It was time to say goodbye to the pool :( After a couple of days pretty of much doing nothing, we caught the bus into Bangkok. Out of the cities we have been to so far, Bangkok has definitely been the most pleasant. Being such a large city means it's obviously still just as loud and smelly. It was more exciting to be in and much more civilised. We booked a small hotel in an area called Sukhumvit. It was a nice place but for us just a bit too nice. There were a lot of fancy restaurants and shops around but there weren't many that were in our price range. We had only booked for 2 nights anyway so we planned on trying another area after that.
The first day we caught the 'sky train' to Siam Square, known for the many, huge, shopping centres, and they really were. We spent the majority of the day walking around 4 different ones. Even though we couldn't really buy anything it was still good just to have a gander at everything. There was so many things we would have liked to have bought as souvenirs... And just for ourselves haha.
The second day we caught the sky train again to Chinatown. It was absolutely chaotic but an experience in itself.
We changed accommodation as well that day, right over to the other side of the city so that we were nearer to the temples and just to try some where else. This time it was right by the river so we made full use of the ferries which travelled up and down at least every 15 minutes (and only cost 30p). Bangkok is definitely one of them cities where you can easily underestimate how big it is, but we found the sky trains and the ferries great and affordable. There was also an underground system we used a few times. Ideally we would have stayed near Khao San Road which is a major tourist street, lined with bars, restaurants and shops, the main kind of backpacker area, but we were struggling to find cheap places to stay and we've found we prefer staying a bit further away but have a decent room than the other way around.
There were about 3 big temples that we visited the next day. We tried squeezing as much as we could in one day, because we hadn't really planned on spending so long in Bangkok as it was. It was also really REALLY warm, and when you have to have your legs and shoulders covered, it becomes a lot harder walking around all day. Sean wasn't really looking forward to more temples, and I have to admit they are getting a bit repetitive now, but these ones were nice and were worth the visit.
The HUGE reclining Buddha.
The final morning we spent arranging the journey up to Chiang Mai. We really wanted to get a sleeper train as it was going to be at least 12 hours, and we hadn't tried the sleeper ones yet but they looked really good online. We started panicking a bit when we realised that you're actually meant to book weeks in advance or at least a few days, and this was the morning of :/ We later found out that the tourist information centres buy the majority of the tickets and sell them with 'package deals'. In the end we booked the train up to Chiang Mai, accommodation for 1 night, then a 2 day 1 night trek, another nights accommodation, then a flight back down to Bangkok where we will then get the sleeper train to the south of Thailand and then a bus and a boat to Koh Tao. Even writing it there seems exhausting, but having some plans made for us is actually a nice change. Also, because the full moon party (huge beach party) is happening right when around the time we're heading south to the islands, we really needed to book accommodation and transport well in advance as there are literally hundreds, if not thousands that do the exact same journey.
Chiang Mai and the trek turned out to be really good but more about that in the next post. We're currently in Pai for a couple of days before we fly back down to Bangkok. Strangely enough this is the best internet we have had in weeks and yet probably the most remote place we've been to so far.
:)
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