Bangkok - again

We arrived in Bangkok very early in the morning and took a metered taxi to our accommodation.  kay was convinced he was taking us for a joy ride and, after having a looking on the map, it was obvious the taxi journey shouldn't have taken as long as it did or cost as much as it did but hey, a couple of pound here and there doesn't do much harm.  We were too early to check into our accommodation and because breakfast was still going on in the common room we weren't allowed to do the laundry we wanted to get on with.  We went in the direction on Khao San road and had some hot chocolate to pass some time.  We went back to our accommodation but our room still wasn't ready but because breakfast was over we could do some laundry while we waited. We sat and updated our blog/diary since we were very very behind by this point - still are actually! 

We didn't venture out much this day as the weather was a bit rubbish and we wanted to do some research on Myanmar and the visa we would need. We did book a tour to the floating market and the tiger temple for the next day though.

We got up early and made our way down to the travel agents to wait for our bus to the floating market.  Once there, we were put in a gondola type thing and taken around the market.  The sellers would use some bigs hooks to pull the boat into the side so they could try and sell you stuff.  After the boat ride we were allowed some time to walk around the market to take photos or buy things. We bought a couple of things including some fruit which looked like a pear/pepper but tasted like an apple - still not sure exactly what they were but they were really tasty! We were then taken for some lunch on the way to the tiger temple. I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy it as I had been told that they drug the tigers which is why they are so tame. I am so glad that I did though because I'm now almost certain that they don't drug them.  We spent around 3 hours with the tigers, getting our photos with the adults and then we stumbled across a wee 5 month old tiger cub too which we got to sit with for a short while.  We had paid extra to be part of the exercise show, this was where they would put you in a cage and then let the tigers off their chains so you could really get to see the tigers behaving as they would in the wild, but unfortunately they were running late and we were going to miss our bus so we had to leave without getting to be part of it.  After the tiger temple we made our way back to Bangkok.  This took a bit longer than it normally should, 5 hours, as the traffic was really bad when we were coming back into the city. A couple on our trip had booked a bus to Koh Tao for that night and only just made it back in time to catch it.  

We were dropped off near khao San road and myself and Kay decided that we would go to the travel agent and see if they had any information about visas for Myanmar. She advised that she could do a same day visa for us for £40 which was a bit more than if we did it ourselves but it meant that we wouldn't need to deal with the stress of finding the embassy for 8am and potentially hanging about there for hours.  We also wouldn't have been able to get a same day visa ourselves so she was saving us another day in Bangkok.  We went back to our accommodation and collected our passports to give to her, which we would be able to collect the next night and we also booked our bus to the border for the day following that.

We spent the next day and a half just getting organised for our trip.  We needed to decide where we would go in myanmar and how we would get there.  We also had to get American dollars sorted.  They are really funny about the money that you hand over in Myanmar.  It needs to be new, crisp American dollars.  They will not accept anything that has even the tiniest flaw in it.  We picked up some new books from a great wee book store near khao San road.  I sold them some ones that we had already read and they actually ended up paying me more for my two books than I paid for the books I bought from them. They advised that If we are ever passing back through Bangkok they will buy them back off us for half the price we paid as long as they are still in a good condition. 

We left Bangkok around 4pm on an overnight bus to the Mae Sot border crossing.  I think I've said it already but the buses in Thailand are amazing. This one had complimentary water, lychee flavoured iced tea, some kind of chocolate filled roll and a massaging chair! Haven.  I've grown to really like Bangkok and I'm sure this won't be the last time we're there this trip.