Bangkok: Temples, Palaces and the City that Never Sleeps

After a month of volunteering at WFFT I said goodbye to the amazing animals and people I’d met and lived with, and journeyed to Bangkok to meet my boyfriend, who I hadn’t seen since leaving home a month ago, and to begin our adventure- 7 countries in 7 months.

We’d been lucky with hotels.com and had a free night to use because we’d booked 10 previous nights with them, so we stayed in the very jazzy Hotel Muse- I cannot tell you how excited I was to see a roll top bath after a month of cold showers, I’ve never felt cleaner! Ryan had arranged date night since we hadn’t seen each other in so long, so we had drinks at the Speakeasy, the rooftop bar of our hotel, and I was thrilled to be drinking gin after a month of water! Afterwards, we popped across the city to The Banyan Tree for a tasty rooftop dinner of massaman curry, pad Thai and greens. It was an idyllic start to a couple of days of adventures.

We spent 2 full days, 3 nights in Bangkok altogether and they looked like this...

Day 1: The Grand Palace and Temples

On our first full day we set out to explore The Grand Palace and the nearby temples. We had to cover shoulders and knees and you had to wear sandals or trainers as flip flops weren’t allowed- cue Ryan’s elephant trousers and my hipster dress and trainers combo. The Palace was beautiful, and I think the biggest thing I took away from it was that I want to use the same tiles for my kitchen (when I finally settle down and buy a house). The Grand Palace is also home to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (Wat Phra Kaew) ironically named as it’s actually made from jade and also only 66cm tall.

Next we walked over to Wat Pho which houses the city’s largest reclining Buddha- and boy is he big! I’ve seen my fair share of reclining Buddhas having travelled Sri Lanka and Bali, but this was something else. Photos don’t do the scale of this masterpiece any justice. It also houses the largest collection of Buddha images in Thailand- they literally line the walls here. We preferred Wat Pho to the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew as the architecture was still beautiful, there was lots to see, but there were far fewer people.

We’d recently bought Lonely Planet’s ‘The Best Things in Life are Free’ guide, which points out free or very cheap things in major cities throughout the world. It recommended a place called ‘Thip Samai’ for Pad Thai so we went to see what the fuss was about, and boy was it worth it! So cheap, so tasty! We’ve had a lot of Pad Thai in the days since (it seems to be one of the few things for vegetarians to eat over here) and we can both vouch that Thip Samai stole the show.

Afterwards we got the ferry across to Wat Arun with its ornate tall towers and beautiful mosaics made from Chinese porcelain.

A successful first day in Bangkok!

Day 2: A train to Ayutthaya’s temple ruins

We got the train from our hostel (we won’t talk about the hostel, it was horrendous) via the BTS to Hua Lamphong station to get the 15 baht (40p?!) train to Ayutthaya- the capital of Siam from 1350 to 1767 when it was brutally sacked by the Burmese. When we arrived we felt a world away from bustling Bangkok. We hired bikes for the day for 50 baht (£1.30?! Praise be Asia prices!) and set off. The most iconic shot of Ayutthaya is Wat Mahathat’s sandstone Buddha head entangled in a bodhi tree’s roots. There are more than 400 temples here and we loved cycling through the local streets to explore them. At one point we were cycling past rice paddies, at another we’d accidentally joined in the school run. There were relatively few tourists- just a couple here and there- which made it extra special. We felt like Indiana Jones and Bradley Wiggins combined. The ruins of the temples involved stupas, vantage points, Buddhas and towers with greenery growing out through the cracks, like the land that time forgot. A major bonus was the number of cute dogs. A major negative was that they still give elephant rides in this area and, though we cycled past at speed, it’s still something I find incredibly hard to see and having spent a month volunteering with them it makes my heart heavy.

After a fun day of exploring we got the train back and decided that we needed to check out the infamous Khao San Road to see what the fuss was all about. If we’re honest, it was no different to any other strip in the world. Busy and bright, the most wild things we saw were spit-roasted crocodile and barbecued scorpion- obviously not our thing being vegetarians. We were offered ‘Ping Pong shows’ but again, a)Gross and b)Not hugely ethical for the ladies who often are forced to work there because it’s one of the best paying jobs for them to send money back to their parents. Instead, we found a bar with an acoustic set, cocktails, a cute dog (obviously), and a nice wholesome game of Connect Four.

Overall impressions of Bangkok:

-The temples and Grand palace are well worth a visit. People complain they can be touristy, but in my opinion things become touristy when they’re worth seeing. Go with the expectation it’ll be busy and you’ll still enjoy the dreamy colours, patterns and architecture.

-It’s busy. At any hour of the day. Traffic jams are rife. Get the train where you can, it’s cheap and it’s easy- take note England!

-Ayutthaya is a brilliant day trip- we loved feeling like we’d been taken back in time to another world.

-A couple of days was enough. Though we enjoyed our time in Bangkok, we love off the beaten track discoveries, more trees and less traffic.