Bangkok

India was hot. 40ºC hot. We sweat like crazy. Drank litres upon litres of water each day. Wiped our faces from sweat droplets every second. We naively thought this was the hottest it could ever get…right? Right?

Wrong. Bangkok was a million times hotter than India (The temperature was actually 51ºC, but it still felt like a million). It was scorching. We no longer sweat, but constantly dripped. It was like being in a hot sauna all day, except you’re walking around and wearing layers of clothes because you have to dress proper to visit all the temples and sights and oh my goodness… I am hyperventilating just thinking about it.

The City SkyTrain that we had heard such rave reviews about seriously let us down on our first day there… the ride was supposed to take only 15 minutes, but halfway through our journey into the city, the train just… stopped…and didn’t move again for another 30 minutes. We were tired and cranky after our early morning wake up and 4 hour flight from Jaipur to Bangkok, and the delayed train didn’t help lift our spirits.

We were in Bangkok three separate times during our trip, since it is the central hub for coming and going around the area. During our first time there, we did the “touristy” things like seeing The Grand Palace, The Temple of the Emerald Buddha, Wat Pho, and the Vimanmek Teak Mansion. The Grand Palace and the Emerald Buddha (which are in the same complex) were overcrowded with tourists and sweltering hot. Once again, it felt like we are in a sauna, except this time around, there were hundreds of other people squished in with us (ew).

Wat Pho and the Vimanmek Teak Mansion were much more pleasant and enjoyable experiences. Wat Pho was a short walk away from the Grand Palace and had much less tourists squished in. There was a ginormous golden reclining Buddha that resided in one of the buildings, and the area had beautiful fountains, greenery, and a sense of stillness and calm about it. The Teak Mansion was a cool look at how the royalty of Thailand used to live, and the pottery collections and architecture of the building were impressive.

Our second time in Bangkok was just a few hours overnight in between flights. We stayed at a hotel close to the airport so that we wouldn’t be wasting time going into and out of the city. The hotel was called 48 Ville and I definitely recommend it if you need somewhere to stay by the smaller airport (DMK).

The focus during our last day in Bangkok, which was also our last day of the trip, was shopping. Unfortunately, my best friend Jenny had money stolen from her on the bus from Chiang Mai - Bangkok, so we weren’t in the best of moods for spending money when she had just lost a lot of it (Lesson: be careful on those night buses, kids!). We figured that going to Chatuchak Weekend Market would be more of an experience than a crazy shopping spree, and boy, were we right. Being the cheapies that we are, we decided to take the local city bus to get there. Nothing beats spending 6 baht for an hour of transport (around 25 cents). For those who want to travel to the Market from the Khao San Road area, we took the #3 bus after asking about a million people and thinking it was a different bus number for about half an hour.

It would take two days of wandering around the maze of the market to fully be able to see and experience each vendor, stall, and store. There was a wide assortment of stuff — from pricey massage parlours, to cheep street-side sketchy food. We saw: