Bangkok, Thailand

I’m in Bangkok finally, after a long day of travelling yesterday. Despite what I’d heard Jordanian Airlines were fine and we had two good meals on both of the flights, which was a nice surprise as the ticket said no meal and I’d bought a donut specially! The airport in Amman looks so modern and again I don’t have anything bad to say about them. The second part of the flight went very slowly especially as there was only two hours of darkness before dawn and I found it hard to sleep when it’s light outside. However while it was dark I looked out of the window and saw the new cities that have been built in Dubai, so that was amazing. There were whole islands outlined with lights and long coastlines illuminated in artificial shapes. It was quite stunning to look down upon.

We arrived in Bangkok and headed to the train station only to find the next train to the city was in two hours time, so we shared a taxi with a couple from Holland. The journey was an experience, as the driver pulled over at various places to ask other drivers for directions and seemed quite confused to start with as to where we wanted to go, and we seemed to take a very indirect route but we arrived near our hotel in the end!

My first impression of the roads was caotic. Cars, busses, tuk-tuks and motorcycles swerve between lanes and there’s lots of beeping on horns and general madness. However despite the lack of road rules, drivers do tend to look out for each other and are patient with other vehicles, and even people pushing trolleys of fruit in the road.

This morning we had our first experience of a tuk-tuk, complete with a scam. We decided it would be a good way of getting to the Grand Palace. Originally I thought about getting a river taxi however one look at the waves and I decided against it! So we waved a tuk-tuk driver, thinking that it would be a cheap and quick way of getting around. We mentioned a Wat nearby instead of the Grand Palace and he seemed to understand where we wanted to go. The ride was enjoyable. Tuk-tuks are a bit like a motorbike with a raised carriage, and felt like a go kart with a chauffeur! However, the driver pulled over and a taxi driver talked to us - it seems all taxi rides involve stopping part of the way and chatting to other drivers. Our driver said he needed petrol and would drop us off at a shop near the station and would be back in ten minutes. It turned out that if we bought something he would get a voucher for free petrol, and then he would take us to the Wat for the price we’d agreed on… So we had arrived at the infamous gem shop. We found an English speaking assistant who explained about the petrol voucher scheme and continued to show us around the store. After a few minutes we said thank you and left with the intention of telling the tuk-tuk driver we weren’t interested in buying any goods, however he hadn’t returned and we weren’t very impressed with being dropped off somewhere other than where we wanted. We were also on the wrong side of Bangkok too. After asking other tuk-tuk drivers how much, and trying to find a bus we flagged down a metered taxi. Eventually we arrived outside the Grand Palace.

The Grand Palace was quite amazing and I took loads of photos. There were lots of monks in orange robes wandering about. When I went to Prague I was constantly in persuit of trams to photograph, but I think my new thing is Monks.

From there we have walked to Khao San Road which is much more relaxed than where we’re staying but seemingly fake, since there is nowhere else quite like it in Bangkok and none of the locals live like that.