2 nights in Bangkok

  Bangkok, Thailand Friday, October 3, 2014

We have been to Bangkok before on our last epic adventure so we were not new to this city. But this time, we came via the airport as last time we came overland from Cambodia. We had already been travelling since very early the previous day from the Andaman Islands to Kolkata to Bangkok. We flew through the night from Kolkata arriving at Bangkok airport at 4am. We then had to hang around until 6am when the trains into the city started running. We have developed a strategy for when we arrive in a new city after a very tiring trip such as this. We book a really nice (but not too expensive) Hotel for 2 nights. This hopefully ensures we have a really comfy bed and a really good shower with lots of hot water (you won't believe how many hotels here don't have hot water showers) Our first hotel did not disappointIt was beautiful. Stunning actually. A small boutique hotel named Shanghai Mansion right in the heart of China Town. We arrived at 7am and was hoping to be able to get into our room early as we had not slept at all since the previous night (and that hadn't been a good night's sleep either). Well our plan started to unravel at this point as they demanded an extra £20 to be allowed in the room early ie before 2:00pm - their normal check in time. Outrageous as the room was empty. We appealed to their better nature but it appears they didn't have one as they said no. £20 please. So we dug our heels in and curled up on the reception sofas and went to sleep right there in a battle of wills. We really didn't care at that point. We were so tired and so smelly but we just wanted sleep. Our plan worked and 1 1/2 hours later we were told we could go to our room. Ha! Don't take us on - we will win! Our room was stunning with a great big bath and we were both drooling over it. However, sleep had to come first. We certainly got our money's worth out of it later though, if we weren't in the bath we were in the shower having 3 a day at least - just because we could! The hotel had a travel agent located inside and we did try out some of their suggestions; The massage place didn't have a pedicure for Jody so we had to go somewhere else, The canal boats were run by a bunch of cowboys and wanted to rip us right off so we didn't bother, and the Calypso showWhat can we say about this?? We knew it was going to be Lady Boys and with us both being big fans of Funny Girls in Blackpool we were quite looking forward to it. The tickets were quite expensive at £22 each so we were expecting our money's worth. We expected too much! Oh it was dreadful. Just about the worst thing we have ever seen. They had a backing track that everything was mimed to but the music track was too loud and you couldn't hear any singing or the compare over it. Even the clapping was added to the backing track because at one point absolutely no one was clapping so we knew for sure it was added. The dancing was a joke and sorry to be rude here but the best entertainment we had was spotting which Lady Boy hadn't covered his willy up properly! A whole 1 1/2 hours of this and we couldn't escape early. The area outside was nice and had a huge undercover market that was still good prices despite being a "for tourists" place. We had had a meal before going into the show an they gave a puppet show in the restaurant and brought the puppets around to the tables too. It was actually quite interesting as they had been running a film about the making of the puppets we had watched whilst we were waiting for our food to arrive. Jody had come down with another stinking cold here and was feeling quite under the weatherSo after a long snooze one afternoon to try and shake it off Bryan woke her with a banana roti. Now this was a roti to die for. Jody woke and thought she was in heaven. You have to taste it to understand how good it was and although Bryan had intended to share it, Jody scoffed the lot. That's her feeling better then! So off we went to explore the China Town area further but we both found it difficult to find food to suit our appetites. We are both willing to try new things but when everything on the menu is either boiled sea cucumber, fried ducks tongue or sliced pig stomach, you really need to expand your search! We took a taxi to the Khao San Road and realised just how much cheaper everything was there from the food to trips to hotels. Also there were just so many more choices of everything so we investigated the Wild Orchid Hotel and made arrangements to move in the following day. On our last day we tried to find the banana roti man again but he had vanished. Oh no please don't let that be the last time we ever have it. We were gutted. If you ever see a banana roti man - grab him and eat one. We promise you - you absolutely will not regret it one little bit! [gallery columns="4" ids="8521,8536,8543,8558,8569,8577,8584,8597,8605,8611,8621,8630,8639,8649,8663,8672,8683,8693,8703"]