Bangkok

We had a decent flight followed by a simple to figure out train ride into the centre. It only cost £1 each and there were cabs and tuk tuk drivers all over the place looking to pick up arriving travellers. We decided to take a tuk tuk and almost immediately regretted it. It started to rain and the driver was a lunatic, going really fast and darting round vehicles! Luckily we made it to our hotel (at smile hotel) safely!

Our room was tiny with barely space for the bed and our bathroom required almost standing on the toilet to take a shower. It did however have good A/C and was very clean. It would suffice as a base for the next few days but at £15 a night felt overpriced. We did get a free welcome beer and the staff were helpful, charging us a slightly lower rate when we needed to stay longer than initially intended. I’m not sure we would stay there again though!

Bangkok was an assault on the senses. The roads are busy, the smells are overpowering, the shop owners are pushy, the music is loud and the neon lights that line the streets are bright and flashy. You feel constantly bombarded to buy something or go somewhere and are constantly saying no or shaking your head as people approach you. It’s a little bit like being in Egypt from that perspective. 

MBK Centre and Coco-Walk

One day we decided to walk to the MBK centre, a massive shopping mall, which was about an hour away on foot. The humidity made it difficult and the pollution lead to us taking a couple of breaks away from the main roads. I had started to feel unwell but we persevered and were pleased we did. Outside the MBK centre was a food market and a normal market where we bought elephant trousers (150 baht), vests (100 baht) and looked over the colourful and interesting food stalls, all lined with fairy lights. We had a walk round the shopping mall and then went off in search of Coco-Walk which we had seen suggested online. It took us only 10 minutes to locate what would become our favourite place in Bangkok.

Coco-Walk was packed with people, but not in the same chaotic way the rest of the city is. It is lined with trendy bars and restaurants and wouldn’t look out of place in east London. It was almost entirely locals when we were there unlike many of the busier spots in Bangkok which are littered with tourists. We chose a place to eat and got served up a hot pot with a tray of noodles, beef, egg, greens and mushrooms to cook ourselves at the table. At only 200 baht for enough food to feed the both of us it was reasonably priced and a great way to eat dinner with great surroundings  Temple of the Emerald Buddha

The Grand Palace, Temple of the Emerald Buddha and Wat Arun

The next day we planned to go and visit some of the beautiful temples the city has to offer. Half way to the Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha, what appeared to be a friendly local helped us with directions but informed us the Palace was closed until the afternoon. There were other temples we could see while waiting for it to open and because it was a national holiday for the monks they would be free to visit. With precision timing a tuk tuk drives past and is hailed by the “friendly” stranger who has a chat in Thai and tells us he has negotiated a cheap price for us to have a tour of the smaller temples. Despite both of us having reservations for different reasons (like why did he have pictures of the temple on his phone ready to show us, and why was he banging on about a government factory?) we ended up ushered into the tuk tuk and on our way to the first temple on his list. As we drove along we discussed how likely it was we were being scammed versus how likely it was we would be taken down a dark alley and robbed. At which point we arrived at a temple and surely enough it was free to enter. We stood looking at a golden Buddha and a man next to us asked how we had known about this lesser known and very special temple. This gave just about enough credibility to the story about the temples, that is until he also mentioned the government factory. So we get back in the tuk tuk and the next stop on our tour was the government factory aka his friends suit shop. After refusing to even entertain the idea of looking at suits, reluctantly the tuk tuk driver agrees to move on to the next temple, which happens to be right next to a point where we no doubt would have been pressured to take a boat trip and forced to pay some huge amount of money to be taken back to where we started. Linz had very much had enough by this point and refused to get back in the tuk tuk causing the driver to admit defeat and offer to drop us back to Khao San Road. 

So after wasting an hour or so almost being scammed we were further away from where we wanted to be than when we started! We had a beer, laughed about how stupid we had been to even get in the tuk tuk to start with and then head off for a second time. We walked back passed where the “friendly” stranger had been and he was still there, this time loading two French guys into a tuk tuk (we later wondered how many people he had sent on the same nonsense drive that morning!) so we ran over to warn them which fell on deaf ears, they would have to figure it out for themselves, we had tried to help! The stranger was then rude and annoyed with us saying he only tried to save us money on a suit! 

Anyway we ignored him and continued to the Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Like most places in Bangkok they were very busy but unlike other areas of Bangkok they were incredibly beautiful. Intricate carvings and small mirrors cover the outside walls, golden Buddhas and stone statues guard doorways and inside the walls tell stories with colourful paintings from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, enhanced with gold leaf. Well worth the effort it took to get there and see them!

Next we boarded a boat across the river, at which point it began to rain heavily and the water splashed up onto the deck that was only just above water level. Luckily it only took a minute or so to get to the other side! Here we arrived at Wat Arun, our favourite temple in Bangkok. It wasn’t as hectic as we had expected and you could climb the steps to half way up the side of this magnificent structure. Carvings and statues of animals and men cover the temple and the weather opened up into a fantastic mix of sun, cloud and rain to really throw an amazing light across it.

Khao San Road

Khao San Road didn’t really appeal to us, we felt like we were too old for the loud bars, drunk dancing tourists and rip off prices. Add in the pushy tuk tuk drivers and others trying to sell you something if you stop walking for even a second and we didn’t want to spend our evenings there. But on our last night in Bangkok we decided to eat dinner at one of the quieter places and upon seeing a “Pena Corada” (how it was actually spelt) on the menu we ended up having a drink as well. We couldn’t leave without trying a “Banana Corada” too so we had another drink. And as two turned to three and then four all of a sudden we started to understand Khao San Road. The flashing lights, abundant balloons, free flowing buckets of alcohol, loud thumping music and dancing tourists had become enjoyable. Before we knew it we were dancing to Gangnam style with Koreans and downing shots with Germans (who were a lot younger than us and thought it was amazing that on our honeymoon this is where we had ended up!). For one brief night we understood it. Waking up 3 hours later to get a bus to Cambodia however brought us crashing down to reality. We are too old and we don’t need to go back there!

Bangkok to Siem Reap

Hungover and tired we boarded our bus to Siem Reap. We had booked it through a tour company along Khao San Road and it was a nice enough bus with reclining seats and A/C. On the bus we met a lovely older couple who were seasoned travellers and a Spanish girl travelling solo. Unfortunately that is where the positive experience ends! 

The bus stopped about half an hour from the border between Thailand and Cambodia at a restaurant. Rather than being a toilet break it was an opportunity for the guide from our bus to try and make everyone buy some food. On top of that they said they would sort our visas for us and asked for 1500 baht from each person. Having been told when we booked the bus that a visa costs 1200 baht each we questioned the price and tried to argue for a lower price but were told in no uncertain terms that it was a set price and if we didn’t pay we would be left here and the bus would go on without us. As we didn’t have a clue where we were and with no internet to actually check the price we reluctantly agreed. They had purposely sat everyone away from each other and we later found out others had questioned the price and had a similar reaction before ultimately paying up. We had heard about scams at the border and having to bribe officials and we had thought getting the tour operated bus would avoid these but instead it meant the tour company were the ones to do the scamming. (Book your buses online and not from a tour operator on Khao San Road!)

After paying for some food and Linz losing her cool with the guy from the bus who brought her a more expensive dish than the one she ordered, we were back on the bus and on our way to the border. It stopped just short of the border and we were ushered off the bus and over to a half built building for a talk that was supposedly about not getting scammed. Everyone from the bus thought this was strange and didn’t really understand what was going on. The horrible little man from the bus then proceeded to tell Linz that she could leave, she thought he was a con artist trying to get our money and he was not happy about it. I told him he could not speak to my wife that way and he responded that he could do what he liked. At this point I stepped forward in front of him and made it clear he couldn’t. Sensing that things were about to take a turn for the worse the elderly couple stepped casually across me and asked the man if we could just get on with it and the Spanish girl reminded him we had all paid for a service and expected to be taken over the border. At which point he said all of us could just go and he wouldn’t help us. So we crossed the border as a group without a guide. 

The border crossing is one of the craziest I’ve ever seen. There were vehicles all cutting across each other, no pavements, no clear signs of where to go or what to do and it seemed to go on for ages. Together we figured it out and got through to the other side. Upon seeing a sign that said 1200 baht for a visa our suspicions were confirmed that we had been scammed by the guy on the bus. At this point the bus reappeared and we continued our journey. We were assured there were no more stops and we would head straight to Siem Reap. Obviously what that meant is we would stop at a shop about half an hour later so they could try and force us to buy stuff. 

Finally we arrived outside Siem Reap and got told a free tuk tuk would take each of us to the centre or our hotels. By free what they mean is the tuk tuk driver will then expect to be overpaid to take you on a tour to Angkor Wat the following day. We don’t blame the tuk tuk drivers, it’s the tour company that was the problem. We refused and walked. At this point we noticed all the zippers on our bags had been opened and our bags rummaged through in search of valuables. We don’t keep anything of value in our backpacks if we don’t have them on us, but this confirmed to us a feeling that had followed us through Bangkok, that a lot of the people are greedy and constantly looking to make money or take money from you. 

Next time in Thailand

We had some great moments and some interesting experiences on this visit to Thailand and despite some of these experiences, we knew what to expect from our research online and we look forward to seeing the rest of Thailand in a few months time as Linz had a great time on her last trip!