Monday 9 July
After our gruelling day yesterday, we emerge from our room at about 11 am, and we're hungry. This hostel, brilliant though it is, doesn't offer English breakfast - only Continental. They only do snack-type frozen food, we discover, that can be heated up in a microwave. So we decide to go for a walk to see if there are any restaurants about where we can have a good breakfast.
Down one side-street, there are stalls with hot Thai food - but we don't fancy that right now. We think we've come in the wrong direction, because we don't find any open-cafe type restaurants, as we've been used to in Vietnam and Cambodia - just a couple of expensive ones, with menus outside - and no English breakfast. We return to our hostel and have a Continental breakfast - juice, toast, croissant, butter, jam and Lipton's black tea - it's really nice. We've been thoroughly spoilt though by the fact that nearly all the hostels we stayed in in China, and the hotels we used throughout Vietnam and Cambodia, offered full English breakfast on site. In China, there was an additonal cost, but in Vietnam and Cambodia, breakfast was included in the price of our hotel.
In the afternoon, we book up a tour for tomorrow morning, to visit the "floating markets"; more about that tomorrow. Then we decide to take the Skytrain to the MBK shopping centre, which is probably Bangkok's biggest shopping mall, being comprised of 2000 shops on several floors.
Taking the Skytrain is just the same as using a metro, except that it runs over the traffic, as the name suggests, rather than under it. The Skytrain is modern, sleek and smooth, as well as being blissfully air-conditioned. As in Beijing, there's a map showing your journey on the train, and flashing lights indicate the next station. The station name is also read out in English over the tannoy; all very helpful to the tourist newly-arrived in Bangkok.
The food court in the MBK centre offers an impressive array of dishes, with a cling-wrapped specimen of each dish on display, to show you what you'll be eating. The cling-wrapped dish isn't then cooked for you - that's just to look at. When you order, your food is cooked fresh in front of you.
Reg and I choose different Arabic dishes - I really enjoy mine, which is a mildly spicy sweet-and-sour chicken with rice - Reg's is more an array of different foods - he says his is ok. The food, with drinks, and a blueberry cheesecake and icecream for me (the 1st pudding I've had in ages as dessert is not usually offered in most SE Asian countries), comes to about £20. In England, we'd probably think that reasonable for a lunch for 2 - maybe a little expensive. We think it's really dear compared to what we've been paying in China, Vietnam and Cambodia.
After dinner, Reg and I split up; he wants to look at techi things, I don't. I agree to come back up to the 5th floor, where the techi stuff is (cameras, phones, hifi) - it's less crowded in these areas. Otherwise we're in danger of never finding each other again.
I make my way down to the lower floors; it's difficult to find where the escalators are, let alone anything else. The floors are packed with shops selling clothes, jewellery, toys, bags ....innumerable consumer goods. Some of the shops are the stall-type, where you can barter; others are glass-fronted, some selling gold and diamonds.
It's all a bit overwhelming really, and the most Westernised place we've visited since Moscow. It's fascinating to see the goods on offer in the MBK centre, and fun to be amongst the hustle and bustle of shoppers all looking for a bargain; but a couple of hours there is enough.
Back in our room, Reg watches the Tour de France, glad to see that Bradley Wiggins is doing so well and has once again earned the yellow jersey (awarded to the fastest rider so far).
I still haven't fully recovered from our long day of travelling on Sunday, and have yet another early night. We've hardly touched the surface of Bangkok yet, but can already see that it's very different from Cambodia, which is so poor in comparison. There's something about Cambodia though, the broad friendly smiles of its people, and the struggle to make a living, that gets under your skin.
After our gruelling day yesterday, we emerge from our room at about 11 am, and we're hungry. This hostel, brilliant though it is, doesn't offer English breakfast - only Continental. They only do snack-type frozen food, we discover, that can be heated up in a microwave. So we decide to go for a walk to see if there are any restaurants about where we can have a good breakfast.
Down one side-street, there are stalls with hot Thai food - but we don't fancy that right now. We think we've come in the wrong direction, because we don't find any open-cafe type restaurants, as we've been used to in Vietnam and Cambodia - just a couple of expensive ones, with menus outside - and no English breakfast. We return to our hostel and have a Continental breakfast - juice, toast, croissant, butter, jam and Lipton's black tea - it's really nice. We've been thoroughly spoilt though by the fact that nearly all the hostels we stayed in in China, and the hotels we used throughout Vietnam and Cambodia, offered full English breakfast on site. In China, there was an additonal cost, but in Vietnam and Cambodia, breakfast was included in the price of our hotel.
In the afternoon, we book up a tour for tomorrow morning, to visit the "floating markets"; more about that tomorrow. Then we decide to take the Skytrain to the MBK shopping centre, which is probably Bangkok's biggest shopping mall, being comprised of 2000 shops on several floors.
Taking the Skytrain is just the same as using a metro, except that it runs over the traffic, as the name suggests, rather than under it. The Skytrain is modern, sleek and smooth, as well as being blissfully air-conditioned. As in Beijing, there's a map showing your journey on the train, and flashing lights indicate the next station. The station name is also read out in English over the tannoy; all very helpful to the tourist newly-arrived in Bangkok.
The food court in the MBK centre offers an impressive array of dishes, with a cling-wrapped specimen of each dish on display, to show you what you'll be eating. The cling-wrapped dish isn't then cooked for you - that's just to look at. When you order, your food is cooked fresh in front of you.
Reg and I choose different Arabic dishes - I really enjoy mine, which is a mildly spicy sweet-and-sour chicken with rice - Reg's is more an array of different foods - he says his is ok. The food, with drinks, and a blueberry cheesecake and icecream for me (the 1st pudding I've had in ages as dessert is not usually offered in most SE Asian countries), comes to about £20. In England, we'd probably think that reasonable for a lunch for 2 - maybe a little expensive. We think it's really dear compared to what we've been paying in China, Vietnam and Cambodia.
After dinner, Reg and I split up; he wants to look at techi things, I don't. I agree to come back up to the 5th floor, where the techi stuff is (cameras, phones, hifi) - it's less crowded in these areas. Otherwise we're in danger of never finding each other again.
I make my way down to the lower floors; it's difficult to find where the escalators are, let alone anything else. The floors are packed with shops selling clothes, jewellery, toys, bags ....innumerable consumer goods. Some of the shops are the stall-type, where you can barter; others are glass-fronted, some selling gold and diamonds.
It's all a bit overwhelming really, and the most Westernised place we've visited since Moscow. It's fascinating to see the goods on offer in the MBK centre, and fun to be amongst the hustle and bustle of shoppers all looking for a bargain; but a couple of hours there is enough.
Back in our room, Reg watches the Tour de France, glad to see that Bradley Wiggins is doing so well and has once again earned the yellow jersey (awarded to the fastest rider so far).
I still haven't fully recovered from our long day of travelling on Sunday, and have yet another early night. We've hardly touched the surface of Bangkok yet, but can already see that it's very different from Cambodia, which is so poor in comparison. There's something about Cambodia though, the broad friendly smiles of its people, and the struggle to make a living, that gets under your skin.
Hi Sky Train riders! Can I call you Wiggo and Cav? (Tour de France reference.)
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