I have just woken up from our first day in Bangkok and still can't quite believe we are here. The flights went really smoothly and pretty fast seeing as they had Dexter and Friends on the tv. Dubai airport was massive and very extravagant, Heidi said it reminded her of some of the hotels in Vegas (which I will see in April!).
As soon as we left the airport we hopped onto a train that cost 89p to take us into the centre of Bangkok and, not knowing where we were going or where our hostel was, we decided to have a look around. This trip was very easy to do but the weight of our backpacks made it much more painful than it should have been. In the end we were hysterically laughing at both one another and ourselves as we struggled to maneuver with such weight on our backs. At one point Heidi had to dive to the ground to avoid being knocked out by Matt swinging his backpack over his shoulder. The weight of our backpacks and the heat of the city made us all sweat more than we had ever experienced before, so much so that by the time we reached the hostel we looked like we had all been in a water fight. Heidi fell to the floor in order to be blasted by the cold air of the portable fan that was in the lobby!
Before we got to the hostel we walked around Bangkok for a little while, meandering through the market stalls positioned on the side of the road. At first I embraced the new sights and smells of Bangkok but after only a few minutes I started to feel quite sick. I can't even begin to describe the scents coming from the 'foods' that were being sold other to say that there was always a lingering smell of smokey, fishy, sick. In the end I walked through the market stalls not breathing through my nose and even averting my eyes from the food on display. Bear in mind that I had had very little sleep and had just got off the plane, I am not expecting to always feel that queasy and I still thoroughly enjoyed looking around. At one point though, my eyes caught a glimpse of a fish bowl type thing filled with a milky substance with what looked like different coloured maggots floating around in it. The lady in charge of the stall was using a ladle to portion this vile mixture into small plastic bags in order to sell. I didn't pint this out to Matt, Nathan or Heidi because I knew that would mean I had to look at it for longer!
Once we got to the hostel we jumped into the pool on the roof and sunbathed for a while. We couldn't believe our luck when we saw that we had air con in our room and when we realised how clean everything was. We are paying £4 a night to stay in this hostel and I really had prepared myself for the worst. No doubt we will experience much worse than this later but we're all making the most of the cool temperature and the proper toilets!
We went for our first proper Thai meal last night and all had a coconut curry (no nuts!) which was delicious. Nathan thought he was being clever when he ate half a chilli but he nearly exploded and had to grab my drink to relieve his mouth of the pain. There was a very mini thunderstorm on the way to the restaurant so we walked in the rain with our umbrellas and took in the hustle and bustle of the nightlife. We're not staying right in the centre of Bangkok so I'm excited to see what it really is like in the evening. There are lots of stray dogs around which we've been avoiding and life here is so different. Can't wait to see what more Thailand has to offer.
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