Bangkok

Helsinki Airport

I think we are on the 30th hour of travel time. Only two more hours until we get to Bangkok but it feels like a life time. We arrived at the Montreal airport at 7pm on June 29th and are supposed to arrive in Bangkok around 2pm on July 1st. We flew through London, and lost 5 hours, then through Helsinki losing another 2. the last 4 are lost on the transition to BKK. Right now its 1AM in Montreal, 6AM London, 8AM Finland and noon in BKK. I'm nervous to find out how jetlagged I'll be. I haven't had more than an hour of consecutive sleep in over 24 hours and all I can dream of is my bed back home. Or any bed for that matter. We met a man from Mexico on the flight to Helsinki and he spoke of his travels to Thailand in recent months. Katie and I were getting excited. The excitement has mostly been washed away by restlessness, a bit of motion sickness and disgust at the fourth airplane meal in a row. I'm tired, dirty and need a bed. Then I hope my excitement will return and we'll explore the streets of Bangkok.

Night 1 in Bangkok

Katie and I arrive in Bangkok around 2PM local time. After an hour cab ride to Kohsan Road we are dropped off on the side of the street in a mass of people. There are street vendors everywhere, tourists and backpackers walk the streets and tuk tuk drivers call out asking "where are you going?" We kept walking, and finally found the guest house we are staying at: Rambuttri village. The place is cheap, only 400 THB per night (which works out to about 12.50$ CAN each for Katie and I per night). We have our own room with two twin beds, shower, American toilet and air conditioning. We are lucky to have found such a nice place. The first thing we do when we get to the room is put on our bathing suits and check out the roof top pool. Again we are surprised to find that it is very clean and a nice place to cool off. We decide, instead of going straight to bed, to walk Koasan and try and stay up till at least 9 to avoid being completely jet lagged. We shopped a bit, got a famous Thai fish foot massage, grabbed a bucket and two hot and sour soups, talked to 

a few tourists and then make our way back to our room to finally pass out.

Fish foot massage at Koasan Road

Hot and Sour Soup on Koasan Road

Day 2 in Bangkok

After being woken up 2 or 3 times last night, either from fireworks (who knows, maybe some tourists were celebrating Canada day) I finally woke up at 5:30 AM (a great 9 hours sleep in a bed at last!) and read my book until Katie woke up. We headed out for the day around 8AM. We grabbed a quick Thai pork omlette at a local cafe with wifi and decided where to go. First, went to the Grand Palace and took an English guided tour. On our walk there some Thai con artists tried shoving bird seed in our hands, telling us to feed the pigeons for "good luck" and then demanded we pay them. Being accosted every time you pass a Thai person takes some getting used to so Katie and just pushed through and went on our way (hearts racing after our first confrontation of the day). At the Grand Palace we saw the Emerald Buddha located in Wat Phra Kaeo. The Emerald Buddha is actually made of jade and was brought to Bangkok hundreds of years ago from Chiang Mai. Next we walked along the palace until we got to Wat Pho, the oldest and largest temple in Bangkok which houses the country's largest reclining Buddha. Seeing the temples took most of our morning and around 12:30 we hopped in a cab after negotiating the price with our cabbie and insisting that no, we did not want to make a stop on the way to see the "gems." We arrived at the Chatuchuk weekend market a half our later (costing us 250 THB, about 8$ CAN) and spent the afternoon browsing through shops. We stopped for lunch and I had Pad Thai (delicious, and only 70 THB) and Katie had her 4th water bottle of the day.

Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho

Chatuchak Weekend Market