Bangkok Revisited

I arrived in Bangkok early in the morning and took it upon me to find a nice double room away from the noise of the main backpacker street of Khao San. This mission went quite quickly and I was happy to shower and rest for a while before getting some food and meeting-up with Marcel, as well as two other friends who happened to be in Bangkok for two days too. Yay! Mini-reunion! We just went for a few drinks – that may have turned to too many and just chilled out and enjoyed each others’ company. At some point I went home and Marcel decided to stay on for a while – the result was that he was chased by lady boys and got lost on his way home.

When waking me up to tell me this I was totally confused as to who was in my room and why and also as to what language he was speaking to me. This caused a little confusion until he said my name and things slowly started coming back to me – so yea, I was deep in sleep and am not used to sharing my room anymore!

As was to be expected we spent the next day doing some major chilling-out, any attempt to go and do something more productive (like sightseeing) was also counteracted by the weather, which was telling us to just hang out.

We got a good night’s sleep and got up early the next day to check out and find our pre-booked hotel for the official start of our Cambodia and Vietnam tour. We then made our way to Wat Arun on foot and by water bus, stopping at a street market on the way to get some food. Wat Arun is a temple entirely inlaid with Chinese ceramics that were left as unneeded ballast by the Chinese merchants. These pieces of ceramic are used all over the temple and put together in various designs so that the temple was complete covered. It’s quite an impressive sight!

 Climbing up as far as possible was an experience in itself, with both of us not being the most comfortable climbing up narrow, high and uneven stairs. More difficult than getting up, was actually working up the nerve to climb down! At least we weren't the only ones who didn't find this funny.

In the temple grounds some children playing with their bicylces; they used plastic cups and put them between the back wheel and the bike to make it sound like a motorbike when they rode around. I found it wonderful and so innovative how these little kids of not more than 10 years could take something so simple and have so much fun out of it. It makes me think of children of a comparable age in Europe who cannot be happy with what they have and would never think of doing something like that. They would be much more interested in a new playstation or remote controlled car. It really makes you think about what happiness actually is.

We then went to Wat Pho so that Marcel could see the reclining Buddha. After which we went to Sirocco bar in the Dome – the Hangover II bar – where we enjoyed some nice cocktails and views over Bangkok. We managed to get there in time to get nice views with the daylight and then enjoy the sunset. For those that are interested: the bar really is as nice as it looks in the movie.