As we have both been to Bangkok before (Pete twice), we have seen most of the tourist sights therr already but as our visits were 20 years ago we thought it would be fun to spend a day and night in the city and see how it has changed. Since we were last there a Skyrail, Metro system and raised dual carriageway roads have been built to cope with transporting everyone around. We found the Skyrail to be a fast and cheap way to get into the city from the international airport and from that we could see the growing suburbia and estates of houses being built. It looked more like Europe than Asia!
Once in Bangkok we had booked a hotel close to Khaosan Road but not right on it. For our one and only night there we headed to Khaosan Road curious to see if it had grown. It hasn’t really, it has got a bit more diverse (not just young backpackers but older people like ourselves) and the area has grown. There is now a parallel street called Suzie’s Walking Street that is also filled with food stalls, bars and hostels. The only other difference we saw was the sale of laughing gas as we had seen in other cities like Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.
We had a great night after meeting a South African couple from Johannesburg (who now live in Botswana) and later a family from Durban who now live in Dublin. We had such a laugh and decided to embrace Khaosan Road and all it offers (well almost) drinking buckets of spirits, eating fried scorpions and participating in the laughing gas.
After the nightclub closed we had a few more beers on the street and at 4.30am wandered back to our hotel (via the 7-11 for some crisps). We woke at 11.40am for a 12pm checkout and we were feeling rather jaded -whoops. What great preparation for a long haul flight home at 1am that day! So our last afternoon was spent shopping for Pete’s t-shirts he wanted and hanging about. We met the guys from Dublin for one last drink and then had one last thai meal (yummmm) before collecting our backpacks and heading back to the airport. The Emirates website hadn’t allowed us to check in online so Pete was hopeful that meant they had decided to upgrade us but alas as we boarded we were shown our way down the plane in the economy section. Ah well, the Emirates planes are pretty comfy and spacious and with our lack of sleep the night before we both managed a few hours kip on our way to Dubai. After a 2 hour layover we were on our way to Manchester were my parents were picking us up. It was going to be great to see them and our other friends and family but our hearts were heavy leaving SE Asia. We spoke about how we were going to miss being “surpised” everyday by things we’d see, we’d miss the lack of health and safety and the non-existant road rules. Miss the craziness !!!!
We love you SE Asia and will be back !
