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48h of Bangkok

and the outskirts.

By Javi Lorbada

October 22^nd, 2018

Thailand was in the making of this long trip, it had been a destination Clara and I had in mind for a while and we definitely made some room for it.

We came from a long month in India, and even though we had a terrific week in Kerala, we were hoping for a change, new atmosphere, new cultures, new people, new food.

Arriving at Bangkok already gave us that feeling, more organized airport, simpler formalities at the entrance in the country, and finally an Uber to the hotel area. Traffic was nuts though, we landed at 6 am, arrived at the hotel at 10 am. That's four hours to collect visa stamps, luggage and commute through the intense traffic jam.

Preview the whole Thailand trip, from the beginning at Bangkok, to the end in Phuket.

It was a nice nap but short, at noon I woke up to finish some work from the previous trip, which I did.

Around 3 pm Clara’s parents arrived and we went out for lunch. That's how our day started since we hadn’t seen them for a long time we spent longer time having food and left us just an hour for tourist sites.

Ideally, we had in mind going for a walk of an hour and have dinner at a rooftop restaurant, but as we know when traveling plans may be altered. We all felt very tired, and we headed back to the hotel, in Clara’s parents' case to rest, they have had a very long flight from Spain, in our case to find a place to eat dinner.

Clara and I felt a bit hungry and went out for a snack around 9 pm, here we spoke about how crowded and touristic seems to be Bangkok, which in my case, the first impression wasn't that great, it looked like everyone from Occident had reunited there, I hoped that changed the day after.

Jet lag was real, but we gathered all together for breakfast and started the day.

Headed first to The Grand Palace, the place is spectacular, no matter where you look it really has that something of a terrific building. On the other hand, if I thought Taj Mahal, in India, was a touristic destination, I was totally wrong, this place it’s top one of the crowded places I have visited. Walking there was a nightmare, and taking pictures you can’t imagine, I hope, sneaking in between selfie sticks, I managed to get a good one.

Once we finished this place, I was soaked in sweat, I must say, Bangkok was also characterized by its high temperatures, around 30 °C, which it doesn’t help while walking on the streets.

We moved onto the next site, Wat Phra Chetuphon, also known as “the giant reclining Buddha”, although it’s not just a Buddha, the building it’s also amazing.

In the afternoon we went for a boat ride, another of those tours that Bangkok has as a “must do”. It was ok, I mean, relaxing boat ride along different canals, but somehow I was expecting more. We finished at Wat Arun, perfect time for sunset and blue hour, and that I really like it.

Worth mentioning Clara’s father had this rooftop restaurant in his agenda and we went for it! Thank god, food was delicious, and the views, breathtaking!

After a couple of days in Bangkok on our own, we did a kind of tour, we had a driver hired by Clara’s father and he took us to Ayutthaya, this is city was the capital of the Kingdom of Siam and a prosperous trading port, today contains many ruins of palaces, Buddhist temples, and monasteries, and that was pretty much what we did during the day.

In the afternoon we went back to the city and headed towards Chinatown.

First we stopped by the river for the sunset, really liked the color of the sky. After the sun faded in the horizon we walked through Chinatown and a flower market.

I really felt like this was the kind of Thailand I was looking for, local market, street food and Thai people, I loved the vibes and the authenticity of it.

Woke early, our driver was picking us up at 7 am. First the floating market, 80 km from Bangkok. In my opinion it’s a very touristy place, where you get on a boat and navigate through very narrow canals where there are all kind of side shops, it's interesting to see everyone selling stuff, once in the boat when there was no traffic I felt like we were on a boat racing, funny times.

After that, we went for the well known Maeklong Railway market. This market is the opposite to the floating one, locals go and actually buy food there. The train passes multiple times a day and we saw it twice, 11:15 arriving, 11:30 departing. The moment the train arrives it’s really amazing, every shop seller take care and hides everything from the rails, in a matter of seconds the railway get totally clean and it looks like there hasn't been any market activities there, truly unbelievable how they manage.