Busy Busy BKK.
Bangkok, City of Life, according to the slogans draped around the city for us touristy types. I am inclined however to highly agree with the statement though as you’d be very hard pressed to find a quiet moment to yourself here in the heart of Thailand.
I must admit it is entirely different to the pre-judgement I had in my head. I imagined open sewers, rocky dirt roads where homeless people hassle you at every turn and that it would be a highly un-enjoyable weeklong visit. I couldn’t have had a more picture more further from the truth in my mind. While yes Bangkok is a very VERY busy city, it is still clean. Each morning we see street sweepers (actual people street sweepers not the machines) out in their droves going around cleaning up the nights mess. The public transport here is top notch and makes the Luas look like a toy train set. Air conditioned mono rails trains take you about the city for less than 20 baht one way (1 Euro = 45 Baht) so it’s cheap too. The people are friendly and accommodating and while we obviously do stand out as tourists we never felt threatened or in harm’s way and a good dose of common sense should keep you and your belongings very safe. The shopping malls here are on a level we have never seen before, even in New York there was nothing to compare really. Massive complexes, some of which are interconnected via walkways elevated up from the main stem of the traffic and pollution down below so as to save our lungs from complete burn out. Our favourite mall so far has definitely been the Mah Ban Kroon (MBK) which houses 7 floors of near madness. Mobile phones, cameras and everything that can be duplicated under the sun is in this complex. We bought 10 games for the Wii for 25 euro and 5 good quality DVD copies (we checked) for e12.50, a game for PS2/Wii/Xbox etc runs at 100 baht a disc and the same goes for DVD’s and DVD box sets so there’s value to be had alright. We shall make one more trip back there tomorrow to spend the last of our shekels on whatever we can and then commence packing in the evening. Our limo (oh yes!) leaves the apartment suites at 7:30pm and god knows with traffic when we’ll get to the airport but our flight is at 00:35am so we should be safe enough.
Another thing that’s very big here is temples. Being a largely Buddhist based religion they have public and royal temples throughout the city. Small shrines too allow prayer and worship for the regular folk, and this can be seen very easily everyday when out and about and happily co-exists beside the mega malls which house exclusive and expensive brands. We have also visited the Grand Palace where there are many large highly detailed sculptures and monuments to the current King and King’s passed. The King is very highly regarded here and must not be spoken ill of lest you find yourself in prison!
It has been a definite change from what we are used to but a very enjoyable experience all the same and although not somewhere I would spend more than a week myself, I would come back again in 10-20 years just to see what had changed (if anything) and how much more modern Bangkok would look.
It’s hard for us to believe this is the last few days of our trip and will definitely be something we will never forget (especially with all the bloody photo’s I took!) so it will be a bit of a shock to the system to being back in the cold of Ireland after having solid reliable 30 degrees or there about for the last 2 months! But I’m sure we’ll manage somehow eh! I even bought a dedicated Curry spoon for my market curry here in Thailand so I’ll be putting that to good use when I get back. Oh and indeed Eddie Rockets will be visited too… 
