Bangkok and a big Buddha

The gigantic reclining Buddha at Wat Pho

Landing in the airport was actually quite welcome, it's big and commercial and when we got on the connecting train to the city it was using the same type of trains as the ones in the London underground - a bit of familiarality is great sometimes!

I'd heard many accounts of what Bangkok was like from many people who'd been there. The overriding opinion being that's it's hectic, crazy and that 2 days there is enough. With that in mind we had only booked 1 night there before heading south to Ko Samui.

Thailand is known for being the "land of smiles" and this much is true, however after experiences with taxi drivers, hotel staff and countless others, we began to give it our own phrase: "the land where they smile to you while they lie". I hate to say that but that's just kinda the result of our experience so far - not enough to put you off, but certainly enough to raise your blood pressure a notch or two!

The traffic was gridlock in the city, meaning if you're able to walk 30 minutes to somewhere then I'd suggest you do so to save time, money and stress.

In the day and a half we were there we visited the famous reclining Buddha at Wat Pho and spent some time around the famous Khao San road as well as the neighbouring Rambuttri road which we preferred (much cooler vibe there and a great place to sink a cheap beer and people watch), plus I took the chance to try a local delicacy of scorpion on a stick! (After being dared by my friend Jess)

Eating the scorpion was weird; it was obviously the crunchiest thing I've ever known but the taste was hard to put my finger on - I think it'd been smothered in soya sauce as it kinda tasted like that but with a twang to it. Overall it certainly wasn't the worst thing I've tasted by far in my life!

The Khao San road was something I'd long heard of to make sure I see. "If you can't get it on Khao San road, you can't get it anywhere" - and it seemed this was true to an extent with booze, food,  clothing, a boots store, books and much more all on offer, but what was on offer did seem mainly like your bog standard holiday tat: especially clothes where it was either something with a motif you could buy anywhere or something with Thailand on it. There's some good stuff there for sure, but nothing really looked individual enough for our liking though. I'd expected the road itself to be a lot bigger, but it was still impressive enough as a hub of activity.

The hive of activity that is Khao San road

The next day we went to visit the grand palace and the reclining Buddha, but the palace didn't seem open (and the entrance fee seemed steep anyway) so we just headed to the Buddha temple - despite a man on the road trying to convince us it was closed, funnily enough he knew of a sight that was just as good and he could take us there himself! Such a nice man to tell us this eh? That would've saved us such a journey etc etc. Yes as you can guess, this random helpful stranger was also smiling as he lied, but we saw right through it and carried onto the temple which was open after all (shock).

The temple itself was beautiful and had quite a few parts to it, but the main section was the most impressive. We had seen a few ruined temples so far but it was great to see one in all its splendour, as it's meant to be, to get a full understanding and experience of what takes place there. The reclining Buddha is enormous and a sight to behold, and if you can shut out the sight and sound of tourists taking selfies then you can get a real sense of peace in its presence. There's also a section where you can put pennies in each of the 108 jars alongside the Buddha and say a prayer for each one, so we took the chance to pray for our friends and family.

Saying our 180 prayers

The rest of the day was spent poolside at our hotel after checkout until we had to catch our bus to board the ferry to Ko Samui, little did we know that ahead of us was a 16 hour journey that would exhaust and frustrate us!

In all, Bangkok wasn't quite as bad as I'd allowed other people to make me believe and I don't want this to sound too negative. Perhaps thanks to how Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) made me feel at first it meant Bangkok at least didn't seem as bad in comparison. And there's certainly more to see there than we managed to. As we've since found, the annoying aspects don't just apply to Bangkok but all of Thailand that we've seen, plus maybe being on the road has begun to wear on us in terms of tolerance, but I WOULD come back to Bangkok. I'd at least come here en route to another destination or for a couple of days as part of another holiday, but for now I can atest to the advice I was given that a couple of days there is enough.