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Friday, July 6, 2012

Taste of Thai

At the end of day two, I feel hot and sticky, but like I've accomplished rather a lot in a very short time.

Bangkok is one crazy city. By the end of our first day we'd seen about 100 temples (gone into about 5), bought street food, had green curry, been hassled, been told we had 'lovely beard' (Tim) and pretty face (also Tim), bought pyjamas with moons and elephants on them in order to be allowed into the palace (which apparently is much more acceptable than shorts), had a tuk-tuk driver take us round the entire city for "two baht each!" (approx 6 cents), and then take us to suit shops so he could get gas vouchers, where we sat and had 6 beers between three of us and bought nothing. I tipped our driver 20 baht (about 60 cents), and all in all it was a pretty hectic, typical Bangkok day. We had far too much beer, and were absolutely exhausted and drunk by about 8pm, so made our way back to the guest house to sleep. Of course I decided that I still needed something extra, so we went to the local corner store and got a selection of interesting goods for dessert (sugared olives and green custard, anyone??).

Today we were planning on taking it a bit easier, so only saw two temples (Temple of the Dawn- Mum had said it was her favourite and it was pretty stunning) and the Reclining Buddha (GIGANTIC golden sleeping man), mixed in with boat rides to and from our destinations and ending with a cocktail at the Oriental Mandarin Hotel- we might not be able to stay there, but for a little while we could pretend to be living the high life. On the way back to our guesthouse we stopped by a little restaurant for some unidentified noodle-meat dishes, where the little lady decided to hand feed Tim some dried pork and wipe his mouth... very, er, friendly she was. I'm feeling a little unappreciated, Tim seems to steal the show with his 'manly beard', the 'handsome boy'. So I obviously decided it was my turn to get some attention, promptly almost-fainting on our last boat ride, inducing Tim to pour all his water over my head so that I managed to stumble may way onto safe dry land and away from the hot crowd. Whoops. Heat stroke I think, everything went a bit fuzzy for a while, but thanks to my hero, who was there to catch me and drown me in water, all is well!

After another interesting day we find ourselves tired but pretty relaxed and happy in guesthouse number two, Parami Guesthouse Chiang Mai. The flight here was easy and rather entertaining, as our seemingly rather drunk air hostess started singing in Thai and then telling us 'we have many, maaaany maaaaaaany many choices of eating... we are very veryyyy happy to see you', having everyone a bit confused and unsure if it was a joke, but at least it made things more interesting. As she thanked us at the end of the flight 'have a looooovely time', the speakers started blaring a ridiculous loud pop song, starting with heavy breathing and having a chorus of 'trouble maker, she's a trouble maker', making me think perhaps this was her personal theme song. All in all, more fun than your average flight.

So far I am super excited about Chiang Mai, it seems rather quieter and cleaner than Bangkok, and Roger who owns our cute guesthouse is great. So night night, city number two, tackle you tomorrow!

 Good tip!

 Inside our first temple

 The Grand Palace



 Dressed to impress



 The Golden Buddha with our new friend Tad
 The Marble Temple


 Our other new friend, Chang

Tofu, pork and bean sprouts, yum!

Late night feast. Sugared olives (why???! not recommended), odd peanut cake and green custard buns.

6 comments:

  1. Another great post Anna! :) Bangkok sounded fun! I hope it wasn't too intense for you?

    In Chiang Mai my suggestions are elephant training course for a day and if you can afford it we enjoyed the zip lines you do through the forest :D

    Keep posting amazing posts because I am loving them! Also, I can't believe Tim is getting all the attention! Tell him to enjoy it while it lasts ;)

    xx

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  2. All in all I loved Bangkok- it was hectic and busy but so much fun, we saw so much!! I think I just need to get a bit more used to the heat.

    You mentioned Baan Chang Elephant park before so we're planning to do that tomorrow and maybe a cooking class tonight, I really like the look of Chiang Mai!!

    Haha I will certainly tell him not to get used to it ;) xx

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  3. maybe you wouldn't have got heatstroke if you had smoked your alcohol instead of drinking it?

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  4. Haha I'll keep that in mind next time!!

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  5. Well jels, it's so cold here - wish I was in Thailand too!

    Hope you're enjoying Chiang Mai& you get to see the ootants too!!xx

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  6. I loved Chiang Mai it was so amazing! Post up soon :) xx

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