Adventures in Thailand: Bangkok
I’ve been really fortunate to travel a lot over the past 6 years. A lot of the countries I’ve visited have been in Europe, thanks to my close proximity! So I was really craving an adventure where I could experience a completely different culture. Cue my friend Jessie from college texting me to ask if I wanted to go to Thailand. Yes ma’am! We saw as much as possible over our two weeks in Thailand and Cambodia - so I’ll be breaking our trip down into several blogs so that I can share all of our adventures in as much detail as possible!
First thing first: I had to get a new passport
I wanted to talk about this quickly because it’s something I don’t really touch on much since moving abroad. Visas can be really tough to get, and can take a long time. I had to renew mine in November, but it took 6 weeks just to make an appointment. Between my trip to Bruges and this trip, as well as having Christmas in between, I was really nervous about having enough time to get a new passport. Visas take up a large amount of your passport - the one that lets you stay takes up 1 full page and re-entry visas when coming back to the country after traveling can take up 1/4 to 1/2 of a page, depending on how they stamp it.
Luckily, the U.S. Embassy in Dublin is way way way more efficient than their immigration office! They operate at about a week turnaround time. Very much ideal. Transferring my visa over to my new passport was unsurprisingly a much less seamless process, but luckily I got it all sorted just in time (literally that week) to head to Thailand.
Meeting in Thailand
Jessie and I met in the Bangkok airport. Our flights landed less than an hour apart, so it worked out perfectly. It’d been over a year since we had last seen each other, so I was so excited to catch up! After grabbing a SIM (travel SIM cards over there are really cheap for what you get), and exchanging our currencies (the airports have some of the best exchange rates), we decided to use the Thai version of Uber, Grab, to get to our first hostel.
Let me tell you - I am still so incredibly young, and yet I could feel such a difference in the way my body responded to hostel beds in just 6 years since my trip around Europe! The hostel itself, Here, was actually pretty cool. There was a slide from the bedrooms down to reception, a small pool area, and a nicely decorated outdoor space including a bar, incense, and this larger than life crocodile (or alligator?) statue:
Since we arrived before check-in, we decided to explore first. See the area, and grab a bite. We were staying in a calm enough area, which seemed off the beaten path but was close enough to attractions for us.
We weren’t brave enough to jump into street food juuuust yet, so we found a very Western café to ease us into the experience. We tried roti and fell in absolute love. We got a ham and cheese one, and a banana and raisin one. They were both so delicious. We also got 3 drinks to try, which would quickly become a theme of the trip. We got a lot of questions when ordering to make sure we knew we were ordering an overwhelming number of drinks for 2 people. But there were so many interesting sounding options that we wanted to try! This time we tried a red cider milk tea and a Thai milk tea. The cider one tasted like Nestle strawberry milk, which was unexpected, and the Thai one was simple but good. However, we also tried a plum soda, topped with floating chunks of plum (not the pretty kind, the ripped apart, looks like wastewater kind) and that one was a big miss. It’s conveniently hidden at the back of the image below.
Stomachs full and exhaustion winning over curiosity, we headed back to the hostel to check in and take a nap. Refreshed and ready to see some more, we started off at the hostel bar. Yes, our ciders are English. But they sounded too good to resist and they tasted like candy! We also had Thai beer, don’t worry.
Then, we walked over to Koh San Road, nicknamed the “backpacker capital of South East Asia”. Getting there was trickier than we’d anticipated. The pedestrian crossings weren’t really very helpful in, well, crossing. We had to mostly wade into oncoming traffic and wait for them to patiently swerve around us. Roads with more lanes were tricky! I was busy taking everything in, because it was an attack on the senses. I got this one photo before plunging into the mass of people:
There was endless street food, stalls with clothing and jewellery, bars, tattoo shops, and massage places. Massages there were so cheap! After a dinner of Pad Thai on the side of the road, we grabbed some beers and settled in for a heavenly massage, then topped the night off with some coconut ice cream.
It was both a peaceful and eventful first day. We hung out for literally a few minutes in this cool loft area in the hostel before giving in and going to sleep.
Temples Everywhere
Day 2 was all about the temples. We started our day with a tuk tuk to Wat Phra Chetuphon, or Wat Pho.
Most of the grounds had a good number of people walking around, but there was definitely a calm feel to it.
The reclining Buddha was so much bigger than I anticipated! The soles of his feet were also incredibly elaborate.
Then, we made our way to the Grand Palace. We did, unknowingly, make a little mistake here. When we arrived, they check your outfit and divide you into two lines: one to enter the temple, and one to buy temple-appropriate clothing. You’re supposed to have your shoulders covered and a shirt/shorts to your knees. Most temples will let you wrap a scarf around your shoulders/hips to cover up as needed, but they didn’t at the Grand Palace. And the clothing options were bad (picture a neon green shirt from your 5th grade summer camp). So getting clothing along the way in one of the many shops is your best option if you don’t have an appropriate outfit!
Clothing aside, it was interesting to see the similarities and differences in styles between the architecture and decoration. In the picture above I tried to show just how detailed the buildings are - they’re made up of small reflective pieces, like a mosaic.
After a morning full of temples, we hung out for a bit at the Tha Maharaj, a kind of outdoor shopping centre attached to a massive traditional-style market.
I loved the huge durian-shaped food stall below (sadly I discovered on this trip I am not at all a fan of durian) and the slinky-strewn street.
We ended our day with a full-body massage. What we didn’t expect was:
Them opening the curtain between us and getting the massages together
Changing into these MASSIVE outfits (they helped us wrap and tie them after we died in a fit of giggles)
The aggressiveness of Thai massage. It is so relaxing and then all of a sudden they’re slamming their hands into you and pulling your body into contortionist poses. They also use their whole body to give you whole body a massage.
While we did spend our final day of the trip in Bangkok as well, I don’t have pictures from that day as we didn’t do a whole lot other than drink cocktails and get a final massage. Next up, Cambodia!
Tips for traveling to Bangkok:
It’s true what they say, tuk tuk drivers genuinely will try to tell you where you want to go is closed to get you to go to other attractions. Don’t let them tell you where to go - there are plenty around, so you can always find someone who will take you where you want to go
Be wary when bartering, as people can be very stubborn and will literally walk away from a conversation on price
If you’re going to the Grand Palace, do not try to cover up with a scarf - you’ll need a top and bottoms that cover your shoulders/thighs
If you can, travel with a bottle opener as there are lots of 7-11s around and the alcohol is much cheaper!