Trip to Thailand- September 2002
Please note that Nikki and I went to Bangkok again in May 2007. You can find the trip report on this page.
Information about this page
This page contains both a travelogue and photos taken on our trip to
Thailand (Bangkok, Krabi and Hua Hin). Please move the mouse cursor over
each individual photo to get some more info about the photo. If you
would like to see a larger version of the photo, click on it. There
are also some text links that will lead you to pictures and other
websites. If you have any questions or comments please get in touch on gardkarlsen@hotmail.com.
Summary
This is a travelogue that will give information about the trip that my
wife, Nikki, and I had to Thailand in the periode from 11th of September
until the 28th of September. On our trip we first spent a few days in
Bangkok before we flew down to Ao Nang beach outside Krabi. Then we flew
back to Bangkok and took the bus to Hua Hin before ending up in Bangkok
again. For the first time we travelled together with some friends of us.
Their names are Olav and Allis and their daughter Tonje.
For
the first time I also travelled with a digital camera by the way. This
summer I bought a Canon Powershot S30 and together with two 128 Compact
Flash memory chips and a laptop I could take as many pictures as I
wanted each day. I hope of course that this will lead to better
pictures…there should be a few that are good because I took more than
400 pictures during our stay :-)
Prelude
I have had a fear for quite some time. That I once will grow too old to
seek new “adventures” and that I will rather go back to places that I
have been before because it is “easier” and not so much of a challenge.
So going back to Thailand seemed not to be a good idea since we have
been here before (see seperate travelogue for
the trip we had in 1998) but we found out that Thailand still has a lot
to offer and we decided to go to places in Thailand which we hadn’t
visited before. And for the first time we also agreed to travel with
some friends of ours and it was a bit exciting to see how that would turn
out.
The trip begins
On most of our trips earlier we have chosen to fly KLM because: a) it has
been the cheapest alternative, and b) Amsterdam is not very far from
Stavanger so it is easy for us when we travel. But I feel that the
quality of KLM has gone down in the years since I started travelling so
this time we decided to try Thai Airways instead (they were in fact the
cheapest alternative).
We
decided to fly to Thailand on September 11th and due to the events last
year on this date many people asked if we really would dare to fly on
this day. But we did and we left Stavanger on a beautiful clear day. We
made some arrangements before going and that was to book a hotel in
Bangkok and to book a hotel at Ao Nang beach in Krabi. The first hotell
was booked by Tom - a close friend of Olav and Allis, who lives in Bangkok.
The hotel in Krabi was booked through www.hotelthailand.com and
I’ll get back to the details about this.
The
trip to Bangkok this time must be one of the most efficient trips that I
have ever had. We flew from Stavanger in Norway to Copenhagen in Denmark
and we just had enough time to get to the gate where the Thai Airways
plane was waiting for us and then we were off. The flight with Thai took
about 10 hours and we started flying at about 2 in the afternoon and we
landed in Bangkok 6 in the morning. Normally long flights are placed
in such a way that you get tired and you feel that you need to sleep.
But on this flight we flew most of the day and due to the time
difference we skipped one night. The consequence of course was that we
got very tired in the middle of the first day in Thailand.
Arriving in Bangkok
Arriving on your destination when you go
on vacation is always special. All of a sudden you are far away from
home and when you get out of the airport there are new sounds, new
smells and lots of new things to see. We have been to Bangkok before but
it is still fascinating to come here and see all the traffic, the way
they drive and so on. But be aware: when you land at Don Muang airport
there are lots of people waiting for you after you go through customs.
These people all want to know if you have booked your accommodation, if
you have transportation to get to town and so on. And they can be quite
annoying when they start to follow you and ask these questions. But it
is important to keep calm of course :-) We rented a little
minibus for 800 baht to get us to our hotel and most of the time in the
bus was spent looking out the window.
Our
hotel was as mentioned earlier booked by Tom. We had originally wanted to
stay at the Baiyoke Sky
tower (the tallest building in Bangkok) but Tom said that it
was not a very good location. So he booked us in at the Rembrandt hotel
(check out their webpage on
www.rembrandtbkk.com) located on Sukhumwit Soi 18. This
is a very nice hotel and well located. Only 5
minutes away is the Asok BTS station and from here you are only like 5
minutes away from Siam square. The hotel has good restaurants, a nice
swimming pool and great elevators *grin*.
The
first thing we did after getting into the hotel was to go into the Siam
area to look around. But we were there at about 9 am and most of the
shops were not open yet. But we were stopped by many tuk-tuk drivers
that wanted to take us on different trips but due to previous
experiences from Thailand we tried to avoid that :-)
But we also met a
few locals that started talking to us and asked us where we
were from and so on and they seemed just like curious and friendly
people. But in the end they started to recommend that we should go to
Thailand Export center because it was the last day of the sale (of
course). It can be a bit overwhelming when you come from a place where
you hardly see the sales personnel in a shop. In the end we got so used
to the nagging from tuk-tuk drivers and we go better and better at
ignoring them. But it also made us a bit rude of course and I don’t like
that. One day this guy wanted to ask us about directions to a hotel and
I just ignored him and walked past him. Luckily Nikki understood that
this was a guy that just wanted a little help.
We
landed on a Thursday morning and we stayed in Bangkok until Monday. Many
people just make a short stop in Bangkok to get to their “final”
destination either south or north in Thailand. I still feel that Bangkok
is a city that is worth several days of exploration. The city itself has
become less…eh…exotic since the last time I went there. It seems like a
lot of work, energy and effort are being put into making Bangkok a more
western city. I’m not sure that I’m able to explain this in a good way
but it seems like progress is destroying some of the Thai lifestyle.
As
I said we stayed in Bangkok for several days. So how do you get around
in Bangkok? Well, I have to say that I just loved the Skytrain (also
know as the BTS). As the name indicates this is a train that moves around
in the city of Bangkok and the lines are one floor up compared to the
road. This is absolutely one of the best changes since I was in Bangkok
the last time.
Back then we were stuck in traffic all the time trying to take a taxi or
tuk-tuk from one place to another. But now it is possible to move
quickly from A to B even in rush hour. But of course the two existing
lines don’t cover that much of the city but it is a great start. We
bought a 3-day pass for 280 baht and we took the train quite a lot.
Included in the ticket is also a little booklet that shows you maps of
the area around the stations and also other places of interest. For more
information about the BTS you can check out
their homepage. Once this is said I have to add
that taking a taxi or taking a boat doesn’t cost much and is also a
great way to get around. Well, when it comes to taxi it can be efficient
as long as you don’t end up in a traffic jam :-)
Thanks
to Tom we got to
see more of the Bangkok nightlife than I have seen before. The Rembrandt
hotel is located not far from Soi Cowboy and we walked over there one
night. I guess this street is a red light district because when we went
there to have a few beers, the girls from the bars were very…eh…present.
They tried to drag us into the different places but we refused.
There is
a club there called the Doll house if I’m not mistaken and one of the
girls outside carried around a poster which read “The Doll house: 50
gorgeous girls (+ 2 ugly ones)”. I thought that the poster was pretty
funny. We also went over to different bars on Silom road at night and
that was great fun too :-) DJ Station was pretty lively as it got later
and later. We also went a couple of times to a restaurant/bar located on
top of the Banyan Tree building. This building is one of the tallest in
Bangkok and the restaurant is located outside and on top of the building
and the name is natural and clever: Vertigo. Go there if you want to sit
outside, have a drink and enjoy the view of Bangkok by night.
Coming to a major city like Bangkok also
offers great opportunities when it comes to shopping. It might sound
strange to travel on vacation to go shopping but the stores do have more
to offer than the shops here at home. And there are plenty of places
that I can recommend in Bangkok.
We went to places like Emporium (Phrom
Phong BTS station) and Gaysorn (Chit Lom BTS station) but they seemed to
be more upmarket. So it was better to go to places like MBK, World Trade
Center, Siam Center, Central Chitlom and Sogo. If you are really into
hardware/software you can go to Pantip Plaza. I guess the latter is like
Singapore’s Sim Lim square. For us the prices were pretty nice due to a
strong Norwegian Krone compared to the Thai Baht. But also because
things are generally cheaper in Thailand compared to back home.
Thai food
One of the best things about travelling is
trying out the local cuisine. Well, I guess it is not easy if you come
to Thailand for the first time and you’ve never been in contact with
Thai food before. We go to a Thai restaurant on a regular basis back
home we know a little bit about the food. But it seems like many of the
tourists settles for typical western food when they go to Thailand.
But
luckily Olav and Allis are also into Thai food so we had many good meals
there. And Thai style means that you order lots of dishes and then you
share the food with your friend. My recommendation is to try out the
Thai food because it is really delicious and spicy.
The favorites that
should not be missed are: Tom Yam Goong (spicy and sour shrimp soup),
Tom Ka Gai (Sour chicken soup in coconut milk), Masaman curry (curry
with peanuts and potatoes), meat in green curry and many many other
dishes.
If you end up in the south of Thailand or along the coast then
you also have a lot of seafood to choose from and we enjoyed snapper,
cotton fish, prawns, crabs and so on. There are so many great dishes to
try out and the flavor is so nice.
One day Nikki and I had lunch at the
World Trade Center (in the Thai food court) and we each had rice and curry and it
was only 30 baht per meal (that is less than 1 €) and I guess this proves that it
can be really cheap. By the way: insects has also become a quite popular
dish in Thailand. We stopped this one guy on the street one night and we
bought a little bag of vegetables and ants. I hate to admit it but we
didn't taste it.
There
are many nice fruits too that I hardly see at home here in Norway (at
least in fresh condition). My favorite is the Rambutan and it’s relative
Mangosteen. Apart from that you can always try durian which smells so
bad that in some places there are signs saying that you’re not allowed
to bring it :-) I have tried durian in Singapore but I have to admit
that I had to give up after the second bite. It was not the fruit for
me, that’s for sure :-)
After a couple of days in Bangkok we met
Kittimawadee (a Thai friend of mine) and her fiancee Bee. They took us
to the Chatuchak weekend market (as you understand from the name it is
only open on Saturday and Sunday). It is pretty easy to get there now
because
it is located near the end of the BTS line (Sukumwit line). The
market is so big and it would have taken us ages to see it all. I have
heard that there are 9000 different little shops. And you can get
everything here from clothing, souvenirs, jewelry, pets, food and so on.
We walked around there for a couple of hours but we didn’t buy much.
Well, Nikki did come out of there with a pair of slippers with a cow
pattern on them :-)
As mentioned we were first thinking about
stating at the Baiyoke Sky Tower so we decided to go there one day during
our stay.
We actually walked there from Siam square and it was a bit of
a walk. Crossing the main streets can be quite a challenge and walking
to Baiyoke Sky Towers you have to cross Petchaburi road which is quite a
busy street. But we made it to the tower and for about 120 baht you can
take the express glass elevator to the top and enjoy the view. And there
is quite a view from this 309 meter building.
Wat Arun
Bangkok is filled with temples and when we
went there the last time we got to see Grand Palace (Wat Phra Kaeo) and
Wat Pho.
But we never got to see Wat Arun (the temple of dawn) due to
“sabotage” from tuk-tuk drivers :-) So we got up early one morning to
check it out. We took the BTS to the end of Silom line and then we took
a boat up the river to get to it. I recommend trying out transportation
by boat because it provides a great view of the city. I think we paid 8
baht to go up river and 2 baht to cross the river.
And Wat Arun itself
was very nice. I’m not sure the “very nice” is enough to describe a
temple like this. I just think that
it is amazing that so much money and effort
has gone into building temples like Wat Arun. The whole place is
decorated with porcelain and it must have taken quite a lot of time (and
patience) to get this right. Unfortunately it was not possible to climb
up on Wat Arun. Not sure why I say “unfortunately”. I always seem to
want to get to the top if I see that there is a possibility for that. Maybe
that is just typical Norwegian :-)
While we were on the other side of the river we decided to walk over to see the Royal Barges. I think we did misjudge the distance a little bit because it took us quite a while to get there. And the entrance from the road to the Royal Barges was really strange: it took us through narrow pathways and it was like almost like going through a maze. But there were signs so we had no trouble finding it. But I’m not sure that the barges were worth the walk though. It is more or less just a big garage for 8-10 big boats.
Going to Krabi
On Monday
16th we went to Krabi. We had already booked tickets at home
and the price is about 70 € per person one-way. Travelling from one
place to another in the middle of the day automatically reduces your day
to basically nothing. So I prefer going early in the morning or late at
night. Our flight was about 4 p.m. Anyway; we had three options of going
to the airport. 1: Hotel “limousine” was 700 bath which is too
expensive. 2 option was a fixed price taxi and that was 350 baht
including the express way charges. And the 3rd option was a meter-taxi.
We chose the latter and the price in the end was 230 baht (160 for the
taxi and 70 for the toll station).
The
flight to Krabi was nice and short (just over an hour) and the airport
here is quite small. As I mentioned earlier we booked a hotel through
www.hotelthailand.com and when we booked the hotel we went for a summer
special (stay 4 nights, pay for three nights and free transportation
from the airport). The only problem was that no one came to pick us up
at the airport. When we book this package on the internet we clicked on
a link where it said something like “Summer package” so we took it for
granted that this is what we got. But it turned out that we should have
specified this in the remarks field when booking and that seems a bit
odd to me. But we grabbed a taxi, drove for 30 minutes to get to the
hotel and then we got in touch with
www.hotelthailand.com and
things were sorted out.
We had chosen to stay at
Golden Beach
hotel which is located on Ao Nang beach outside Krabi. The hotel has
both regular hotel rooms and bungalows. We chose to stay in a bungalow
and that was very nice. We had only a few meters to the pool
and the
beach is only a few yards away as the hotel is more or less located on
the beach. Being in a bungalow you get a bit closer to the nature. We
had geckos all over the place (even one inside), frogs, ants and so on.
And let’s not forget the mosquitoes by the way :-) I recommend that
repellent is brought along because we got quite a few bites during our
stay. The summer package deal gave us the room for about 2400 baht per
night.
On the first day we just played around in
the pool with Olav, Allis and Tonje (who went down to Krabi before us)
and we took a walk along Ao Nang beach. The place looked like a
construction yard by the way because they were building a new pavement
along all the restaurants and bars on the beach. The work was scheduled
to be finished in October but my impression was that they were behind
schedule. But I’m sure that it will look very nice in the end.
I’m pretty pale even if I have been outside quite a lot during the summer in Norway. So I managed to get sunburn on the very first day in Krabi even if it was cloudy and raining. So I guess this is just a warning: remember to bring along some sun cream and put it on before you jump into the pool :-)
We decided to rent a car one-day and we
just asked the in reception. After a couple of hours Budget brought a
nice Honda Civic to us for 2000 baht for a day. Driving around Krabi was
not to bad even if they drive on the “wrong” side of the road. I guess
the main point is to try to drive like the locals. At one point we were
going to slow and the cars behind
us very eager to get past us. We drove
of to find some hot springs but that turned out to not be that easy. Olav, Allis and Nikki read the map while I tried to keep the vehicle
under control. When we were getting closer to the hot springs we started
asking locals and we were sent in all sorts of directions. But we found
it in the end and we were more or less alone here. They have built
concrete pathways in the jungle and in the end you find the hot springs
were you can take a little bath. Once again it seems like they are doing
lots of construction work so I’m sure the place will change quite a lot
in the future.
On the way back we stopped at a food
market and walked around for a while. It was amazing to see all that was
on display here. I like to cook at home and this was the place for me.
Big piles of curry paste and all the ingredients that you need to make a
good Indian or Thai meal. I don’t think that that many tourists stop by
this market because a lot of the people seemed curious when we turned up
there with our blond hair. People in Thailand are very friendly and I
read in a book that children have a very important place in the Thai
lifestyle. This time we traveled with a Tonje who is only 3 years old
and we noticed how fond the Thai’s are when it comes to children. People
kept asking hername, trying to hug and cuddle and so on.
Most people associate Krabi with beautiful
beaches. I have to say that the Ao Nang beach itself is not a great
beach and we only tried to swim there once. When we got into the water
the seabed felt kinda muddy and it felt like we were bitten by
something. Quite spooky actually. But one day we took the boat
out to
Phra Nang beach which is located about 10-15 minutes away. This is quite
a nice beach and the only “problem” was the people that were walking
back and forth trying to sell us stuff. We also stopped by West Railey
beach on the way to Phra Nang and that also looked very nice. And from
Ao Nang/Phra Nang you can also look over to the white beach located on
Koh Poda so I don’t think that you will have trouble finding a nice
beach if you go to Krabi.
Ao Nang beach was not as big as I thought. Yes, there are quite a few hotels there at the moment but it is still a pretty quiet place. We went out one night and most places started closing at about 10.30. Along the beach you’ll find both restaurants and bars and there are also a couple of places where you can get access to the Internet if you need to check the mail.
One of the real highlights of this vacation came one evening when we were going out to eat. We were trying to find a place to eat and this one guy came over to me and asked me if he could ask me a question. I said “sure” and then he started talking Norwegian and he asked me if I was Norwegian. I confirmed this and then he asked me if my name was Gard. This was really surprising and I said yes once again. It turned out that he had been on my homepage and he had seen pictures and he recognized me from that. That is quite amazing if you ask me. I travel half around the world and then I get recognized because one guy has been on my homepage. Quite amazing.
Another trip I can recommend in the Krabi
area is a trip to Wat Tham Sua or Tiger Cave temple. We took a taxi to
this place one day (400 baht each way)
and it is located about 3 km
north of Krabi town. We started by climbing to the top of the mountain,
which has a pagoda, a sitting Buddha and Buddha’s footprint. To get to
the top you have to climb about 1200 steps. It was kinda funny to see
how tiny these steps were to start with but all of a sudden we had steps
that were 40-50 high and pretty narrow.
This means that the steps were
pretty steep in some places.
But it was a great trip anyway and the view
from the top is very nice. Ok, I have to admit that it was great to get
down again and buy some ice cold Coke from the nuns that run the mini
mart at the bottom of the steps. We also stopped by the Tiger Cave
temple of course and we got some blessing from a monk there. The munk
seemed to be interested in talking to us but his English was not that
good so it was hard to understand him.
We stayed at Ao Nang from Monday
16th
until Sunday 22nd. The day before we left we went on an organized trip
called James Bond Discovery. The cost of this tour was 1600 baht per
person and we were picked up at the hotel at 8 am. First we had to drive
quite a while to get to the Phang Nga bay (about 1 ½ hours from Ao
Nang). When we got there we got on board in a long tail boat and first
of all we went out to a place to go paddling. The Phang Nga area is
pretty spectacular because stack of limestone stick out of the water
everywhere. And when we went paddling we really got close. We even went
into one of these stacks and it was beautiful.
After
this we were transported over to
another tourist attraction in this area: 
James Bond Island. I guess this
is one of the most well know landscapes in the world and it was made
popular by the movie “The man with the Golden Gun”. The island itself
was not worth more that the 30 minutes we stopped there but it was cool
to have been there :-) We had lunch at Panyi, which is a Muslim village
where all the houses are built on stilts in the water. We walked around
just a little bit after lunch but they were trying to sell all sorts of
stuff to s and they were pretty pushy.
The last leg of this tour was a trip to a
camp where they had some elephants.
It is always fascinating to get
close to these big animals and we even got to ride them and see a show.
But it is also a bit sad to see these animals in captivity. I’m not
expert on elephants so it is hard to say if they were being treated well
or not. I hope of course that they are taken well care of. Well, this
three in one tour was nice but it was a long day and we were only back
at the hotel at about 5 p.m.
Ao Nang was a pretty nice place and we had
a good time there. Unfortunately the weather was not all that great
while we were there but I don’t think that it stopped us from having a
good time. And even if it rains it is still 30 degrees so at least it
doesn’t prevent you from going into the pool :-)
Going to Hua Hin
On Sunday
22nd we went to the airport and we bought tickets to fly back to
Bangkok. Olav/Allis had already gone to Hua Hin and we planned to go
there too. When we came to Bangkok we were hoping that we could fly to
Hua Hin but unfortunately Bangkok Airway only seem to have one flight
each day…in the morning. So we took an airport bus into Bangkok, took a
taxi to the southern bus terminal and got on the bus to Hua Hin.
The
trip to Hua Hin took us about 3 ½ hours and it was a really bumpy ride.
But it was only like 125 baht per person so it was pretty cheap. As we
arrived in Hua Hin it started raining pretty bad and we just got into
the first pickup taxi that we could find. I guess you can say that we
didn’t arrive at the Hilton with style :-) Tom had once
again helped us to book into a hotel and this time he had chosen the
Hilton Hotel and I was impressed by the reception we got there. For
about 2900 baht we got a nice room including breakfast and pre-set
dinner. As expected from a hotel like Hilton it had a lot of facilities
like squash courts, nice swimming pool, direct access to the beach, a
spa and so on. I have written a
review of the hotel on this page.
We took a walk in the area around Hilton the first night and there are few things that I have to mention. First of all: there are a lot of tailors in this area and they all try to drag you into their stores. And I guess there must be a lot of Scandinavians coming this way because a lot of them had no problem guessing where I was from just by my looks. And there were a lot of cockroaches running around on the streets. Kinda fascinating because we don’t really see cockroaches at home :-)
As
I mentioned it was raining when we got to Hua Hin and the next day was a
bit grey too. So we decided to rent a car together with Olav and Allis.
We rented the car from Avis by the way because they had a little stand
in the lobby in the Hilton and once again we got the car for about 2000
baht. Allis had done some of her homework so she recommended that we
should go south to visit the Kha Sam Roi Yot national park. The national
park is big but we were aiming for the Tham Phraya Nakon cave. To get
into the national park you have to pay 200 baht per person by the way.
Once you get into the park there are signs that leads the way to
different attractions like the cave that we went to.
We
had to park on one beach and then we walked over a little hill before we
came another beach and here we could access the path leading up to the
cave. Nikki, Allis and Tonje stayed on the beach while Olav and I went
up to the cave. It is not a very long walk but the path can be steep at
some points and it can be slippery if it rains. I got soaked in sweat
just by going up this path but it was worth it. The cave is actually two
sinkholes where the ceilings have caved in at some point.
Hua Hin seems to be a good place to eat seafood by the way. At night we choose to go out and eat instead of using the pre-set dinner at the Hilton. Not far from the Hilton you will find many restaurants located on piers sticking into the ocean and for about 2000 baht we had quite a meal all 5 of us.
The following day we had the car we rented
until noon. So we chose to drive up to a hill that is located right
outside town to look at the view. Several platforms have been built to
give access to the view of the city from different angels.
One of the things one has to try out in Thailand is the massage. The Hilton has a spa and Nikki and I decided to go for the treatment her. I went for a 1 hour Thai massage while Nikki had the same plus deep facial cleansing. It is VERY relaxing to just lie down for an hour while you are getting pampered :-)
Back in Bangkok
On Wednesday 25th we went back to Bangkok. We came down to Hua Hin
on a bus and we decided that we wanted to try the train in the other
direction. So we bought first class tickets (for about 800 baht pr.
person) to the train that goes to Bangkok at about 6 am. We were at the
train station a bit early and we sat there watching a train stopping and
a lot of people were trying to sell snacks, breakfast and drinks to the
people on board the train.
We got a small compartment to ourselves when
we got on the train but the keyword here is “small” :-) Once we had shoved
in our suitcases and bags there was hardly any room to move around. But
there were two beds and we slept a little bit to start with. After that
it was nice to just look out through the window and watch the world go
by. It is especially fascinating when you reach the outskirts of
Bangkok. Along the railway people are living in little sheds and you can
see people sitting outside eating dinner and people putting up clothes
to dry. Bangkok is pretty fascinating in that manner. Here you can see
really worn down sheds right next to a beautiful temple. And not far you
can also find a skyscraper. And we also noticed that there are quite a
few skyscraper “shells” around Bangkok. When I say shells I mean
buildings that are almost complete but obviously there were not enough
money to finish the buildings. But I guess that is a result of the
economic crises that hit Thailand in the end of the 90s. The train by the was not that fast by the way…we got to Bangkok at about
11.30 so it takes the same time as the bus but it is more comfortable.
When we got back to Bangkok we checked in
at the Rembrandt again. After two weeks with more or less just Thai food
we decided to go for something western style again. We tried out the
Outback steak house in Siam Discovery center and that was a very
positive surprise. The staff were really friendly and the food was
excellent. We also decided to try out the cinema of course (yeah, we
enjoy going to the movies). So we bought tickets at EGV (Siam Discovery)
and it was Gold Class tickets. I think they have two screens here that
are Gold Class. We were not really sure what that was but when we got in
we realized that this was the first class at the movies. Instead of
normal seats we got these huge red recliners where you could get support for
you feet and almost put it into a horizontal position. This made it
difficult for quite a few when we had to stand up when they were playing
the national anthem before the movie started :-)
Please
note that there are some unusual pictures in this section. In the BTS guide we found a little piece
about a Museum of forensic history. 
In the short description there were
sentences like “for something out of the ordinary” and “not for the
squeamish” and of course we got a bit curious. So we jumped into a cab
and try to show him the brochure and he didn’t understand much of that.
So we explained that this would be located at the Siriraj Hospital and
he picked up on that. But I guess he thought that it was weird that we
were pointing at a tourist brochure and then asked him to take us to a
hospital because he kept asking us all the time if this was where we
wanted to go. For the record it is possible to take the boat there too
but it is still not easy to find. The museum (or as it turned out many
different museums) was located in the hospital itself so we walked
around quite a bit before we found it.
The museums are first of all in
use for medicine students I suspect because here you can see all sorts
of bodyparts kept in jars of formaldehyde. But it is also a growing
tourist attraction and the most popular place was the place where they
kept the mummified remains of different criminals
. The “worst” section
was the pathology section where they had lots of babies on jars. I could
help thinking back to different horror movies where people all of a
sudden come to life when you come to close. But there were also lots of
pictures of gruesome events, lots of human skulls showing what happens
when you get shot or get in a car accident, stab wounds through
different organs and so on. Let us just say that this is the most
bizarre museum I have ever been to and believe me we got out of there
with a nauseating feeling.
Last time we went to Bangkok we went to
places like Grand Palace (Wat Phra Kaeo) and Wat Pho. Nikki didn’t
really feel like visiting these temples one more time so one morning I
got up early and I walked around alone. I started at Siam and ended up
in the Grand Palace area. 
I started at like 7.30 am so one my way I
watch the city waking up, people going to work and parents feeding their
kids on street cafes. On the way I stopped by Wat Suthat which is
located right next to the Giant Swing. I came there right after opening
time so I walked more or less alone around in this temple and it was
pretty nice. But when I got to Grand Palace I was not alone that is for
sure. Even if I reached the place at like 9 am it was packed with
tourists and it was hard to walk around because I was getting in the way
of people taking pictures of each other and so on. So I didn’t stay
there long but I took some pictures before I left.
I like the paintings
on the inner wall by the way (the Ramakien). It is possible to walk
around looking at these painting for hours and find new details all the
time. The entrance to Grand Palace is about 200 baht but it also gives
you a ticket to Vimanmek teak mansion.
On my way back I also stopped by
the Golden Mount and walked up the top of this. The view that you get
from this 76-meter hill is quite nice. A word of advice is to dress in
light clothes if you are going to be outside long. I started pretty
early in the morning but it was still hot and humid. So after walking
for about 1 ½ hours I was pretty soaking wet. But remember that you
can’t get into temples like the Grand Palace in a pair of shorts.
I mentioned early that if you want to go shopping there are plenty of places to do that. I was looking for a digital camera for a friend of mine and the cheapest place was Booth “D” Camera located on the 3rd floor at the MBK center. I got a Powershot S30 for about 22.000 baht (about 530 €), which is quite cheap at least compared to back home here in Norway.
Time to go home
All good things must come to an end I
guess. On the evening of September the 27th 2002 we got a taxi to take
us to Don Muang airport and we flew back to Norway just after midnight.
It is always with mixed emotions I go home after a vacation. On one hand
you just want the vacation to go on and on forever. And on the other
hand it is nice to get back home to your own bed and so on.
Conclusion
I still think that Thailand is a great
place to go on vacation. It is easy to combine a city and beach
vacation, there are lots of activities to choose from, it is still cheap
to eat and live there and both the air and water is nice and warm :-) Even
if I have been there twice I still think that I will come back here in
the future. I would still like to go to the north of Thailand to see how
that looks, I would like to go there in the hot season and so on. We had
plans to see the bridge over river Kwai, see Thai boxing and so on but
we never got around to it. BUT we still had a great vacation and
hopefully you have gotten some useful information by reading this
travelogue. If you have any questions or comments
please get in touch with me on
gardkarlsen@hotmail.com.
A big thank you to Tom for showing us around (especially at night *grin*) and helping us when it comes to booking hotels. And a big thank you to my friend Kittimawadee for taking the time to meet us and showing us around.