After an exciting 3 day Jungle trek- which was just absolutely amazing, the second day we had stayed at a waterfall camp, where we played the most hilarious game where we had to save our village form being attacked by werewolves ( hard to explain by typing) and watched Nat cook frogs, Tom tried rice whiskey, I cooked our Curry (It was pretty amazing).... although I am hesitant to tell everyone all I did was stir.
We got back to Chang Mai, and a shower and clean clothes was amazing!
We went out to the city centre with our group for one more night out before we said goodbye, all except Meike who had to fly off to Chang Rai, slightly further north.
We took everyone, and when i say took i mean walked for an hour and a half in vague directions, to the bar we'd been to the first night in Chang Mai, the Zoom Bar. Now we'd been bigging up the zoom bar massively all the way there, and from our memory it was fantastic. 2 big screens, free pool tables, reaaaally friendly staff (watch out).
We got there, and it was a brothel. No word of a lie, a brothel. And with this knowledge the little things started to make sense... The ugly old English guys witting with beautiful Thai girls on their laps, the disappearing and reappearing of staff members....
How did you miss it first time, i hear you cry. Well... we were battered...
We left Chang Mai at 2pm Friday afternoon to catch the train departing for Bangkok which would arrive 12 hours later, now after thoroughly enjoying the ride up there we were quite looking forward to this train only to our disappointment had the worst 'lady boy' waiter and the worst meal we had eaten since we have been here, we arrived in Bangkok stressed with no sleep due to uncomfortableness and the thought of having to spend the day in Bangkok with our bags on once again we walked off the train a little disheartened and exhausted.
Tom -
So after another 12 hour train we arrived in Bangkok again, only to find we were 4 hours early. For everything.
We met another couple who apparently had missed the memo too, and shared a cab to the MBK centre.
The only things open were a McDonald's and an Internet cafe, and by the time we'd used the cafes bathroom as our own, and had 2 breakfasts each in McD's... Bangkok started to wake up.
We took a quick look round the MBK centre (a huge shopping mall in the city centre) realised that there was nothing we wanted and jumped on a bus supposedly bound for the Grand Palace.
We got off the bus where it was meant to be (or so the ongoing disagreement stands...) and had a good old mooch around. We ended up stumbling across the Golden Mount, an amazing Buddhist shrine overlooking Bangkok, and a fair few breathtaking temples, photos coming soon i promise, promise promise.
We then started a second attempt at finding the Grand Palace.
Sweaty, knackered and lost, we walked around Bangkok for a further 2 hours with our big bags on. Needless to say we were pretty fed up!
We then met the first nice person in Bangkok, and to our knowledge the only nice person in Bangkok. Now I'm sure there are lots of nice people somewhere in Bangkok, but just not the length and breadth that we walked.
Looking very much the hapless, hopeless tourists he took us to a Tuk-Tuk driver and arranged every sight that we wanted to see for the equivalent of 75p. Lovely Jubbly!
Or not, as the case may be.
I'm just gonna put it out there, we aren't fans of Bangkok.
After showing us some truly stunning sights (a massive 50 foot Buddha being the jewel in the crown) he took us to a fashion outlet. Now, he'd pre-warned us that one stop would be here and because he'd been so lovely we didn't begrudge it at all. We went in, had a look, but as you can imagine didn't need/buy anything. Unless the boys decide ska is the new route, write 15 new tunes, get massive and i have to fly home to play Wembley, what use am i going to have for a suit for the next 3 months around Asia?
We got back into the Tuk-Tuk, whose final destination was still the Grand Palace. Then! The cheeky schmuck tried to take us to another fashion outlet.
Now normally, as i hope you all know, we are fairly patient people. Well Kelsey is, and even the lovely Kelsey had had enough of the hard sale we'd just endured for the last 30 mins. So we weren't going to go to another one. And i told him as much.
Now i know it's probably his cousin's sister's brother-in-law's shop, but we want ballgowns as much as we want 13 genuine leather belts for the price of 12.
He then kicked us out in the middle of nowhere, in the rain, and demanded his money. After gently moving Kels behind me, i told him to stick it. Once he realised that there was no way he was getting his money, he wheeled away cursing us under his breath.
We then took the next logical step which was get to our final destination (Hua Lampong Train Station) and jumped in another Tuk-Tuk to get away from where we were.
We thought we'd be at the station ridiculously early, but thanks to the torrential rain, Bangkok's one way system and bus deciding to ignore it, at rush h
Don't do Bangkok for too long.
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