Settling into Bangkok
Almost 4 months into our trip and we had made it to Southeast Asia. We had never intended to visit Thailand, but the flights were cheap and the weather was meant to be good, so we took a punt on the most touristic country in Asia.The first meal we ate in Thailand was Indian. Yep, after spending almost three months in India, our first night out in Bangkok was spent at an Indian restaurant.Let's backtrack.We arrived in Bangkok pretty late. We were a bit knackered and a bit all over the place and we needed to find food. We hadn't eaten on the plane and we were starving.But we could not find food.It was around 10pm and everywhere that could have potentially served us an animal-less meal was closed. We had asked our Uber driver to take us to a Loving Hut (vegan restaurant chain) which was shut and also happened to be a bit out of the way. Unfortunately he spoke absolutely no English and despite our best efforts to communicate that the place was closed by using google translate, he kept driving around in circles looking for it. We passed the restaurant again and again. Through a series of meaningless hand gestures and over-articulated English words, we tried to ask if he could just take us somewhere else that might have veggie food. This attempt also failed. We ended up at a beef stew joint.We were starting to get hangry.Eventually though, we communicated through the magic words "seven eleven".There are 8,334 Seven Elevens across Thailand, so finding one nearby was a breeze. All of them have a wide selection of healthy (and horrendously unhealthy) snacks, so we filled a basket with all the nice things we could find.
After guzzling down various seeds and dried fruits, we turned to google with a clear head. It was then that we found Araaya's restaurant. After calling them and making them promise not to close before we got there we set off.The food was delicious and being that it was now about 11pm, we ate it in record time.
On leaving the restaurant, we spotted that the massage place next door was still open. Nearly every bed was taken up with local teens enjoying massages while playing on their phones. It was nearly midnight, but we had nowhere we needed to be, so we went in and enjoyed an hour foot massage.
We stayed at De Talak Hostel, which bizarrely markets itself using the tagline "The ordinary hostel". We shamefully chose this place based on a the fact that it was close to Veganarie, which we had read was the best vegan bakery in the WORLD. Despite our rudimentary decision-making technique, we really enjoyed our stay. The place itself was nice and clean with friendly and helpful staff. What we really enjoyed though, was that it was tucked away and accessed by passing through a really local neighbourhood. Our walk to the nearby station each day was lovely. We passed interesting shops and peeked into beautiful homes. All of the houses had shutters at the front, rather than doors and windows. For many, the front room doubled up as a shop or hairdressing salon. Other people had stalls selling clothes or carts selling food.
On our first morning, we had made plans to meet up with our dearest and lovliest Steve and Sarah who were also passing through Bangkok. Of course, we met them at Veganarie, where we all ate waffles and ice cream for breakfast, washed down with smoothies and shakes. What?
Then it was time for haircuts.
Tom: "It was fun but it wasn't as good as my indian barber experience. This one cost £20 for a haircut and a shave, but alas, no massage. I ended up with a haircut like everyone else has in Bangkok. Not a bad thing, but a short back and sides wasn't what I’d asked for. I used a hand gesture to signify that I wanted my beard really short. He took it to mean that I wanted like half a millimetre off."
On our way into town we discovered some barbecued bananas. This fruit balanced out what we ate for breakfast, or something.
We headed to the famous Chatuchak Weekend Market, which was on the opposite side of town. Here, we managed to hook up with our friends from Sri Lanak, Sarah and Alex, we was great because they are bloody lovely.The market is absolutely ridiculous. Spread across 35 acres, it is home to around 8000 stalls! You can pretty much buy anything, from vintage clothes to pets. We picked up a couple of bits, but the prices weren't particularly low and, well, we don't need anything.We particularly enjoyed the art section of the market, where we saw some beautiful paintings.
As we wandered around in Bangkok's blistering heat and oppressive humidity, we just could not get our heads around how much stuff there was.
By the end of the day, we were exhausted, so we went for a nice "relaxing" massage.
Um so, there were bits of it that were relaxing, but there were also moments of "ohmagod, what have I done to deserve this". There was cracking, twisting, pulling and climbing which resulted in some giggling and some yelping.More Bangkok in our next blog