Bangkok

Thank you for returning to my blog. One thing I forgot to mention in my last blog is don't fall into tourist traps. What I mean by this is do what you like doing and don't feel just because someone has said 'this is a tourist thing to do' that you have to do it. We have wasted money doing thing people have told us to do and we haven't enjoyed it. So do things YOU enjoy.

First leg: Bangkok
Below is a map of our route starting in Bangkok.

So we started off in Heathrow London and flew with Air India to New Delhi and then onto Bangkok. The flight cost us £303 each with 30kg baggage. This airline was very good, we had meals included in the price, seats were spacious bearing in mind I'm 5 foot 11 and my partner is 6 foot 2. We stopped in New Delhi for 2 hours. The airport was clean and big and accepted all major currencies which is great as you don’t always have the correct currency on you if you’re doing a connecting flight.

We continued onto Bangkok. We had not pre-booked a taxi to our hotel but there is an information desk called Airport Authority of Thailand Limousine Service (AOT) where you can get a private taxi. The price varies depending on the type of car you want but we just got the cheapest one which cost around £20 for a 40 minute ride. There are other options if you’re on a budget, you can use public taxis which you can pick up outside the airport building or you can get the train into the city. The train line is called ARL city line and if I was to return to Bangkok I would use this, as I realised later the train lines are very easy to navigate.

Travel Tip: Print out the name of your hotel in Thai for the taxi driver as there are lots of hotels with similar names.

The hotel we stayed in was called Prom Ratchada Residence and cost THB16,250 (todays exchange rate £296) for 14 nights. It was a bit far from the main tourist area of Siam Square and the Grand Palace but as I mention before trains are within easy access.

Now we may have booked too long in Bangkok and even the locals thought 2 weeks was too long as we got laughed at on numerous occasions, but as a first time traveler we weren't sure how long we needed in each place. So we were there for 2 weeks, which we didn't mind as there are great cinemas at cheap prices, around £3 a ticket and fantastically clean and modern shopping malls to look around.

The public transport was very easy to master. We got the train into the "posh" area called Sukhumvit. The mall here is unique as each floor is based around a different country selling that countries products and souvenirs. A must visit.




We also went and looked round some temples but to be honest once you've seen one you've seen them all so I would just pick the big ones and leave the smaller ones. This temple is called Wat Trai Mit and is about 20-30 minute walk from the Grand Palace.






 The ones I would recommend seeing are:

• Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of Emerald). This is within the walls of the Grand Palace. Just looking at the detail of this temple is incredible, carved out of Jade it really sparkles in the sunlight.
• Wat Pho (Temple of Reclining Buddha). This is one of the oldest temples in Bangkok with a large reclining Buddha covered in gold leaf.
• Wat Saket. Now this one is a bit of a hike to get too so take some water as it is built on top of a high hill in the old city of Bangkok, with amazing views.

Although I never did a river cruise on this occasion I did do a long tail boat tour around the Klongs (canals) the last time I was in Bangkok and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Tours usually last about one and a half hours but our tour lasted about 3 hours but I think this was due to the propeller being broken. You can pick up a long tail boat from Saphan Taskin, or if your hotel is on the canals they will probably have boats waiting there, this is where I got my boat from. It was amazing to see how some people had so much and others had so little, with all the shacks only a few meters from the water level. On this tour you get to see some of the floating markets. I never went to see the large floating markets but I have heard they are great to see.

A big thing in Asia is a lot of restaurants and shopping malls close at 10pm except for local eateries but you have to be brave to eat here as you might not know what your eating, so keep this in mind.

I think if I were to redo my Bangkok trip I would only stay for 4 days at the most.

Next week we will be moving into Chiang Mai.....