Bangkok

From Yangon on Boxing day we got  a GRAB taxi from our hotel to the airport which is about 12km for less than £3. Unfortunately the driver dropped us off at the wrong terminal so we took a luggage trolley out of the terminal and off we go down the road pushing this trolley and wrestling with all the traffic until we get to terminal 2.  We were flying with Nok Air for a change as they had better time slots than Air Asia who wanted to go early morning or late evening. We arrived in Bangkok after the 1 hour 20 minute flight and caught the airport bus to the skytrain for 30 baht each and then paid another 44 baht each to ride to our condo at On Nut. So for a bargain price of £1.70 each we got from the airport to the condo in just over an hour . The airport bus was a bit of an ordeal though as they packed us in like sardines with our luggage, standing room only. I thought I could just about survive the journey without suffocating until they stopped at the domestic terminal and rammed another few passengers on for good measure! Travelling is not always glamorous when you are on a budget but definitely character building.

While you are at work Mr Thai person I will use your pool. Cheers!

   For the first time we had to use Air BnB to book accommodation as the prices for hotels were all too expensive over the Christmas holidays. Not really knowing how it all worked we just rocked up at the condo but could not get into the building. They had security there but they were not interested in letting us in. I sent some SMS messages to the owner but she did not reply and her phone just kept ringing when I called her. Then it started to rain! Having already paid for the condo we were committed to it but after travelling all day we just wanted to chill out. Sitting outside with security who did not speak any English trying to stay dry outside the lobby we were starting to get a bit miffed and wondered what plan B was?

Tell me more my buddy Buddha.

Luckily 10 minutes later the owner showed up and let us in. It turned out that she had emailed us rather than messaged us (not sure why she would not answer her phone or reply to my text?).She spoke good English and the condo was really nice,  with a kitchen for cooking, a swimming pool, a self service laundry (hooray we get get some clean clothes for the new year) and a balcony. All for the handsome sum of £18 a night. Also it was right next to the skytrain to get into town and a Lotus Tesco superstore to stock up on some deserved treats like pasta, butter, milk and yoghurt. All these things you take for granted in your home country but in Asia all these products are like gold dust and badly missed when on the road.
 After a morning of going to the dentist for Kathy to get some attention on a broken tooth we spent the afternoon catching up on stuff as we finally had a fast(ish) internet connection after a month of waiting 20 minutes for a 5mb photo to upload in Burma and did not have to share it with another 20 other guests. The laundry was also despatched to the machines to chew over.Good luck with that one Bangkok waste water systems.

Every married man should have this above his headboard.

  Next day we set off for a day of exploring. Even though we had been to Bangkok 12 years previously on our last world tour, we did not have many memories of it and could not recall what we had actually done as in those days we were still using camera film so photos were rare as had to be developed. There was very basic internet via internet cafes and they were dial up connections and it could take 30 minutes to get on our bank website and then it would crash. Also mobile phones were not the smart phones we have now so it was mainly navigation/information done via a guide book. Oh, how the world has moved on in 12 years. all the things that you take for granted now. I can't imagine booking a hotel with no wi-fi or not being able to book cabs on your phone, Using Maps.me to navigate the streets in a new town or go on an epic motorbike journey into the badlands of a foreign country where as before you had to carry around a massive volume of Lonely Planet. Well now you don't have to carry a Lonely Planet as its on your trusty phone or tablet. The only downside is all the electrical stuff you have to carry around. Laptop, tablet, phone, hard-drive,mp3,speaker, solar charger, surge protector, adaptor plugs,assortment of leads, power cables and digital camera. Then you have to think about all your software applications. Do they work in a foreign country? Do you have the right security? Do you have enough passwords and are they in a safe place. Do you have back-ups? The list goes on and on. The advantages though are being able to book hotels in advance rather than tramping around town looking for a decent bed for the night, booking last minute flights with Skyscanner, using websites like Trip Advisor for info and getting weather reports so you can plan ahead your adventures. Also you can spend half your day writing a blog on your computer rather than going out and enjoying the sights. It's a double edged sword I suppose.

Some of my family are going to kill me for this pose.

   As I was saying, we went off to explore the next day. Kathy excelled herself and set out a pretty relaxed itinerary for the day. First stop was the Golden Buddha, thronged with tourists as its peak season here. It seemed weird to have to pay to see a golden Buddha having seen hundreds already for free. Even though the pagoda was well presented and the fee was only 80 baht each (about £2). Next a wander around China town and lunch by the river. After lunch we walked across the Memorial Bridge to one of our most favourite pagodas ever, Wat Prayoon.  Here is a Disney world type enclosure which was free to enter, with an island surrounded by caves and misty plants, a pagoda on the island which looked like something out of a fairytale and a lake surrounding it full of tortoises and terrapins all very friendly and begging for you to feed them. As it goes there is a stall outside selling papaya and the amphibians go mad for it, clambering over each other to be hand fed. Their appetites are insatiable.

Slaphead makes it big it Disneyland. 

  After that we walked along a riverside pathway which led to Wat Arun which was average but did have a massive bell which you could strike 3 times for luck. Then onto the river jetty to get the free ferry across the river and onto the famous golden reclining Buddha at Wat Pho.

So you are just taking a nice stroll by the river and suddenly you need a haircut. Pop up barber to the rescue!

 Again it was a bit weird to pay to see a huge reclining Buddha as we have seen more Buddha's than you could shake a stick at. This place though was heaving with tourists and the queues were big and annoying as people pushed and shoved each other to get the best selfie positions in front of the Buddha. We bored of this hustle quickly and decided to walk to the infamous Khao San road. We had visited it last time we were in Bangkok and found it tacky, overblown, cheesey, ostentatious but totally enthralling. Again we found it all of these but now it was on steroids and fully pumped up on the tourists gravy train. After a recky of the offensive amount of tourist tat on display we settled in for a pavement side bar for an overpriced beer to watch the freak show that was unfolding along the road. The freaks were out tonight in force and we lapped it up. We even devised our own game. Who could spot the most tourist with elephant pants on. (everybody has them- me and Kathy have a pair each....of course!). There were so many we lost count after the beer muddled our senses. It's a rite of passage......get to Asia and buy a pair of cheap badly fitting elephant trousers before you do anything else. The beer made us hungry so we had a couple of Pad Thais off a street stall for 80p each which were yummy.

Khao San Road. " Hey meester you want to but some of this crap? Cheep price for you"

  After tiring of the to and fro of Khao San we had to get back to our condo which was on the other side of town so for a change thought we would take the river boat. Heading towards where we suspected the river was situated we ambled along some back streets that got smaller and quieter as we went and more dimly lit until we ended up in a  dead end courtyard when suddenly this dog came out of the shadows a decided to bite my leg. With the dog yapping away I checked the damage and saw he had ripped my trousers but had no time to check for blood as the dog looked like he fancied another bite. Panicked by this sudden attack we retreated backwards briskly with the dog pursuing us although I did notice it was fat and with a collar so was not a street dog thus most likely did not have rabies. Back to the main road to safety and some good light it looked like I had a lucky escape as the dog was too gay to puncture my rhino thick skin. Just ripped trousers and a raised heartbeat.

Rush hour Bangkok. Just another boring commute to work but with air-con.

  We walked for a fair way until we found a pier and were waiting for a boat to come, even though we didn't know if they had finished for the night when a local came up to us and told us the boats did not stop there anymore. Grrrreat! Another walk until we found another pier and were relieved to find the boats still running. 20 minutes later we were cruising on the river for a grand fee of 30p each and were dropped off at the skytrain to get back to the condo.
  After all the excitement of the previous day we stayed in the flat to chill out and do menial travel preparations for the next leg of the journey in northern Thailand.
  Next day was another day of sight seeing with the first stop at Jim Thompson's house. A well touristed destination where we were whisked around on the compulsory guided tour which was average but the house was amazing to check out inside and Kathy and I both agreed that we have no qualms about living there if we owned the house.

Jim Thompson house, on stilts so tourist can circulate below. How thoughtful!

 Onto lunch at the biggest food hall in Bangkok situated on the 6th floor of the MBK mall. It was huge and contained anything you could dream of eating. If you could not find anything then you were not hungry to start with. After some really nice food which came to just over £2 for the pair of us we rolled onto the Phallus Temple.

It looks like worms soaked in diahorea but actually tasted really nice.

 As the same suggests it's a fertility shrine jam packed with penis's. From small wooden ones to huge marble sculptures they were all present, arranged neatly in a beautiful backdrop of a garden. We had a chuckle at it like a couple of teenagers, wide eyed at the amount of penis's on display but on a more serious note would you believe the locals who are having child bearing issues, come here to make an offering that would please the gods so they could bear children. Powerful stuff that religion.
   After a bit a retail therapy where we bought nothing because we can't carry anything else in our rucksacks, we went back and cooked oven ready pizza as a treat. Now we had not eaten rice or noodles for 3 days and were feeling very pleased with ourselves.
  New years Eve was next and we ended up with a lazy start as I went swimming in the pool at the apartment. Later we went to the Century 21 plaza which has 6 levels and every level has a different very kitsch theme of a place in the world. Level 2 was London with shops styled as tube trains, red phone boxes, Jack the Ripper type back streets and street names like Burlington Arcade. Other levels included Paris, Tokyo, and San Francisco. It was cheese overload and overcrowded as all the Thais  were on holiday so we bailed the joint and headed to Lumphini Park for a spot of R+R. Here we relaxed in the sun, lapping up 32c temperatures, watching giant monitor lizards stalk the birds, terrapins bobbing about in the lake, huge fish thrashing around competing for the bread being thrown in by the locals, swan pedalos being lazily propelled around the lake and joggers all with their weird and wonderful styles giving John Cleese a run for his money and his ministry of silly walks in Monty Python.

We're just strolling through the park than out jumps WTF!

As night fell we got a couple of beers and done a bit of pavement watching then headed for the eponymous Patpong Market, the infamous sleaze pit of Bangkok.

Bangkok traffic. Legendary.

 Being here before 12 years ago we knew what to expect but had enjoyed the spectacle never the less. This time we were encouraged into one of the go-go bars where we were quickly seated and served beers at a prearranged price. The show was ongoing, with many couples seated around us satisfying their curiosities. We had the full show. Pussy smoking cigarette, a bunch of flowers being pulled out  of pussy, ping pong balls being fired out of pussy into the audience who were given bats to ping them back to the girls, pussy firing blow pipe and bursting balloons on the ceiling and mostly disturbing of all, razor blades being pulled out of pussy. After this we decided the curiosity had worn off and it all had become a bit macabre so asked for the bill for the 2 beers we had drunk. Of course you know you are going to be ripped off in these types of places but when a bill of 5000 baht( about £125) was presented to Kathy for our half hours entertainment and 2 beers we knew things were going to get nasty. After a lot of disagreeing with the mobsters who descended on us we parted or were rather told to 'f@ck off!' with a reduced bill of 200 baht which somehow turned in 400 baht when our change was given short, but we took this as the best we were going to get and were escorted out of the building by a blaspheming owner. We love an adventure and this was one we would not rather repeat as it was the seedy underbelly of Bangkok we would rather forget but at the same time the experience was priceless.

The small phallus at the base looked up in envy.

 After so much excitement the previous day it was time to pack up again after 6 nights in Bangkok and hit the airport for our next flight to Chiang Rai.