We arrived in the early hours of the morning to Bangkok, the train guard shouting that it was time to get out of bed and prepare to disembark the train. It had been a bumpy, noisy ride but I had managed to get some sleep when the train carriage wasn’t vibrating against my head.
When we got off the train, we headed straight for the ticket office to get our next set of tickets to take us to Chiang Mai. Ideally we wanted just one night in Bangkok, but the sleeper tickets were all fully booked for a few days so we ended up with 3 nights and 4 full days in Bangkok.
I’m not the hugest fan of Bangkok. I find it a little overwhelming and similar to other big cities that I have found unpleasant at times – for example Shanghai. It’s very intense, the heat is oppressive and it is of course a huge tourist trap. Trying not to be too disheartened, thinking we could definitely fill the time somehow, we started searching for the hostel we’d booked for the first night.
We were encircled by taxi drivers and tuk tuk drivers, all desperate to take our money. We waved them off as per usual and started trying to navigate the complicated roads and the insane traffic that was surrounding us. After searching for about an hour for a place that was just 10 minutes from the station, a kind local pointed us in the right direction – Google maps unfortunately put the hostel location in the wrong place and we clearly were making the same mistakes down a desolate street that many other travellers had made before us. He showed us the signs to follow, and we eventually arrived at River View Guest House.
It seemed like a nice hotel when we got there. We had booked 2 dorm beds for a night and upon arrival, asked the lady if we could extend our stay to 2 nights. ‘No, you must book online’ was the curt response I received. We were then told ‘come back at 2pm for check in’ – which at this point, was about 6 hours away. We left our bags there and sat on the hotel chairs to regroup... ‘You go out, do something, sitting is boring’ the harpee barked. We told her we were just relaxing for a moment, and then made an exit. We went for a very hipster iced coffee at another local hostel that we had passed and searched for things to do online.
We decided to try and get to one of the malls and see if any good movies were playing – crap tourists we know. It was also to try and find Harry a screwdriver, but that’s a whole different story. We set off on the metro and arrived at our destination without a hitch... Until we actually tried to find the damn place of course. We arrived into a station that was surrounded by malls. Weird, open plan malls that had confusing entrances and escalators, leading to not much in particular. We couldn’t find the place we had initially looked for and were wandering around outside when a friendly Thai lady stopped and asked us if we were okay. She quickly got out a map and told us about the wonderful tourist things we could do, including getting a suit made at a very specific place... She asked if we wanted her to put us in a tuk tuk and was not impressed when we said no, we may go later. Her attempts at clearly marketing her own business had failed, and we felt we had won. Small victories.
After not very successfully navigating a couple of these super malls, we grabbed a spot of lunch at a noodle soup place populated by locals. It was delicious and just what we needed to pick us up and get us to our next destination – Lumphini park. At this point, we’d slept badly and not changed our clothes or showered in 24 hours so we were feeling a little gross (or I was, anyway. It's a pretty standard state of affairs for Harry). We walked for about 30 minutes in the searing heat of Bangkok, and eventually made it to the beautiful park. It surrounds a lake, and a floating island (just an island?) where you can rent pedalos. There are people running and all sorts of beautiful plants and trees around. We relaxed here for a little, before heading back to the hostel to meet our pleasant receptionist once more because I had accidentally forgotten my Kindle and pestered Harry to leave.
She begrudgingly checked us in and we went to our room. A 4 bed dorm, which looked a lot like a hospital: drapes hanging around each bed for privacy, in a very eerie way. There was a half naked French man lying on what was supposed to be Harry’s bed, so we just picked another bed and had showers. I felt less clean after the shower than before – whoever thought it was a good idea to put a urinal IN the shower was sorely mistaken in their judgment. We left rapidly, not wanting to spend more time there than necessary.
We headed for China town, and had some interesting street food including Peking duck and noodles, and some marinated pork on rice. Very delicious. China town is as you’d expect – busy, cramped, lots of shouting and confusion. Took me back to my Shanghai days – days I’d rather not repeat! We wanted to go for a beer, but it appears bars and places selling any sort of alcohol that you can go to just hang out were sparse around here. Groups of local men just appeared to chill outside their odd shops with beers and music in the evenings. So alas, we returned to the hostel.
When we awoke, it appeared my bed was moving. As if I needed anything else to make me uncomfortable, it turns out that this place had the worst case of bed bugs I’ve ever seen. Dammit. We went downstairs with our things and asked that we be moved to another room (unfortunately, we had booked the 2nd night!) to which the ever friendly receptionist replied, whilst pushing her glasses up her nose, ‘you have to come back at 2pm for check in’. I informed her of the ‘situation’ going on in the room and in fairness to her she reacted swiftly, writing it on a piece of paper and telling us she would see what she could do, but she could not do anything until 2pm. We ditched our bags and ran out of there.
Harry had planned the day today for us. It began by returning to the mall to see if any movies were showing that we wanted to see (de ja vu?!) – alas, the only thing that appears to be on is xXx 3 – every 15 minutes. Choosing to avoid that particular cinematic treat, we headed straight on for our next stop: Jim Thompson’s house. He was some kind of OSS spy turned Thai silk businessman, and upon arrival at his traditionally decorated, ornate house/museum, we decided the entry fee was too steep for something neither of us were remotely interested in. Especially turned off by the herds of tourists being shepherded, we about turned and went to ‘Caturday Cafe’.
Caturday Cafe is... A café with cats. You go in a sliding door and take your shoes off and wash your hands, and definitely do not let any of the cats escape (woops – sorry!). You then go into this little room filled with cat toys and jungle gyms, and little tables that you sit at whilst any of the 17+ cats jump on your table and prance around. The waiters dress the cats up in silly outfits like rabbit ears and serve you overpriced drinks (money which we didn’t spend at the museum – our justification). It was bizarre, and I’m not sure how I felt about it. The cats seemed happy enough and were clearly loved by all, but the ones in the more... Awkward costumes seemed a bit bemused by the whole thing. Anyway, as I said, it was an experience.
We returned to Lumphini park for a picnic lunch (ramen from 7/11 and strawberry milk – interesting combination) where we sat and watched monitor lizards heave themselves out of the lake and prowl around the grounds.
The park was full of creatures which only continued to remind me that I had been unceremoniously ravaged by bedbugs the night before, and everything started itching. I was coming out in the telltale clusters of red bites which are oh so unsightly and even more itchy than mosquito bites. Joy.
It was definitely time for a drink, so we headed to an expat area where there were supposedly some good bars to go to, considering the area around us avoided all opportunities for socialising and drinking. We went to an Australian bar first and had our first draft beer since being away and it was beautiful. Thai girls dressed in Australian cheerleader outfits sashayed around the establishment and gave it that slightly sleazy feel, whilst the Australian open was shown on screens around the bar. From here we went to ‘Cheap Charlie’s’ – a locally renowned ‘bar’ (aka a wall) that opens at 5pm, and is basically a bar built into a wall with some chairs and tables dotted around outside. You have to stay within the chain barrier that Charlie puts out and you must absolutely not do a number 2 in the toilet (Thai plumbing is unreliable at the best of times, let alone in this weird toilet box). The drinks were cheap for Bangkok and we stayed for a few more than initially intended as we were enamoured by the place: odd decorations lining the bar, funny signs and a train track that circled around our heads, complete with train! Unfortunately, I read that Charlie’s is being closed down in March 2017 because a developer has bought all of the land around there, which seems a terrible shame.
By now it was about 7pm – filled with dread that we had missed our lovely lady’s 2pm time slot, we nipped back to the hostel to discover our fate. A pleasant man stood behind the reception desk instead which gave us some relief, and he somewhat confusingly told us our room had been changed whilst giving us the keys to the old one. This was quickly rectified and we went to investigate the new room, which I am happy to report was bed bug free. It actually looked like it had been cleaned, though there was still a urinal in the shower, and the half naked French man had also been relocated! We had a quick conversation about being bitten by bedbugs and then headed off into the night.
We had a local dinner from a couple of stands that were near the hostel – some weird looking chicken on crispy noodles, in ‘gravy’? which was delicious, and then a pad thai. It’s great eating at these street food places – the food is incredibly cheap and tasty, you just have to be brave enough and make sure you choose somewhere that looks popular with the local clientele (and ideally somewhere that has pictures you can gesture at!).
The next day, I had insisted we book into a swanky hotel to get over my bedbug trauma, and for our belated Anniversary treat. For £20 a night, we got a ‘no window’ room at the Royal Bangkok @ Chinatown which had us positively jumping for joy when we arrived. Our room was huge (compared to what we had been staying in), the bathroom was clean and had a separate shower and toilet with no urinal in sight, and the hotel had a rooftop pool with gym. We were living in style for 24 hours and we were going to make the most of it. We used the gym and lounged by the pool for a few hours, taking in the Bangkok skyline. We returned for Happy Hour on the rooftop and got a glimpse of the beautiful sunset behind the clouds. We definitely felt like normal people, not backpackers today, and it was a welcome refreshment! The duty manager then did the rounds... He introduced himself to us and gave us his ‘card’ – his name printed on a piece of paper, telling us that his real business cards were not ready yet. I wondered if he was just a mad man wandering around, and this thought remained as he asked if he could take pictures with us including one of him fighting Harry for my honour. When I asked what he was going to do with the pictures, he gave some garbled response that I didn’t understand, but I don’t think they’re for the hotel website. He showed off his back brace, and insisted we write a TripAdvisor review no less than 5 times whilst also quizzing us about his name and job title - a very strange man indeed.
We headed out to the infamous Koah San Road via tuk tuk that evening, and experienced ‘the strip’ of Thailand. It wasn’t as awful as I had been led to believe, perhaps we were immune to all the lights and garb now.
Food carts, buckets of alcohol, massage ladies and insects on sticks paraded around the road, trying to win your custom. We indulged in the worst food of the trip (how can you screw up fried rice so badly?!), a bucket of G&T and went to a few 'recommended bars' that were just awful, very expensive and had bouncers on the door checking ID (which is unheard of in Thailand - so we couldn't go in!). We decided to go down a side road and checked out the road running parallel, which turned out to be so much better. We settled down at a bar that had an awesome live band and the Arsenal match on in the background (not for me, of course). The lady’s voice was fantastic, smoky and deep. The guitarist was a mess of hair and rocked out some Lynyrd Skynrd solos with panache. But the star of the show was the old guy in gypsy pants and a flat cap, waving around his maracas. Hero.
As the cigarette dangling out of his mouth turned to ash, the maracas were rhythmically shook (is that the right verb for a maraca?!) and his body swayed to the tune. It was really honestly quite impressive. After a few more bars and drinks, we tuk tuk’d back to our beautiful room, delighted that we had survived Bangkok.
The 3 days here haven’t been bad – I can’t say I’d want to spend any more time here, I’m ready to move on and excitedly looking forward to Chiang Mai for something a little more peaceful and less smoggy. We’ve had a lot of fun here – but definitely not by doing the ‘right’ things.