We stayed for a few nights at Lamphu House which is a little slice of relaxing paradise just down an alley from the never ending bustle of Khao San road. You can sip Thai iced tea under a coconut tree in their courtyard. And that is rather nice.
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| Lamphu House |
Khao San road itself is backpacker central, filled with travelers from all over the world and even more people trying to sell them everything from meat on a stick to elephant-motif trousers. There's a great buzz to the place and it's a lot of easy going fun for a couple of days. We saw a brilliant trainwreck of a band down on sister street Rambuttri where a self proclaimed rock god drowned out his band in a series of blown out classic rock covers. Most music here is for the easy party-ers with competing "4 on the floor" bass drums quaking the very foundation of the streets, but there is good music to be found.
We saw a couple of great alt rock bands ("Shoot the dog" and "Basement Tapes") which were a Sky Train and Metro ride away. The Sky Train is an elevated track above central Bangkok while the Metro goes underground. The train system really puts the English rail system to shame with it's ease of use. The bands played at Cosmic Cafe which is in the clubby bit of Bangkok. They came on a fashionable 2 hours late which was fine as we were a fashionable hour and a half late.
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| Shoot the Dog melting some faces |
To get some culture into the balance we visited Wat Pho, a temple complex housing a ridiculously huge reclining Buddha statue; and also the post-war home of Jim Thompson, an American who promoted Thai silk to the west and built his house from salvaged examples of traditional architecture. Both were pretty fascinating, as was finding our way around the city to them on foot.
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| Wat Pho - Temple Stuffs |
The food. First off the street food here is amazing. Some meals have cost the equivalent of just one tiny sterling pound and are super fresh and tasty. The restaurants are good too with the standout being Cabbages and Condoms, visited due to many a recommendation. Its food is guaranteed not to make you pregnant and proceeds support family planning and population control. Its food is also eye wateringly lovely and you eat it under a lit canopy of tropical trees.
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| Cabbages & Condoms |
You do have to be careful of scams in Bangkok. We unknowingly got charged thrice over the going rate for a tuk tuk ride on one day. For this we had an extra special ride though with overtaking on the opposite side of the road and ad hoc races against scores of rush hour motorbikes. Our driver seemed to instantly fall asleep whenever we stopped for a mere moment which was both amusing and alarming. For a calmer, cheaper journey; just use a meter taxi.
As a proper scam we were approached by a very friendly chap in a park who told us he knew of a pier where we could get a discounted boat ride should we asked for a Thai ticket, as foreigners usually have to pay full whack. Handily a tuk tuk nearby conveniently knew of the pier and took us there on the cheap. At the unmarked pier we were greeted with wide smiles and cheer and immediately asked if we wanted a Thai ticket. Nothing suspicious so far; so we asked for the price and found it was about the cost of 4 nights accommodation. At this point our stupid goggles fell off and we felt really silly. Thankfully we escaped before we bought a ticket.
Lastly, because this post is getting epic I'll quickly mention Escape Hunt which is a super fun, albeit expensive, couple of hours. It's an interesting game where you're put in a room and have to find objects and decipher clues - some involving maths and translation - all against the clock to solve a crime. It's surprisingly difficult and requires a lot of lateral as well as literal thinking. We weren't very good at it needed a lot of help from one of the Sherlock Holmes styled Thai guides. It is actually quite a lot like the computer game Fez which we also weren't very good at.
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| Dopey detectives |
Bangkok really is a city that sleeps very little if at all. Sorry for the long post; hope it was interesting!
- Jon
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