The first impression of BKK might be overwhelming, too much noise; too many people; traffic jams… Moreover coming from paradise, double effort!
First day is time to tour around town.
First the modern part of town, with some massive shopping mall where you can find electronics at very good prices, big offices buildings and people on the streets.
The “Tuk Tuk” ride / experience is inevitable. It’s a sort of motorbike turned into a taxi, where 2-3 people fit in the back of the driver. It’s important to know their codes to avoid being raped off. The drivers get commissions from shops if they take you there, even if you don’t buy, you just have to go into the shop, look a bit around and voilá, the driver gets his part. This gives the chance to pay zero, in exchange of a couple of stops… So that´s how we did our first Tuk Tuk trip, no cost but 3 stops in the way: 2 travel agencies (needed to check next destinations) and 1 Indian custom made clothes. The strange feeling is to go into these shops and realize how the sellers knew we were not going to buy anything… so why acting? A funny thing in the Indian shop was the large amount of guys “working” inside as sales men, about 15 guys, 1 taking care of us and the other 14 watching football on a very small TV.
One of BKK´s main attraction is the food. Every single street, being it in a fancy or rather poor neighbourhood, is full of small street shops that sell something to eat, from fruits on a stick to any sort of warm food: noodles, rice, chicken brochettes, etc. We enjoyed trying every step something different. This is a highly recommended way of eating in BKK, delicious, authentic and low cost.
The following day we walked around some residential as well as some business areas of BKK. We also visited a nice temple next to the royal palace.
There we arranged our second Tuk Tuk ride, this time a very nice guy in his 60´s. In this case we went harder with the negotiation, 2 stops and driving the Tuk Tuk. The driver took us to a calm street; he sat next to Lore in the back and let Martin try driving, not easy at all but worthy and funny for sure…
That evening Argentina played its second game, against South Korea. We had our Argentina shirts on and while walking along Kao San Road we gathered a group of around 8 Argentineans and we all watched the game together (Argentina won 4-1). We then went all together for dinner to a small local restaurant.
We talked a lot with one of these guys as he lives in India, and had several recommendations and suggestions. He proposed to meet him there so Lore asked for his e-mail. When he wrote his name on the paper (Jose Moguilner) Lore looked at him and said: “I know some Moguilner´s”, and there are not too many as it´s not a too common name… He was the cousin of Tere, a very good friend from school, from life…, what a coincidence, what a small world!!! Hopefully we´ll meet again in India in a couple of months.
The last day in BKK we visited some amazing temples: the one of the emerald Buda (which is much smaller than expected!) and the one of the large reclining Buda. After the visits and the long walk with 35° we relaxed trying a traditional Thai massage in one of the most well known schools. They say that Thai massage is Yoga for lazy people and it does feel like it. Compare to Indo, these is a much more studied and calculated massage.
Cara de mucho calorrrrrrr
Emerald Buda
Take off your shoes...
The reclining Buda
That night we left BKK, with a much better feeling, we ended up understanding the city and liking it a lot (from a “city” point of view). After being in many capitals you can say that this is a really clean, safe and organized one.
Anyway, it’s always good to run away from a city!! Night bus to the north sounds good, why not CHIANG MAI?
