Day 2 - China town and markets, Bangkok

Our second, and our last full day in Bangkok before a day of travelling to our next destination tomorrow. The day began in typical holiday fashion, stuffing our faces at breakfast. The full English and an omelette for me, nothing better.

The family in the less crowded part of the market.

Once our hunger was satisfied we were on the taxi ferries to Bangkok china town and the markets. One of the most notable things about walking around Chinatown and the markets are the smells, although this applies to Bangkok in general. As you shuffle down thin congested streets with hundreds of stalls selling everything from fake nails to vibrating dildos (I wish I had taken a photo), you get blasted with tonnes of different smells every inch of the way. Small Thai women push past down the alley with a trolley in front of them full of hot coals and what you hope is skewered chicken balancing precariously on top. They stop at stalls to sell food to the merchants, yelling the whole time at anyone who glances their way. My sister managed to buy a dozen packs of fake nails for the tenth of the price of one back in Britain, as well as buying a look a like Louis Vuitton bag and a blackberry case. We then found a small temple where it seemed like the people were preparing for a wedding, we watched as they rehearsed their dragon dancing. The men in the costume must of been boiling, they were leaping around perched on thin 5 ft high columns dressed in a heavy and hot looking dragon outfit. As we were about to leave the temple we noticed a small pond, on closer inspection we observed a massive crocodile, lying docilely in the shallow water.

Once we had left the temple we tried to find somewhere to sit down, drink and eat. This proved very time consuming and frustrating. We were so worn out from the heat and walking around that when we saw a McDonald's we were ecstatic. Once we were satisfied with our Thailand McDonald's we carried on walking around. My parents and my sister needed passport photos for their visas for the next part of our holiday, for some reason I was the only one with a photo for my visa. So while we were walking around I noticed a photography shop which seemed to advertise doing passport sized photos, so I suggested for my family to go in and try and get their photos done.

My sister trying not to laugh during a very weird experience.

It was a very bizarre experience watching my family trying to have visa photos done by people they couldn't understand and who couldn't understand them in turn. Once this was all done we started heading back to the ferry and hotel. Just before we got to the ferry we saw an absolutely massive lizard wandering on the road.

Once we were back we chilled by the pool for a little bit, had dinner and started packing our stuff for an early start tomorrow morning.

Day 1 - Sights in Bangkok

Wat Arun

Today was the first full day of the holiday, we went to Wat Arun, and the Grand Palace. When we groggily awoke from lat night we quickly headed off to a massive breakfast. When at home people (our family at least) don't eat that much for breakfast, but on holiday there's hardly enough food to satisfy us. Going up repeatedly and filling our plates for what seems like an eternity.

Once breakfast was eventually over we headed to the hotel's dock and got the shuttle boat to the main public pier, where we got a ferry taxi to Wat Arun. Wat Arun is a large impressive temple built in 1726 similar to a pyramid in structure.
There isn't much to do or see there, despite how impressive it is,  other than looking at the monument itself or going into Buddhist prayer rooms where you can stare at monks. Although you have to take your shoes and hat off to go inside and see them, which becomes more of a pain each time you do it.

MONKS!

View from the boat.

Once we had left Wat Arun we went to the Grand Palace. There are lots of entrances to the Palace, however there is only one tourist entrance. As a result the other entrances are tourist traps where you are tricked by a man into thinking the Palace is closed for 'monks to pray'. We fell for it. Next thing we knew we are being put into a Tuk-Tuk (a motorised rickshaw basically) with orders to come back in 3 hours after being taken to see some sights in the area by our personal driver chosen by the man who was fooling us. After arriving at one of the sights where we looked around (the driver waited by the entrance) we had a quick peak into our travel book, 'ignore anyone around the Grand Palace who, telling you that it is closed for the day, offers what will turn out to be a shopping tour of the city.' We suddenly realised that we were being scammed, where we would eventually end up in some family shop where we would have to spend some money. So when we went back to our waiting driver we may of had a go at him and told him he's not getting paid unless we go to the Grand Palace now.

Your mum.

After all of that we were at the Grand Palace, I was given awful baggy Aladdin trousers to wear as I walked around as for some reason you can't wear shorts in the Palace. Despite the fact that you cant go in anywhere, and you mainly walk around it and go into little temple prayer rooms with monks. By this point the heat was literally unbearable, the humidity was awful as well. When I got back to the hotel I found that I was already quite tanned, but tanned in the shape of a t-shirt. I then went to the gym, had some dinner and then watched some films. It's been a good day of sightseeing, and a lot of walking. Tomorrow we visit the markets.

One of the temples at the Grand Palace.

Journey from Hell?

As I'm writing this I have only recently arrived in the Hilton hotel in Bangkok, just over 20 hours after leaving our home in London. It's been a long and tiring journey which started off pretty bad to begin with, hitting traffic on the motorway to Heathrow and the journey taking 45 minutes or so longer than it should of done, this should of been a warning of the queuing and traffic to come.

The Foyer.

Once arrived at Heathrow we quickly checked in and headed towards the security section for our hand luggage. The queue was incredible, I regret not taking a photo of it so that I could of posted it here. It was amazing, you'll have to take my word on it, like nothing I had ever seen before, especially in Britain. This queue went down and around several rooms and corridors. It was so bad that Heathrow employees were having to go through the queue looking for people who had 9:30pm flights so that they could move to the front and make their flight, despite it barely being 7pm. Anyway after all of that we were through to the shops and later, the plane.

Our flight took off about 10:30pm and lasted roughly 11 hours. There were screaming babies, and the worst flight food I have ever had, and that's saying something. The food was so bad that my mum, who for some reason enjoys plane food, was actually physically sick from it. So far the perfect journey. A few films and tv programmes later and maybe 20minutes of sleep. 20 MINUTES! I am so tired (and hungry) it is unbelievable. At last the plane journey was over, only a 45 minute cab ride to the hotel now. Happy days.

A 2 hour cab journey later through traffic that dwarfs anything the UK can produce, I will never moan about UK traffic again, we finally arrive at the hotel. Surprisingly we are all in one piece, we haven't killed each other, or the cab driver. We're just sitting in our rooms about to go and have dinner. The view from the rooms is amazing, the rooms and the hotel is nice.

More of the impressive foyer.

We've now just got back from dinner which was one of the best, if not THE best hotel food ever, and we saw a firework show over Bangkok from the bar on top of the hotel. We've now been at the hotel for a few hours and have sufficiently calmed down from a stressful journey. We're all just looking forward to crashing out until breakfast. So despite the terrible journey, so far I think its been worth it. The worst of the holiday is over, now for a couple more nights in Bangkok until we move on to the next stage...

The view from our rooms of beautiful Bangkok.