Hello everybody (and the other ones)
I will first start by appologising for the delay of this message Regarding Bangkok, but i arrived on sunday at 2h30 am at mine(after a flight delayed) and on monday I had 2 colleagues from Tarnos and Dallas and i made them a litlle tour around singapore. Just note that i refused a drink tonight in clarke quay and that i had just a pot of chinese instant noodles in order to have enough time to update the blog. Anne, I hope this explanation will make you feel guilty...
So by where will i start ?
perhaps by the arrival at the airport, very hot, even more than Singapore, we took a cab to the town center (they really don't all speak a proper english or they don't speak english at all !!!!)
the taxi driver dropped us something like 2 kilometers from our hotel ( the Sawasdee welcome inn) the problem is that when you ask someone for the sawasdee, everybody will give you a different direction to go, there are something like 20 sawasdee hotels around Bangkok downtown... :-)
so after having been left there we walked and it is not long after you start walking that you find yourself in a tremendous messy street with food, shops, restaurants, bars, prostitutes, ... everything in fact...
in the streets the first thing that amazed me was the electrical network, or the electrical jungle should i say.
the you can see little temples everywhere, or medium temple, or big temples (almost everybody has got a mini one in their garden or top of the stairs)
but well we dropped our luggages at ( I say we because i was travelling there with Tiffaine : see previous messages ) the hotel after having taken a tuk tuk.
very cheap hotel ( 2.50 euro per night!!! ) but for 2.50 euros you have what you pay for, meaning nothing just a bath room where toilets and shower are in the same room but when i say in the same room, that means that you can have your shower sitting on the toilets :-) but the essential is that it was clean !
we went for a walk then but quite tired we have been just walking in the street i was speaking about before, had dinner, and came back to the hotel in order to have a good rest in order to be operationnal for the rest of the week end
saturday morning we left the hotel and went to drop our luggages in another hotel ( this time 37 euros per night ( you can imagine the luxury : almost 18 stars ) and we left by tuk tuk of course to the Chatuchak market. what a mistake, we have learnt that when you take a tuk tuk you have to tell him a couple of things before :
- how much ?
- no sponsor ! no stop ! no chinese center ! no japanese center
in fact they propose you a price but it with a stop at a chinese center ( but not a random chinese center, a diamond factory) where if you buy something they get 5 liters of oil for free) so no worries because you can still buy a little elephant for 50 thai bath = 1 euro at the tourist shop in order not to buy for 5000 euros of jewellery.
So i have been tourist this tuk tuk tok there this day !!!!! and i came back with a little bouddha in jade.
anyway here we are, finally arrived at the chatuchak market, where you can find everything, clothes, food, decoration, gardening stuff, and some of these strange people doing some beat box or jungling with some soup (see video),
this market seems like a little bit like the souks in marroco but with an asian touch !!!!to give you an idea of the prices, i have bought 10 thai trousers for 1500 thai bath=15 euros
after that we have been to Phra Pathom Chedi, this bell-shaped, orange-tiled chedi (buddhist temple), located in Nakhon Pathom provincial capital, some 56 kilometres west of Bangkok, is the tallest Buddhist monument in the world, and is where Buddhism was introduced to the Thailand-to-be some 2,300 years ago. just an AMAZING place!!!!!, there are something like 100 bonzes and a 20 meters long lying buddha in gold, people stick these gold leaves on the god and goddess (if you find a gold leave on the floor you have to stick it on your front head, what i did :-)), they knock the gongs and bells all aroung the chedi, they pray and make gifts, they put little coins in a line of 100 bowls (one in each bowl), and other customs, if i can call that like this.
after that we came back to bangkok for little longtail boat trip, you have to see the engines of the boats, they are as big as my entire car in france... and it is a scenic !!!!) so went down the river and then came in the popular floatting area where low class people live, whooowh! you can still see temple everywhere every 100 meters, and all sorts of houses in all sorts of materials.
nightmare of the nightmare in the middle of the trip my camera battery died (and of course i had left my spare one at the hotel) so i had to continue with my small digital one.
after the boat trip, we bought a couple of tourist things, and the guys is explaining you that an opium pipe is sold 500 thai bath= 10 euros but just for you even if the price indicated is 2900 thai bath, this is "the price for tourist groups where they have to pay a comission to the guide"
second time that you realise that in term of money they try to trap you everytime they can!!! not to use another word...
after this boat trip, we came back to the hotel, had dinner there and went to bed early, once again to have a good rest for the sunday
sunday morning, quick but big breakfast at the 18 stars hotel buffet :-), and go for the royal Palace !!!!
note that you need to wear trousers or long skirt to come in (no shorts or hot mini skirts)
I haven't seen that much gold in my entire life !!!!! i think i won't tell you a lot about it but let you have a look at the pictures because sometime it is better than words
the only tihng that i will say is that with our bags on the back it was something like 40 degrees, i lost almost 1,5 liters sweating like a little pig !!!! not to say a big Pig! even more than my carrefour experience !!!!!
then for lunch we went by skytrain to pratunam market, had a beer to save our completely dry throats, and dived into this huge market but after chatuchak it is something already seen so we left this place togo into a big mall where we had lunch in a KARAOKE food court ( very funny !!!!)
then we went for a thai massage of one hour, so relaxing... at least until the moment I have been quite surprised when the girl who was massaging me proposed me a special massage for 500 thai bath, 10 minutes before the end!!!! my colleagues laughed at me and told me that it was very common, they call that the "happy ending", and believe me it wasn't a cheap massage place but more a poch one.
Going out from this massage session, we went for a walk in the main street of bangkok where there was a music festival with other attractions...:
- 2 concerts
- a titi boys contest ( groups of 5 to be abble to attend the contest ) and believe me even not pissed you canbe trapped by thesee guys who really look like women...!!!!!!
- a little food market
- a little hand made art/decoration market
and after all that it was time to leave for the airport where the flight has been delayed for 2 hours (usual for tiger airways at first sight
So i hope this delay is excused by the length and the details of this message, even if once again i feel bad by having to choose so few pictures but that's the it is !!!!
wrtite to you sooooooooooooon
bisous
ps : message started at 20h15 and finished at 1:10 in the morning (Anne i really hope you feel guilty :-)
some other pictures for free !!!....
