3. Bangkok

Unless we venture to Phuket, this is likely to be the most touristy place we visit and you’re really spoilt here with everything being in English at all the touristy spots. English is widely spoken and it feels a very easy and soft introduction to SE Asia. It’s also very nice.

Though the city is built entirely around the car with huge roads bludgeoning their way across town, the drivers themselves are quite polite and given the fact that half the time the roads are just a huge car park they seem very patient. No one hoots. Never. Not even when some idiot pulls out at a traffic light through a red light and blocks the entire carriageway from moving. The Indians wouldn’t approve!

Politeness is a mainstay of society here and being old fuddy duddy’s we loved that, the palms together bowing and smiley faces are just so nice. It’s infectious and you don’t feel self conscious returning the greeting and just have to smile too.  I’m going to try that the next time I go into Poundland….

We have 4 days here to see the sites so had a leisurely start visiting the old narrow streets with ramshackle houses and street art, plus seeing a cycling tour where the only two people who looked comfortable (ie could ride, talk and look at the sites at the same time without looking utterly terrified), were of course Cloggies. They looked so classy!

Cyclists are conspicuous by their absence, you could count the number we’ve seen on the fingers of one hand, if you chopped a couple of fingers off, but there is a city cycle hire scheme and even cycle paths in places. 

Anyway, back to the siteseeing…We had to visit the heaving China town in the evening to see all the hordes of tourists and flashing lights and shockingly there was a vegan option on one stall! Shame we had just had a fabulous Italian… I know!… but I really am not keen on Asian food and I’m going to have to eat plenty of it later…

The river though the centre of the city is heaving, boats weave all over the place with numerous ferries running up and down all day to the main sites and lots of longtail boats with their propellers on a long pole way behind the boat hammering along. Its great fun to go on the river and much the nicest way to get around, but health and safety would be having kittens if they saw this in Europe.

The Grand Palace was the next days destination and we took a river cruise up to reach there.  The palace really underrated itself in its name. Grand just doesn’t cut the mustard for it, it’s, as the Americans would say, Awesome!

We thoroughly enjoyed wandering around it going oooo and aarrrhh at every turn. There so much gold and bright coloured glass mosaics it’s astonishing.

We’d been warned it would be heaving with huge queues for tickets etc, but it was all smooth and we walked up to an auto ticket machine and wandered straight in. It wasnt heaving either, lots of people but not bad really. But here a pro tip for anyone visiting, wear sandals and bare feet as your socks stink!  Wander around Bangkok when it’s 34C all day then take them off to go into a shrine and wow, that’s pungent! Please don’t let that be the thing I remember in my old old age rather than the amazing buildings!!

Adjacent to the Grand Palace is the reclining Buddha. He’s housed in a huge temple and the complex has again numerous pagodas and shrines all brightly decorated with mosaics and the liberal use of gold leaf. It’s less busy but almost more impressive than the Grand Palace and Buddha looks very content lying on his bed with all the people walking around him. He’s obviously covered in gold and is the height of a 3 double deckers and the length of an Olympic pool. Big Buddha!

Transport is cheap here and taxis should operate on the meter, most do, but at tourists spots they refuse and want to charge you 400 baht for a 75 baht ride.  I don’t mind being ripped off but that’s taking the bean sprout. So whenever this happened we didn’t even negotiate, we just moved on to the next taxi, or walk 50m away from the tourist zone and find a proper taxi.

We took in numerous temples over our few days, had lovely evening roof top cocktails watching the sunset and even managed to find the poshest vegan restaurant we’ve ever been too. It was in a restored traditional house with a verandah and the food was amazing. It really was fine dining and the food was out of this world. Quite extraordinary!

Our last full day in Bangkok was very relaxing with pool time, retest all the bike bolts, tyre pressures (we’ve already visited Decathlon to buy a spare bicycle pump as ours doesn’t ‘feel’ right and we don’t want to have a puncture in the middle of nowhere and not be able to pump up the tyre) and to book hotels.

Our onward route is going to be a domino route. In places there’s only one hotel and it has to be available for when we arrive or the whole plan falls over, so everything has to be booked at once for the next week ..No pressure there then…