Day 28 to 30 - Bangkok

We arrived the first day at 4:30am and took a tuk-tuk ride to the hostel we were staying at called Lub D. Its a very modern hostel in the Patpong district of Bangkok and is in a good location to catch the skytrain. We spend some of the morning catching up with our families and checking emails then we headed out to see the city on the skytrain.
The skytrain is an elevated train that sits about 100 feet above the streets of Bangkok and travels all around the city. There are two lines and the fees are fairly cheap, much cheaper than taking taxis everywhere. We found out that the largest open air market in the world was open today so we headed out. We spent a few hours wondering around looking at all of the different things the market had to offer. It was wild to see how chaotic everything was and how the locals could move through the market to get to the places they wanted fairly quickly.
We spent some time at the park next door enjoying the day and the views of the city. Bangkok has a very bad smog problem so we could only see about a mile away in all directions but it was easy to see this place was big. 12 million people live in Bangkok making it one of the more dense cities in the world.
We took the skytrain back to the hostel to check in and take a nap. We met our roomate, Jaeho, for the two nights of our stay. Jaeho is Korean and has spent the last several years living in various countries in Europe and lately in Australia as a chef. He is in Thailand to learn the language and the style of cooking for the next two months. We talked for a bit then read and fell asleep for a few hours to catch up on some much needed rest. When we woke up we set out to explore Patpong a bit and to get some dinner.
It only took us a block to find that the direction we were heading was not in the safe direction. It became apparent then that Bangkok is just another large city, something we were not used to having been to mostly beaches and the rural areas of Thailand. It is bustling with traffic, people, and packed with tourists. The vendors and taxi drivers here are pretty aggressive compared to the rest of the city so it was making our walk hard to enjoy. We headed down an alley in search of some food and were lucky to find a vegetarian Indian restaurant.
The owner of the restaurant was really nice and helped us order to make sure that it was Vegan and that we would be happy with it. We both agreed it was one of the best dishes we had the entire trip as it was full of flavor and variety. After dinner we went back to the hostel and spent some more time chitchatting with our roommate before going to bed.
The next day we set out early after a quick breakfast to explore some more of the massive city, this time by water. We took the skytrain to its last stop at the pier and bought some day passes for the water taxi. The water taxi is a large long boat that should hold about 100 people however at least 300 can squeeze on and they did. The taxi took us up the river at a fairly quick pace as we passed by several small apartment complexes and many skyscraper hotels. We passed by China town and one of the more popular fish markets before getting off at our stop to visit the Wat Po, one of the oldest and largest Wat’s in Bangkok. We toured the Wat for a few hours and spent some time learning about the different Buddha statues and what the posses meant. The Wat Po is famous for the largest laying Buddha which is a carefree pose meant to bring a good night’s rest.
After we walked along the river until we got to the Grand Palace and home of the current King. We were greeted by a few taxi drivers who tried to tell us the Palace was closed and that we should go for a ride in the taxi to the shopping markets. We had learned earlier from other travelers that these are scams where the taxi driver drives you to the markets for free and is given a cash bonus by the store owners for bringing you there. The Palace was packed with people and had over an hour wait to get in so we took a look from the outside and decided we had seen enough for one day and it was time to get some lunch.
We took the water taxi back down the river to the skytrain and decided that we wanted to rest a bit and a movie sounded great. We headed to the mall and bought our tickets for Avatar before having some lunch. If anyone hasn’t seen Avatar I highly recommend it as it was full of action and adventure and had a really good story line. The animation was excellent and the interactions with the human actors were quite seamless.
After the movie we went back to the hostel to meet up with Jayhoe for dinner and drinks at his favorite jazz club in Bangkok. Bre decided she wanted to stay back, read, pack, and get ready to be out of the city so the two of us boarded the skytrain and made our way to the club. We had an excellent Thai dinner while enjoying live Thai jazz for a few hours. At midnight we were back at the hostel and spend the next two hours talking about our adventures and future plans for life.
The next morning we woke up packed our things and headed to the airport for the next part of our adventure, Australia. It was a 12 hour overnight flight on British Airways that wasn’t too bad however sleep was a bit hard to get. As I sat in my chair I thought about the last month and our experiences that will be memories for a lifetime. For anyone wanting to visit Thailand I can honestly say that it is a must do. The people are friendly, traveling within the country easy, the food is fantastic, there is a lot of culture, and best of all its really cheap. It has something to offer everyone; beaches, music, art, history, religion, scenery, and people. Thank you readers for following and I hope you enjoyed the journey through my words just a fraction as much as we have experiencing it.
Pictures of Bangkok

Day 28 to 30 - Bangkok