Chinese New Year Vacation: Part 2, Bangkok

We got to Bangkok around 11:30pm (there is a 1 hr time difference). We were warned by our tour group to ONLY take the "meter-taxi," which we did, however after getting in the cab the driver pulls over on the highway and tries to negotiate a price in order to avoid turning on the meter. We told him we absolutely wanted the meter on, so he turned it on, drove us in circles, and made us pay the tolls. When we got there, he didn't give us change for what we handed him, but we were so tired, we didn't argue. Plus, he ripped us off 100 Thai Bot which is about $3.

The next morning we woke up to walk around and explore Thailand. On our way out of the hotel, we stopped at the front desk for a map and a couple survival pieces of information. We were talking to the concierge trying to get a feel for the currency asking questions such as, "about how much should we pay for a bottle of water? How much should we pay for a beer? etc." The sunburned overweight American women next to us noticed we were asking some interesting questions and leaned over and interrupted, "Umm...Yea, How do I go to the bathroom?" With that we left.

About 150 meters out of the hotel a very nice local man approached us while we were consulting the map, and he informed us of all the popular tourist locations. He told us they were in a loop and the best way to get to them was to take a tuk-tuk for the day. However, we should be advised that some tuk-tuks were not as honest as others and we should pay no more than 20 Bot per person. In fact, we should only look for the tuk-tuks with the yellow stickers and if we found yellow sticker number 43-20 that would be best. We thanked him, turned around and went on our way. About 30 seconds later sure enough a tuk-tuk pulls up and it just so happens to be charging 20 Bot per person and what do you know it was yellow sticker number 43-20! coincidence...I think not! We didn't buy it and kept walking.

The city was PACKED with transportation. Here are the two forms, meter-taxi and tuk-tuk (a 3 wheeled motor bike). There is clearly too much transportation in the city when every driver approaches you for a ride and the meter-taxi's won't turn on their meters in order to get a better fare.

The streets of Bangkok were so alive. We spent a lot of our time on a popular backpacker street called Kao San Road. There were tons of clothing venders, street food, hostels, restaurants and bars. After being a scarce minority in China, we were really suprised to see how many westerners there were! As it turns out Thailand is a VERY popular vacation location for Europeans.

Along with being constantly solicited by tuk-tuk drivers, there are many traveling sales people as well. They walk around with croaking frogs (wooden meditation frogs) get your attention and try to sell just about everything. In the time it takes to sit down and have 1 beer you would probably be approached an average of 8 times.

In addition to the hawkers, there were other forms of entertainment. Such as this incredible soccer player. He stood in front of the outdoor restaurant doing tricks for about 30 minutes. He could put a jersey on and take it off all while standing on a chair, bouncing the ball on his head!
The people watching was incredible, there were so many sights, and we were loving the warm weather. Everyone was so friendly and wanted to share their travel stories. We were sitting next to a German couple who had been coming to Thailand every year for eight years. Then we moved down to share a table with some very intoxicated Aussies and a Canadian. One of the guys bought women's clothing in Thailand for very cheap and then sold it elsewhere. They had some of their teeth and were telling stories about the past 3 months they had been wandering around Loas, Cambodia, and Vietnam. The big Chang beers were flowing, and then we realized it was 5 minutes before we had to meet our tour group back at the hotel. So we jumped in a meter-taxi who wouldn't turn on his meter, charged us 100 bot and drove us a block. The next morning we realized a Thai Chang beer is 6.4% alchohol by volume while the Chinese Tsing Tao which we have become used it is only 3.4% alchohol by volume. Needlesstosay we were more aware of that from that point on.

On of the best things about Thailand was the wonderful fruit. The shakes/smoothies were incredible!
Swearing off all forms of local transportation scams and feeling the guilt to do something cultural, we walked to one of the tourist destinations on the map. Nothing was very far.

Our first monkey in the wild!

There were beautiful prayer bells as we climbed the stairs of the Golden Mountain. You could ring them as you went.

The dirty Bangkok skyline, a view from the top.

Real live monk in front of sitting Buddha

After climbing the Golden Mountain we visited other monestarys around. They were really active with people praying/meditating and monks everywhere. It was very beautiful. We wandered into one place that had a sign "for monk only" oops!

We only saw sitting Buddha and standing Buddha, leaving out black Buddha and Jade Buddha. After seeing the largest Buddha in the world, you get a little Buddha-ed out.

On our way out, 2 men on bikes noticed Jeremy's Chicago Cubs shirt and pulled over to talk to us. They were retired from Chicago and biking across Southeast Asia for a month. We had a long talk with them, exchanging travel stories and lamenting over the Cubs. We were pretty tired of walking at this point, and I really wanted to ride in a tuk-tuk, even though Jeremy swore them off. We hailed a tuk-tuk, negociated a price, and made it back to Kao San Road.

The view from the tuk-tukLater that evening we met our group to go to the train station to take the overnight train to Kao Sok. This overnight train was set up differently from the one we took to Beijing. While the other had individual rooms of four beds, this one was just rows of top and bottom bunks. The cool thing was you had seats, and the two seats facing each other turned into the bottom bunk. At about 10pm the conductor came by and made the bed for you. There were curtains to pull across your bunk, however they never turned off the lights.

During the night hawkers would get on the train and walk down the aisles selling food, drinks, and beer. One Thai man who I think was selling beer, but was certainly also drinking it, came over and sang to us, "Chang Chang beer, Chang Chang beer, Chang Chang Chang Chang beer" (to the tune of Jingle Bells).

The view down the aisle.

sitting in the seat reading.

sleeping

The next morning we woke up about 7am to disembark. We sat down and had breakfast and made friends with this little ham. His name is Guy, he's not even 2 years old. He is so cute and loves attention. This was his pose when we took his picture.
From the train station we had to take another 2 hour bus to get where we were going. One of the reasons we chose this tour group was because they take all local transportation, which saves money and adds to the experience. However, one of the problems is with 17 people there's not always room. So we ended up hanging out at the bus stop for about 3 hours waiting for the bus. Don't worry, there were fried chicken feet.
The bus dropped us off then we took pick-ups to our Bungalos in the Koa Sok Rainforest.