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I just came back from my four-day trip to Bangkok. It was obviously nice and I really enjoyed it. After arriving at Saturday (late) afternoon, I took the Airport Bus to Kao San for 150 Baht and started looking around for a decent place to stay – I finally ended up at the Sawasdee House at Soi Rambutree. There are quite many places around, but I chose this one, cause it offered rooms not facing the crowded street. So I paid 200 Baht per night and was happy. The guest house is just a stone-throw away from the well-known Kao San road with its many shops and nightlife locations. At one of the various street hawkers I had a decent vegetarian Phat Thai…

On the next morning I woke up quite early and decided to be an early bird and just walk down to the Grand Palace. This was a good decision, because I arrived there just around 08:30 when it opened – And with the warm glazing sunlight of the rising sun, I had the chance to get some impressive pictures. Altogether I spent around 3 hours walking around the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha with all its surroundings – And it got more and more crowded, so I left. But: Paying the quite high admission fee of 250 Baht is definitively worth it. If you go Bangkok, be sure to visit this place.

So it was already around noon, so I grabbed some curry (or “Kaeng” in Thai) from a street vendor. Despite some negotiation (or language) problems it finally ended up in a nice dry red chicken curry. Hot as hell. It virtually burned a hole in my stomachs – And my lips where suffering for hours… After this I decided to get down to Chinatown and got there via TukTuk. Chinatown is really crazy in Bangkok – But for my personal feeling, way too overcrowded… You have to visit it and see all those people selling all kinds of ju…aeh stuff…

On my way back I decided to hit the famous Wat Po (Temple of the Reclining Buddha), close to the Great Palace – Because it was already around sunset… And this time of the day gives best pictures! Wat Po is way less crowded than the Great Palace and it seems to be more spacy… After that I was quite smashed from all the walking and got back to the hostel to have a shower, grab some food and relax.

Day 2 in Bangkok started also early in the morning, because the couple next to my room decided to do… ehm, you know what. Never mind, because it was already around 0900, so I walked down to Chao Praya River and waited for the River-Boat Taxi in order to get to Wat Arun, the famous Temple of the Dawn. This temple is right at the riverside and accessable via the ThaThien-WatArun cross-ferry. Also worth visiting. After this I headed down to central pier and walked around the silom district… Because this was not 100% interesting (just shops), I jumped into Skytrain and got to Siam Square, which is supposed to be quite nice – for shopping I decided to leave out all the shopping malls (cause they probably offer the same junk as in Singapore – and everywhere else in to world) and head to “Jim Thompson’s House” – Some nice traditional Thai buildings in the middle of the City formerly owned by Thai-Silk-Guru Jim Thompson (who mysteriously disappaered in 1967 during a Cameron Highlands Trip…) – Quite nice to see, but only go there if you REALLY have to kill some time. There are way more interesting places to go. But when walking back to my guesthouse (yes, quite far away), I found my personal highlight of the day: The Wat Suthat temple right at the “Giant Swing” at Bamrung Muang road. Beautiful temple!

I started day 3 again quite early in the morning, because during the days before, the time before 11am was really nice, because it was quite cool. Unfortunately on this day, it turned out to be hazy – or smoggish. The air pollution in Bangkok is really bad – I only experienced the phenomenon of getting a clogged nose by pollution in Beijing before… I walked down, or better “up” to Wat Saket – The Golden Mount. You would get a nice view of the city from there – But there was SMOG! Anyway… I decided to get to the Dusit area and visit the Marble temple. The temple is made by white marble and really unique. I proceeded to walk down to Thewet visiting a wet market and accidently dropping into a flower market – This confirms: Just grab a map and go somewhere – Leave stupid guidebooks like Lonely Planet at home! You will find the best places by just walking around with open eyes! I concluded the day at the Suan Lum Night Bazar at Lumpini – Got there via Subway from Hua Lamphong (Bangkok Railway Station) after using the River Taxi from Thewet to Ratchawong.

Conclusion: Bangkok was a good choice for visiting! Really cheap (just spent 2000 Baht besides the air ticket) and many nice historic places to see. I visited about 23 Temples (“Wat WHAT?”) and walked of probably a marathon distance of 42km. One last thing: I flew using TigerAir from Singapore to the brand-new Suvarnabhumi Airport way outside of Bangkok. The were many rumors about the airport having many problems, such as a broken runway and miss-organization. Yes, this is true, but I spotted the main problem… See the pic