Khao San Road

Backblipping, I was trying to figure out where in Bangkok this was taken. Then, along with the signs such '100 baht airport' and for Chang beer, the two white boys in the centre gave it away. This is Khao San Road, the arrivals area for many western backpackers to South East Asia.

We were just walking through after a taxi ride from the vast MBK shopping mall, heading towards the river but I remember feeling like it was a great place to meet westerners, find somewhere expensive (by Thai standards) to stay and get hassled by stall holders.

Travel Diary (Courtney):

We went to MBK mall today, as I think dad mentioned it. It was huge! Soo many little stores. We got a sim for the phone I brought with which has really cheap calls to the UK. After we that we decided to go find some food. Lonely Planet had recommended a vegetarian stall in the food court, so we looking for that. Went to the wrong first which was really pricey and empty, the one we were looking for was on the 7th floor.

I picked two dishes. The first was really tasty, the second I did not like at all. It was horibble (Steve says it wasn't that bad). We got some pancakes which were rolled into cones with different fillings. I had banana and chocolate, Steve had pudding cubes (I thought this was weird) however he enjoyed it. We then found an internet cafe, so sent some emails to mom while Steve booked / checked hostels.

After MBK we walked down to the river to get a boat to some old pointy building (Wat Arun - Steve thinks). The stairs to walk up the temple were really high, I was climbing up. At the top there was a really good view of Bangkok (looked slightly less hectic from up there). Walking down was even more awkward, Steve got some silly photos of me. We walked around the rest of the grounds around the temple. There were a lot of people clapping at trees, little bit funny and it must be one happy tree.

We got back on the boat to go back. The man on the boat mentioned the next stop was for Chinatown so Steve decided we should go have a look.

Chinatown was soo busy, complete madness, but no one bothered us, which was nice. We walked around for quite a while, then we found Khoa San Road, (Not sure if Courtney has the events of the day in the right order...) It was hectic, people hassling us again. Glad we didn't stay there, bit of a party area, with lots of gap yah people.

When trying to find our way back to train station we found another temple, where some man told us it was Buddhist holiday. After some more wandering and following signs we found the station and went back to the apartment.

Decided to go our for dinner to some veggie restaurent in the guide book which was meant to be near by. We walked down a road for ages but couldn't find it. Turns out the guide book we were looking in was quite old, so we think it wasn't there anymore. Everyhting else seemed to be closed (only 10pm) so we decided to head back. At the skytrain station there was a McDonalds, so as a last resort we had something there. In England they have apple pies but here in Bangkok it was sweetcorn, little weird but nice.