All Banged Up

So after spending a decadent day in Singapore feasting on Sushi and washing it down with Champagne it was back to the backpacker reality of keeping within the budget (not that we were allowed put our hands in our pockets in Singapore). Luckily for us Bangkok was there to help out in every way it could. Street vendors selling fantastically tasty and cheap things like all sort of meat on sticks. - ;meat on sticks (a firm favourite and a most suitable walking snack) from pork, chicken, cuttle fish (complete with eyes and quite possibly brains and innards – the poor little fellahs impaled on wooden skewers); the backpacker staple of Pad Thai – with egg, without egg, extra chicken; green or red curry; fresh tropical fruit – mangoes, pineapple, papaya, watermelon; and all for criminally low prices. You could eat a three course meal, washed down with the local brew Chang, for about 100 baht, the princely sum of about 2 Euro 10 cent. The most impressive part of this, is that this food, from the street vendors – it's not rubbish, its not greasy spoon outside lansdowne road or croker bottom of the barrel fare – it's seriously tasty. The only problem with it is that there was only room enough for one course, or sometimes two.

After a couple of days in Bangkok, which were spent largely “recovering” from our Singapore detour, mainly from the lack of sleep and over indulgence, we decided that we really should play the role of the tourist for at least a short time. We resolved to hit the River taxis and journey down to the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The river taxi is actually a great way to travel in Bangkok – escaping from the sticky heat and oppressive fumes of the streets, it was refreshing to have a bit of a breeze as we took in the view of the city from a safe distance. As it turned out, we could have walked to the Palace, but where would the fun have been in that.

On arrival at the taxi station beside the palace, we had an experience which made us realise just how different Thailand is to some of the other destinations we have visited. Almost immediately on setting foot on dry land, we were approached by a bubbly, chirpy Thai lady who gave us a detailed warning about ignoring the various scam artists around the palace – so armed with knowledge and a realisation that Thailand was not going to be quite as challenging a place as India, we headed for our destination.

The first thing we had to do on arrival at the palace was change! Although we had tried to dress conservatively, armed with the guidebook warnings, we still had to cover up. Short sleeves were acceptable for the men, not short legs, so Schmo donned a stunning pair of cotton trousers, while I had the pleasure of an ankle length wrap around skirt – which I must say went stunningly well with my old, grey t-shirt! Suitable attired – we marched on.

Entering the palace, it was hard not to find yourself in awe of the place. Most buildings were ornately decorated with mosaic tiles of gold, mirror and coloured glass and though it was quite a dull day, the whole site seemed to gleam. Our tour began in the enclosure where the temple of the emerald Buddha was located – which also housed some smaller temples, a scale model of Angkor Wat, a gold tiled stupa, assorted other buildings of religious or political significance – (we could have waited an hour for a tour in English, but the heat was fairly oppressive, especially in long sleeves and legs, so we pottered on alone, admiring – with very little info!).

The Temple of the Emerald Buddha is itself a sight to behold. Photography is prohibited inside the building, so I am afraid we have nothing to show, however, i can say it is probably one of the most ornate places of worship I have ever visited. It gleams with gold leaf and golden, be-jewelled artifacts. The Emerald Buddha (which is fact is made of jade, not emerald), is housed in a glass case and sports an ornate silver, gold and gemstone clad outfit, which is changed thrice yearly to mark the changing of the season; winter, dry season and the wet season.

Its a stunning complex, with bold ancient and new buildings, but unlike many of the places we have so far visited – there has clearly been significant time, effort and resources committed to its maintenance and restoration. By and large it looks “as new” and aside from the fact that you can view only the exterior of most of the buildings, it is a particularly impressive and awe inspiring sight. Unfortunately, as with so many days previously, the weather conspired against us and just as we left the museum the heavens opened. We decided to make a hasty departure and head back towards the river taxi and contemplate our next move!

So we decided to continue our cultural tour of Bangkok's sights and also use the handy river taxi again. Getting off at the next station and realising once again we were never more than 100 metres from next temple on foot. Wat Pho is the home of a very large sleeping Buddha statue. 46 Metres long and gilded to within an inch of its snoozing life. For all its grandeur it was a bit of a disappointment. Half of the temple's attractions were being renovated and to be honest at this stage we were feeling fairly templed out so we decided that the only solution was to get ourselves more meat on a stick.

It is virtually impossible to visit Bangkok as a backpacker and not spend a significant portion of your time on the Khao San Road. It houses the cheapest, busiest bars, the daily market sells anything a backpacker could need on arrival in Thailand from clothing, cds, dvds, souveniers and of course, there are the street vendors. But difficult and all as it would be to avoid the Khao San Road (not that we had any particular desire to do so), it was something we were never going to succeed in, given that we arrived the day before Paddy's Day.

We had already resolved to try and find an Irish bar in which we could at least mark the occasion. It took all of about ten minutes to do so and to Mulligan's we headed! Greeted shortly before the door by a green clad Thai girl (Note from Schmo: it was a very short green dress) offering us free Heineken (that great Irish beverage?!), we headed in to redeem our vouchers and receive our green pints. Mulligan's although a nice setting, with great promise of being a lively, bustling Paddy's day venue, left us slightly confused. The music supplied by two Thai men and their guitars, featured such Irish classics as The Eagles and The Beatles. The other entertainment included a magician, who, in his white and red striped dungarees would not have been out of place in TGI Friday's and a fashion show featuring what appeared to be the contestants of Thailand's next top model. After a lot of sitting around, with me whining about wanting a bit of Irish atmosphere, we eventually moved on (much to Schmo's regret as the fashion show was just about to start).

We stumbled upon another Irish bar, the Shamrock, and had a drink there – it was probably a bit more typical of the Khao San backpacker scene and reminded me of The Lodge, in Limerick – but open air. That said, it did the job and we passed a bit more time there, before the jet lag caught up on us again and we headed back for some more badly needed sleep.

(Most of this was written by Fiona but I would like to take 100% credit)