mirrored walls and an instructor with a microphone strapped to their ear. It was just a cement courtyard, women dressed in street clothes and a guy leading the group in a "watch me and do as I do" no talking kind of manner. It was great! I wanted to join in but we were still taking it all in. I was really reminded of Korea and seeing all the people and street vendors, the sounds and smells of the city made me all the more excited to go to Korea and see family. We didn't find a place to eat and weren't feeling brave enough to try any street vendors so we ate at our guesthouse which worked out well as the food was fabulous and we didn't have to go far afterwards!
