We thought Bangkok will be like Kuala Lumpur, a very busy, noisy and tiring town to visit, but we have been very nicely surprised. Bangkok has so much more to offer than Kuala Lumpur. Yes it is a busy town with a lot of traffic jams and crazy drivers, but the streets are clean, the markets are great to explore, the canals called khlongs are surprising and the temples are very impressive. Moreover we had a lovely surprise the day we were supposed to leave Bangkok. We were relaxing at our Guesthouse before going to catch a train to Ayutthaya when two friends we had met in Malaysia in the Cameron Highlands turned up. Bety and Dominik are Polish but they currently live in Singapore, they came to Bangkok for the Easter weekend. That was great to see them again, we changed our plans and left only the next day to spend some time with them.
Our great guesthouse in Thewet
Thewet is a quiet area (for Bangkok!) 30min walk North of Khao San Road, the street where all the tourists visiting Bangkok end up at one stage. We really enjoyed staying for a week at Tavee Guesthouse. The place is very nice, quiet , clean and there is hot water! They serve food all day long and their chicken cashew nuts is delicious! However for the Internet and laundry we were better off going to local places that were much cheaper (Internet Bh20/h, Laundry Bh30/kg).
The transport
Bangkok is too big to be visited by foot. The cheapest option will be to travel by city buses (Bh10 for one trip) but we opted for easier options: the taxi-meters, the tuk-tuk, the express river boats and the ferries.
The taxi-meters are very comfortable new cars with air conditioning and are cheaper than the tuk-tuk. Not all the drivers accept to put the meter on for tourists, but as there are a lot of taxis we always managed to find a honest taxi driver that was willing to use the meter (Bh35 is the minimum charge and 15-20min rides cost around Bh60). Most of the drivers are very nice and even if they don't speak English we managed to understand each others. However we had two situations when we jumped off the taxi without paying. The first time was when the guy did not understand where we wanted to go and tried to take us "shopping", the second time was when the guy tried to drive us around Bangkok (to get the meter to reach an expensive price) before getting where we wanted to go, but as we had been in town for a few days we knew the way and told him that he was going in the wrong direction. As he kept saying it was the right direction at a red light we just got off the taxi to catch another one. The other problem we had was when the drivers did not accept to take us because we wanted to go to a place where the traffic was very bad.
The tuk-tuk are a lot of fun. They are small vehicles, half car/half motorbike. The tuk-tuk drivers put their prices up for the tourists so it is better to catch a tuk-tuk only when you have an idea of what should be the price. After catching a few taxi-meters you can evaluate how much the taxi will be and add Bh20 for an honest tuk-tuk price.
There are ferries and express boats operating on the Chao Phraya river. The ferries take you for Bh3 to the other side of the river and the express boats are like local buses, they go up and down the river and stop at piers on each side of the river. There is a pier in Thewet and the boats are a good option to go to Chinatown or the area where all the main temples are located. Moreover it is a pleasant way of traveling while discovering the very busy Chao Phraya river where express boats, ferries, long tail boats go around the heavy large barges towed by small boats (see picture). The boat tickets cost Bh15 and are sold on the boats by ticket collectors. It is interesting to see how the boat driver gets its boat against the piers with the indications given by a young boy standing at the back of the boat blowing his whistle for the passengers to quickly jump off the boat. Next to Thewet pier there are stands selling bread for people to feed the numerous big fishes of the river.
There is a Metro and a Skytrain in Bangkok but there are only 3 lines that do not give access to all the different areas of the town, moreover the tickets are quite expensive, being two it was cheaper for us to travel by taxi. We still tried both and discovered another world, only rich Thais and tourists travel on those very modern trains. Travelling on the sky train was a good experience as it offers very good view off Bangkok.
Khao San Road
This is a very lively street where are packed a lot of guesthouses, restaurants and cafes for tourists. There are lots of stands in the street to buy food, copies of CDs/DVDs, fake documents (UK student cards, UK driving license, TOEFL certificates...), clothes, .....at any time of the day and until late at night the music is loud and the street is packed with tourists. This is a great atmosphere to experience and also a good place to come for a meal or a drink.
The temples
There are plenty of temples to visit in Bangkok, we did visit only the main ones. We went to the Grand Palace, the most famous attraction in Bangkok, but not our favorite visit due to the entrance fee of Bh250, the high number of tourists and the unpleasant attitude of the staff. Our favorite temple was the Wat Pho (Bh50 entrance fee), a big complex of temples which is not packed with tourists so it has a very nice and quiet atmosphere. The most famous feature of this temple is a 45m long reclining Buddha which is very impressive.
From the Wat Pho we caught a ferry to get to the Wat Arun (entrance fee Bh50), a small temple that is famous for its 86m high prang. The view on the Chao Phraya river and Bangkok was great, and it was fun to climb the very steep stairs of the prang.
The markets and the Khlongs
There are many very interesting markets in Bangkok. Our favourite was the Taling Cham Floating Market, one of the last authentic floating markets in Bangkok (in the other floating markets the fruits have been replaced by souvenirs for tourists and there are a lot of tourists!). Taling Cham market is 10-12km West from the centre, we got there by taxi (Bh90 from Thewet). This market is only on at the weekend and most of the stands sell Thai food and drinks. This is a place where locals come to relax at the weekend. It has a great atmosphere and we met only a few other westerners. We liked so much this place that we came a second time with our Polish friends. From the market a tour departs every half an hour to explore the famous khlongs of Bangkok. It costs Bh90 per person and lasts 2h with three stops: a temple (nothing special), an orchids farm (nice) and a place where tourists can feed fishes (fun for the kids!). We were the only westerners on the boat, all the other tourists were from Asia. It was a great experience to discover this other side of Bangkok. It really feels that you are miles away from the traffic jams of the centre and are in the countryside. It was very interesting to see all the different types of houses, witness the locals relaxing on their terraces, the kids playing in the water and waving to the tourists. We even had two additional stops, a woman in her small boat came close to ours to sell the food she had cooked on her boat and we stopped at a bamboo cigar shop where most of the other tourists on the boat bought some of those "cigars". We though this tour was a real bargain when usually tourists have to rent a boat at a rate of a Bh1000 an hour to explore the khlongs.
While visiting Bangkok we explored a few other markets, all very interesting to discover.
-Thewet market is a daily market. One side of the canal there are food stalls and on the other side are lots of flowers shops.
-Chatuchak Park is a huge weekend market where can be found lotssssss of things. Once inside the market it was hard for us to find our way out as this market is a huge labyrinth of narrow alleys surrounded by hundreds of shops. The market is located just opposite the metro and skytrain station Mo Chit.
-Pak Khlong Market is a massive food and flowers market. It was very interesting to wander within the stands and observe all the food sold that we had never seen before: dried fishes, local fruits and vegetables...it was also great to walk within the stands selling roses and orchids.
Chinatown
It is a very busy part of Bangkok. The main streets are packed with cars, tuk-tuk and motorbikes. The small and narrow streets are also very busy but have more charm. It was very impressive to see all those scooters overloaded with boxes find somehow their way within the crowd. One street, Wanit I, is packed with tourists and shops selling souvenirs, it was more interesting to walk along the other small streets with their hundreds of shops selling shoes.
We did not go to Suan Lam or Patpong Night Markets but we hope we will have a chance to visit those markets when we will stay in Bangkok before flying back to London.
The shopping centres
There are plenty of massive shopping centres in Bangkok. We explored a few of them as we had to do some shopping to be ready for another 4 months of travels. Around Siam square (Siam Central Skytrain station) there are a lot of them. In the MBK can be found lots of cheap copies of famous clothes brands. Next to Phra Ram metro station we found two big shopping centres selling electronic products. The sellers did not want to negotiate but the prices were good value anyway.
The embassies
We stayed nearly a week in Bangkok to be able to apply to all the visas we needed for the rest of our trip. We could have purchased the Cambodian visa at the border ($20) but as there is a lot of corruption within the custom officers we decided to buy it in Bangkok to avoid any problems at the border. The Cambodian embassy is located 5min from the Laos embassy and both embassies are only 30min away from Thewet by taxi (Bh90). The Cambodian embassy issues visa for the next day or within 5min for an extra fee of $5. The embassy building is brand new and the staff are very nice. We initially wanted to pay the visa in bhats but at Bh1000 it turned out that it was better to pay in dollars, $20=Bh600 (a saving of Bh400). Not having any dollars we had to come back the next day after having purchased dollars (there are plenty of places to buy foreign currencies in Khao San Road). The Laos embassy issues visas within an hour for an extra fee of Bh200 but only during the afternoon or for the next day but visa applications need to be done in the morning. Visa prices are in bahts and are different depending of the nationality of the applicant, Bh800 for Polish and Bh1200 for French. The Laos embassy is very busy but not the visa office. The Chinese embassy is only a short taxi ride away from the Laos embassy (Bh60), it is located next to the metro station Phra Ram 9. The visa office is on the first floor of a building opposite the embassy (don't deal with the people waiting at the entrance of the building that pretend working for the embassy). The visa office is a very busy place where you have to get a ticket and get ready to run to the window where your number appears as the staff have a tendency to change numbers very quickly if they don't see people running to their window! Visa can be obtain in 1, 2 or 4 days. We opted for the 4 days delay as there was no extra fee. The visas are purchased in bahts, 1100Bh for French and free for Polish!
Bangkok is really a great town to explore. We hope we will manage to have some extra time to enjoy it before catching our flight back to London as there are some places like the night markets, the Baiyoke II tower or the Lumphini park that we did not get a chance to see.
