Bangkok, Thailand

I went to Bangkok, Thailand two weekends ago with my German roommate.  It was....interesting.  Here are some highlights:

One of my favorite parts was riding the Tuk-tuk cabs.  You have to negotiate a price with the driver to wherever your going.  A good price is 30-40 bahts which is about 1.50 SGD.  Many of the drivers try to rip you off and take you a lot of extra places you don't want to go.  By the end of the night, some cabbies wanted 100 bahts per person!  The most we paid was 50 bahts total for a ride which was okay.



Tuk-tuks



Riding the Tuk tuk

My other favorite part was the boat ride through old Bangkok.  It was really cool to see all the little wooden shacks along the river.  It was also nice to just sit in the boat and relax for an hour, without constantly getting heckled by the locals.  We stopped at a floating market along the way for a snack.

Boat ride through Old Bangkok





Scenery along the boat ride




More Scenery



Spicy Thai food with teddy bear shaped rice :)

The other main attraction we saw was The Grand Palace and the Emerald Buddha which is inside of the Grand Palace.  I'm not that into architecture but the Grand Palace was very shiny and pretty :)

The Grand Palace

I am grateful that I had the opportunity to visit Bangkok but it's not my favorite city by any means.  It was a bit of a culture shock but it was an interesting experience (some unfortunately is unbloggable).  We saw most of the main attractions in one weekend and mostly hung out on Khao San Rd which is the main shopping/food/club/hostel area where a lot of the backpackers roam.  That's really all you do in Bangkok.  I do have to say though that the shopping in Bangkok is awesome because you can negotiate and get stuff for very cheap.  I bought some dvds for about $3.00 each. :)  And only 2 out of the 9 don't work which isn't too bad.  There is a lot of heckling and ripping off going on there, but that's part of the Bangkok experience and you have to expect it when you go there.  I learned a lot about roaming around in Bangkok in one weekend and will be prepared if I go there again. :)  It's a cheap get away if one needs to get out of Singapore for a weekend!