Bangkok - Wednesday

Tuk-Tuk ride

We bade farewell to Sukhumvit and Dennis, and headed down to Khaosan Road, by combination of the BTS Skytrain and a tuk-tuk. Our home for the next three nights was Green House Hostel, which was easy to find after we were initially directed to the tourist office, which also sold us tickets from Bangkok to Siam Reap for around £20. Unfortunately that turned out to be a bit of a rip off, but that's a story for later.

Our hostel was on this road, parallel to Khaosan Road

We did our usual thing of wandering about getting our bearings, finding a park, some fancy buildings and a shisha place among the countless bars, restaurants and street vendors.

We stopped and had dinner:

Before grabbing some shisha and hitting the real Khaosan Road.

Where was this place when I was 16?

Fancy a massage? Lie down sir

Creepy Ronald

Cool upstairs bar with a guitarist singing out some top English tunes, including Oasis

Julia and Caroline (ducking out of the photo on the right) - our German friends

I had to.

Me with a genuine ladyboy of Bangkok, as per request from pretty much everyone who knew I was coming out here.. But particularly Becki :P

Ping pong show salesman. You should see his menu

This is what KSR looks like:

One of the 'ping pong show' salesmen. If you want to know what that is, message me on Facebook and I'll send you a picture of his 'menu'

And finally, Andy and I eating some scorpion, because when in Rome.

One of the 'ping pong show' salesmen. If you want to know what that is, message me on Facebook and I'll send you a picture of his 'menu'

 

Bangkok - Tuesday

We stumbled in from the night before at around 4am, and slept until 11, waking in just enough time to book tickets for a river cruise through central Bangkok.

Our minibus picked us up at 1pm and we were on the river by 2:30pm. It was a really good trip as it gave us a chance to see some of the tourist attractions of Bangkok, such as Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn), without braving the crowded roads. Plus there's nothing like a boat ride to cure a hangover!

The tour guide was a bit of a character, so that was entertaining. But the main attraction was being able to see lots of Bangkok hotspots from the convenience of a riverboat. Also, there was free fresh fruit and drinks on the boat, including Sansom, the local (and dirt-cheap!) Thai whiskey.

This lady rowed out to sell us tourists some stuff

Hungry fishies!

After we arrived back at the hotel we freshened up, and headed out again with Dennis. We had one of our best meals in Thailand at a very well hidden restaurant - it didn't look great from the outside but after squeezing past the overflowing fish tank and the bustling service staff, we found ourselves in a bright, clean, well furnished establishment. We ate well, before hitting the street again to find the shisha bar.

Exterior

Interior - that's Dennis by the way

Forgotten what this is called, but it was very tasty

We found it, eventually! It took over half an hour though as we took the wrong turning and ended up down a very shifty looking street full of yet more massage parlours. But we made it in the end, thanks again to my superb directional instincts, which seem to only exist in Asia. Here's a video of me blowing a shisha bubble:

On the way back to the hotel, Dennis wanted to play pool so we stopped in at a pool bar and had a few games. We all beat each other a few times, and I beat the bar girl twice, despite her best efforts to put me off. She had a very unusual style, straightening up immediately after hitting the ball, no doubt out of experience of being in a bar full of men! It also must be mentioned that Andy absolutely dominated me in more than one game with his inconceivably perfect straight-arm technique. As always, he was very modest, claiming he just likes to hit the balls hard.

Afterwards, we wanted to continue the night so we got a taxi to a club called Insomnia (or Insanity, depending on how old you are). Really good music, great atmosphere and reasonably priced booze made for a cracking time, along with the tasty street food we had on the way home.

 

Bangkok - Monday

On Monday, we slept in before checking out of our hotel and moving onto the next place, which was in Sukhumvit, only a few stops down the MRT. Finding the place took a while after getting off the train, but thanks to my much improved sense of direction (!), we found House 23 Guesthouse, our home for the next two nights. We were in a 6-bed dormitory, but there was only one other person staying there, a Canadian guy around our age named Dennis.

After introducing ourselves we left Dennis to his hangover to explore the area. We ate a really delicious authentic Chinese lunch, which cost less than £2.50 for both of us, including drinks! Then we explored further, bypassing what seemed like every massage parlour in Bangkok, and found a swish-looking shisha bar.

We didn't try it, but it was tempting!

The strip at daytime

After that we walked back for a shower as it was incredibly hot and sticky. Soon enough we were hungry again, so Dennis took us to a place he had been to already which served really tasty and cheap burgers. After dinner we returned to the hostel and got ready to go out.

Matte black M3 - tasty!

At about 11pm we left the hostel again and went clubbing. Dennis was really great, showing us around places he had been before and taking us through the different kinds of music each club played. Eventually, after sampling several different places, we finished the night in a house music club called Climax and danced the night away.