Planes, Trains and all sorts of Automobiles

Bangkok Part 1

After our 11.5 hour flight from Heathrow we arrived in Bangkok somewhat tired and immediately felt the change in temperature as it was +30° as we stepped off of the plane. Surprisingly we did not spend too long waiting around in Bangkok airport, we received our Visas and picked up our bags with relative ease and efficiency and set off to find a taxi to our first stop. When we arrived at the taxi queue we were given a ticket and told to wait a few meters from where we stood, whereby we were immediately approached and given a taxi. When we got into the taxi and told the driver that we wanted to go to the ‘Hotel Muse’, we were met with a blank stare and the driver constantly repeating the word “Mew?” “Mew?” “Mew?” (A great start!) Thankfully, he was extremely helpful and called the hotel for us to get directions with the journey itself taking roughly 45 minutes and, after we tipped the driver, costing us 300 Baht (About £6).

Hotel Muse

The taxi driver seemed very impressed with the hotel when we arrived and I can understand why, it was fantastic, exactly what we needed after such a long flight. Once we were checked in we took the lift up to the 20^th floor to our room, with the poor bellboy carrying up our backpacks for us and we tried to adjust quickly to the time difference, which now put us 7 hours ahead of GMT. The room itself was fantastic, a huge bed with towels left for us in the shape of swans and rose petals scattered in the shape of a heart around them. Since we only had the one night in the hotel we had decided that we should stay in and embrace the five star existence before getting to grips with the true backpacker lifestyle. We started by going for cocktails on the rooftop bar which gave a phenomenal view of the centre of Bangkok, (as you can see from the photos). We were also treated to a lightning show on the horizon as we drank possibly the strongest cocktails ever known to man, which left us both rather drunk after 2 drinks. After that we had a lovely meal on the lower floor, with Jane enjoying shrimp the size of a baby’s arm and of course further cocktails. J

The next morning we clearly were struggling to adjust with jetlag and despite the best intentions didn’t wake until late, almost missing breakfast but thankfully we got there and proceeded to the rooftop swimming pool to laze around before checking out. Again, the view from the pool was incredible, so relaxing and the weather was a nice cool 31° and I’m certain that a lot of you, as you read this, are either hating me through jealousy, or have stopped reading so that you can tell someone else how annoying I am…I understand. We checked out at 12pm and let our backpacks at the hotel so that we could go for a wander around the centre of the city.

If you have never been to Bangkok it is very hard to describe how busy it actually is; cars, vans, bicycles, motorbikes, taxi’s, buses and tuk-tuks. There doesn’t appear to be any rules on the roads there and they all seem to follow Jane’s attitude when she is driving and approaching a roundabout - she puts her foot down and hopes for the best. In a way, I have a lot of respect for the driving ability of these guys to go around and drive the way that they do, with no lane discipline or consideration for other drivers, without actually crashing is to be applauded. Having said that I also that that they are all mental, pure and simple. We had decided to go to one of the city’s well known malls (Siam Paragon) to maybe do some shopping and go to the aquarium that they have there. Initially we were going to walk but after 5 minutes of melting I begged Jane to let us get a taxi or tuk-tuk. We flagged down a tuk-tuk who said he could take us there no problem, and after agreeing a cheap price we jumped in and set off – this was until all of a sudden he started talking about how his sponsor owns a factory where he would have to take us first and give us a voucher to spend there (Alarm Bells!!). Needless to say we got him to pull over immediately and decided to flag down a taxi instead. The Siam Paragon Mall is essentially the Metro Centre on steroids. It has 5 or 6 floors of all brand stores (including H&M and several Boots) and the prices are pretty much identical to the UK, however it does have a food court downstairs which sells all sorts of cuisines from Asia which were very reasonably priced. After eating we left to return to Hotel Muse to pick up our backpacks and head onto our first hostel, near the famous Khao San road.