BANGKOK

Mon 30 April - Thurs 3rd May.




Walked out onto the streets - hit by the heat, hot air!
Streets are absolutely lined with stalls everywhere - food/clothes/jewellery/shoes/bags - anything & everything!!
We seem to be in a "touristy" area.
The tuk tuk drivers are very cheeky - they follow you down the street trying to get you to go with them - we are good at igoring them now.

Bangkok is so colourful - particularly the area we are staying, we don't even know where we are geographically in the bigger picture of Bangkok..huge.
Seems to be a poorer area - lots of derelict buildings, dirty streets.
We go to one of the wats & speak to a local - who arranges a mini expedition for the rest of our day. He gives us handy tips including phrases ' Pang Pai' means too expensive..
We hire a tuk tuk driver to drive us around for the rest of the day - he is a maniac driver as we speed through the streets of Bangkok weaving in and out of trafffic- at one stage we are driving on the wrong side of the road with a car coming towards us & we pull out of the way at the last minute...like something out of James Bond movie..

We go to a travel agent to arrange rest of itinerary for Thailand, another wat (temple) with HUGE Buddha statue, then dinner at a fancy seafood restaurant & yes I even try some of Tere's squid/prawn noodles! YUMMY food :-)

An exhilarating first day/night in Bangkok - the kind of experience/culture shock we were both after.