How to spend 10 days in Bangkok

Bangkok, Thailand

Our stay in Bangkok was longer than we had initially planned for various reasons. And no it wasn't just because Mik couldn't drag me away from all the cheap tat you can buy. But more on that later. Our delayed flight from Kota Kinabalu meant that we didn't arrive in Bangkok until nearly 1am. We headed to the hotel we had stayed in last time, and as everyone else was on Koh Phangnan for the fullmoon party, we easily got a room.

The first reason we stayed longer was because l wanted to visit the dentist. You may wonder why someone who hates the dentist would actively chose to go, and in Thailand of all places. Well, having eaten far too many polos as a child I now have a mouth full of fillings. I had decided that it was time to have the old grey ones replaced with tooth coloured ones - far less offensive when cackling along, as I tend to do!

The dentist who saw me initially was great, very gentle and even allowed me to listen to my ipod to drown out the noise of the drills, for it is this which goes right through me and makes me want to cry as soon as I hear it. Very little pain though, and after 2 sessions with him I was delighted with the results. What a difference. He had, however, uncovered a tooth which he thought needed root canal treatment and suggested I get it done a.s.a.p. - i.e. in Bangkok. I wasn't keen, as you might imagine, but having done a bit of research and realising that it would have to be done at some stage anyway I decided to brave it and go back the following day. This time I saw a different dentist and although I was exceptionally relieved when he looked at the xray and said that I wouldn't need root canal treatment, he still needed to fill said tooth. And he was as rough as you like. I lay there close to tears for an hour with a clamp holding my mouth open. This was covered with stretch plastic so that nothing would fall down my throat whilst he was drilling the teeth right out of my head - or at least that's how it felt. I turned my ipod up to full blast but thus seemed to just dramatise the experience. Needless to say once he was finished and I left the tears rolled. Quite an unpleasant experience, but worth it. I no longer resemble Jaws from the Bond films, and all for a lot less than it would have cost in England.

The second reason was that the day we would probably have left was my birthday. Now I know that at my age l should be starting to ignore birthdays, but that just wouldn't be me now, would it? I didn't want to spend it travelling on to our next destination, so instead we spent the day visiting Wat Pho and the Grand Palace. Both Mik and I had been before, not together, but the buildings were well worth another look. Every wall, floor, ceiling is covered in colourful tiles or painted murals. You've got to admire their patience and dedication. And the huge gold leaf covered reclining buddha in Wat Pho is just stunning.

That evening Mik took me to dinner at the riverside Shangri La Hotel. We both got poshed up - as much as our rucksack of clothes would allow. I even put on some mascara! There was more than one restaurant at the hotel and we checked them all out. We eventually decided to go for quality and quantity and went to the buffet. It was a foregone conclusion really as soon as they allowed us to wander past the food to have a look. So having secured a table by the riverside we set about getting our first plate full. There was sushi and fresh king prawns and mussels and salads the like of which I hadn't seen in some time. With a plate full we returned to our seats and got stuck in, just as the first rain drops fell. What a shame. We moved indoors. And resumed our eating. I could list all the things which we ate (Mik has in fact done this!) but besides making for fairly boring reading, it would also be very embarrassing. So suffice to say there was food of all kinds from BBQ lobster tails to massaman curries, to kebabs, and not forgetting the puddings.....! We ate a lot of everything and rolled ourselves home.

Around my birthday I had also treated myself to a couple of beauty treatments at the nearby salon. A facial, peedicure and 1 hr massage for a tenner. And I went shopping and bought a few new clothes items. The stalls down the Khao San Road tourist area are packed with everything from dresses to bags to fake CD's - and I don't think a single thing costs more than 5 quid. And when you are on a budget like mine this is a great place to shop.

We headed to the IT mall one day int he hope of finding a cheap camera to replace the one I had had stolen in Borneo. We managed to find one and also decided to splash out on an underwater casing for it so we could take it diving. It's a shame we hadn't had one for the whole trip but then again we would probably have double the amount of photos we already have, so maybe it's just as well.

The third reason was Ashleigh and Phillip, a couple we had met briefly last November in Argentina. You may wonder how a meeting last November affected our stay in Bangkok 1O months later. Well the story goes like this....

One evening we decided to check out a different road than usual for a restaurant. This one was also lined with the ubiquitous 'tat' stalls and I was fully engrossed in checking them out when I heard Mik shout, and I quote "Fuck off!", quite loudly. I wondered what the hell someone was trying to sell him to make him react like that. As I turned round I realised that he was making his way toward a couple with rucksacks on their backs. It took me a second or two to realise that it was the couple we had met very briefly in Argentina earlier in our travels, Ashleigh and Phillip. They had literally just stepped off a bus and were on their way to their hotel. None of us could get over the coincidence and we all stood for a few minutes mouths agape. I mean fair enough if we were following the same route but these guys had been home to the UK for a few months and had then started their travels again, going the opposite way around the world to us. Bangkok is also not a small city, but, it would appear, it is a small world.

So we stayed a few days longer to be able to go out for a few beers with them and catch up on what they had been doing. We took them to our favourite restaurant near the Khao San Road. It was a tourist restaurant but the food was better than most (they did a great BBQ red snapper for just over a quid), it was cheaper than most, and Mik had made a friend with the waiter there, who took great delight in taking the mickey out of him. He also made a mean cocktail.

As it was Phillip and Ashleighs first time in Bangkok they were keen to see other places which was great as we had gotten a bit lazy about going further than the area around our hotel. So we set off one evening for a hugh night market and despite not buying anything we had a great evening eating food from the food court and drinking beer form the beer court. there were seveal different stalls selling various types of beer in various vessels. We chose the 5 litre despenser complete with pouring tap and a column of ice in the middle to keep the beer cool. Mik approved of this invention. As you can see!

It has been great to see so many friends - old and new over the last few weeks. Jen, Simon & Charlotte in Sydney, Rob in Singapore, Kori and Chad in Borneo and then Ashleigh and Phillip in Bangkok. All great times but it does remind us just how much we miss our friends back home. We wish we could have packed you in our bags too.

We then booked the bus and ferry to get us to Koh Phangnan, one of the islands off of the the east coast of Thailand. This however turned out to be a fourth reason for not leaving Bangkok when planned.

The agency we had booked it with told us to get to their offices for 5.50am as the bus would leave at 6am. We did this. We waited, no-one came. Eventually I walked up to the boat companies office and asked what was going on. The girl looked at me, said something to her colleague in Thai then turned and said that the bus had gone. I was fuming. I am not a fan of getting up early for no good reason. This was of course compounded by the fact that it's the first time I have ever known a bus in Asia to leave on time. There was nothing we could do we had to wait until the next day. I went to tell Mik and he was then fuming also. The company had offered us a room for free for that night which we took but it didn't really cheer us. We had been in Bangkok long enough and were keen to move on, and besides it meant we would have to get up at 5am again the following morning. Which we did and in case you are interested the bus that morning left 15 minutes late. Right before the tanks started rolling down the streets signaling the start of the coup.

Cara