Bangkok

Bangkok, Thailand 30.11.2014

We crossed the Thai border from Poi Pet Cambodia on the 27th of November. The journey from Siem Reap took ten hours with the bus and at the border we got a two week visa for Thailand. Everything was simple and at the border the staff was friendly. We were prepared to have to line for at least two hours but ended up waiting only about half an hour at the Cambodian border and one hour at the Thai border. The area between the two borders 'no man's land' was weird with all its casinos. Lot of beggers were situated in the area. The bus took us to Khaosan Road in Bangkok.

We booked a hostel from Bangkok in advance. We almost got it right but for the joy of walking with backpacks in a new metropole in the night time, we walked a circle for an hour. First impression was pretty bad because of the scams and taxi/tuk-tuk drivers who aren't helping at all by lying just to get you on the ride. Happily we didn't have to take any transport (or paid for anything) and succeeded on finding our way. The next day we walked in the neighborhood and made some people spotting. You truly can find everything here. Food is delicious and even just walking in the streets give you such a satisfaction with all the scentes in the air. Kaosan Road was a true turistic area as you can imagine. But easy to find souvenirs and restaurants.  We spent actually the first day searching for a city map. There are many maps in the end of roads and every time we got close to one someone would come over and ask where are we going. They didn't sell these maps themselves and tried to offer a tuk-tuk drive to the point where they say they sell maps. Of course we didn't accept the offer but we decided to walk to the spot they told. These were all private travel agencies or tourist information points as they call themselves. Finally we decided to find the Tourism Information Agency of Bangkok and found it. There we got free city maps and lot of brochures of possible activities and cities. Also infos about buses and trains. The staff spoke perfect English and was so friendly! After this visit everything started to roll.

Yesterday  we woke up early and headed to the snake farm by walking to the Central Railway Station and taking the metro. The metro is ridiculously easy and tickets are cheap. The snake farm tickets costs 200 bahts = ~5 euros and was so fun! After our snake experiences before we thought this would be a good place to try to understand snakes better. The farm is maintained by the Red Cross and is established to develop antitoxics.

There was pleanty of info about snakes, their venoms and nature. Both an outside and indoor terrario and also a perforformance about snake handling (1h). During this performance they presented some of the snakes and we got pretty scared. The freakiest was looking at two Monocled Kobras getting pissed off with each other. The second freakiest was taking a Burmanese Python on our shoulders. Totally worth the entrance fee.

Afterwards we drived around Bangkok with its skytrain and realized how big the city is. Skyscrapers continue as far as one can see. They say Bangkok begins only when you step out of Khaosan Road area. In the evening we drove aroung the center with local bus that was a really nice thing. Bus 53 works perfectly as a sightseeing bus crossing i.e. the flower market, Chinatown, the Central Railway Station, Khaosan Road etc. We went to the train station and bought tickets to Trang, the South. We chose this place after visiting the tourist office.  We hope it will be worth the 15 hour train trip in a 3rd class vagon! :D