Thursday morning we arrived in Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand. After a flight over Moskou with the Russian airline Aeroflot, at 8.30 am we finally hit ground. Passport check went well and also our luggage was present on the conveyor belt. So far so good… We may be just traveling with our backpacks, it’s still 2016. What does a backpacker do? Right. Buy a local SIM card, so we can use our mobiles here too. The mobile data network is surprisingly faster here than in Belgium, and that for a smaller price!
Next mission: finding a hostel. Public transport in Bangkok is very extensive and indicated in English as well, which makes planning a route easy so we take the Bangkok Skytrain to the stop closest to our hostel. Our hostel Glur is right beside the BTS station and we get there easily. Once we finally arrive, we are exhausted. Right in the middle of the day, we fall asleep — only to find ourselves waking up in the late evening. However we still don’t feel like doing much so we just get back to sleep.
Friday morning, we organize our room a bit and it’s midday before we head into town. We take the boat taxi to Wat Pho, where the biggest lying buddha in Thailand is located. It is gigantic and doesn’t even fit on one photograph. We cross the river to Wat Arun, but unfortunately this one is covered by scaffolds for renovation purposes, so there’s not much to see of this temple. In the evening, we walk through Chinatown (Yaowarat) on our way home. Because there was a ‘Vegetarian Festival’ in Bangkok, the entire street was crammed with vegetarian street food stalls. We picked one and enjoyed a Thai tofu meal on a plastic stool.
On Saturday we visit Wat-Phra-Kaew and the royal palace. The temple is called ‘The Temple of the Emerald Green Buddha’. This temple complex is one of the most important temples of Thailand. Quite impressive! Saturday afternoon we met with Dieter. An expat I know from Belgium, who now lives and works in Bangkok. He lives in an apartment on the 39th floor. Hello panorama, hello infinity pool! It was a GREAT view over the Bangkok skyline.
We decided to stay two more days in Bangkok. We really had to recover from our long trip because the days before we left were quite hectic — and of course, because you definitely can’t see Bangkok in just three days. Our previous hostel was fully booked though so we had to find another one. We decided to go explore the other side of the city. So on Sunday we moved to the ‘backpacker’s part’ of Bangkok. Sunday evening we first went to a brand new gigantic shopping centre, searching for a replacement of an extension chord that apparently preferred to stay home. After that we walked through Soi Cowboy (google this) and afterwards to Khao San road. This is THE nightlife district for backpackers. Think cheap booze, lots of parties and big chaos. Something like the Overpoortstraat in Ghent on ‘Kristalnacht’, but different. For us, the ugliest part of Bangkok. Although the Singha beer was cold and watching people was truly entertaining.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) we leave by bus for Siem Reap in Cambodja, where the temples of Angkor Wat are. The bus leaves at 8 am — more about that later.
Info:
Our first hostel was Glur Bangkok. Spacious rooms, comfy beds and a cosy coffee bar. Delicious (Thai) breakfast. Second hostel was Once in Bangkok. Tiny room, ideal location for Khao San road.