October 2016
Bangkok Sightseeing
Temple Tour
As we haven't been to Bangkok before we wanted to start exploring the classic sights on our first day. We had our Marc O'Polo Guide book with us and the book suggested some tours. We decided on the temple tour through the heart of the old Bangkok. We started at Wat Pho, one of the main sights of the city. It is the city's oldest monastery and home of the lying Buddha statue which is 45m long and 15m high. The grounds of this monastery are wide and you can explore much of it and admire the beautiful architecture of the different buildings and statues. After Wat Pho, our tour led us through the streets of the old Bangkok with its typical smells of the various foods being cooked by the side of the roads. We visited Wat Ratchapradit, Wat Ratchabopit, and Wat Suthat which is famous for a Buddha statue from the 14th century. There were hardly any visitors here and we pretty much had the grounds to ourselves. We ended our Temple Tour at the Golden Mount. It is an artificial 80 m high hill which you can climb (318 steps). All the way from the top you have a fantastic view and see how big Bangkok really is. This was a good first day and when we came back we relaxed at our hotel pool for a while to cool down.
Longtail Boat Trip
On our second day, we decided to do a three-hour-long boat tour around the city to get to see a different side and also to visit some more highlights of Thailand's capital city. We took the sky train to Saphan Taksin station from where many of the boats start. You can either join a group tour or have a long tail boat to yourself. We chose to have the boat to ourselves and our captain took us to the canals of Thonburi first. This is the western part of the city which is older than Bangkok itself. Because of all the waterways, the city used to be called the Venice of the east. We got to see how the people live by and with the water, the many smaller temples by the canals, and a different life altogether. After a while, we stopped at the National Bardge Museum, where they show the 8 most impressive barges of the 45 barge fleet. For certain festivities, they are still taken out to the water where they look even more impressive. This museum is always part of the boat tour and you have to pay 100 BAT extra to enter. After the museum, we stopped at Wat Arun, a beautiful temple made of a lot of porcelain and coloured glass from where you supposedly have a wonderful view of the city. In our case, it was being refurbished and we could not enter. The tour ends with a ride on the great big river back to where we started. From there you can see glimpses of Wat Pho, the Royal Palace, and much more impressive buildings this city has to offer. I would say this is a must-do when you are in Bangkok.
Ratchada Train Night Market
There is a big selection of Night Markets in Bangkok and we chose to visit the Ratchada Train Night Market on our last night in Thailand. The market opens every day from 5 PM until 1 AM, except for Mondays. It is located in the Din Daeng area of the city and was a little hard to find at first. But essentially you just have to go through the Esplanade Shopping Mall and you arrive at the entrance of the market. It is a vibrant mix of stalls selling clothes, accessories, flowers, and souvenirs and it is also a great place to go for street food and drinks. All around the stalls is a great selection of food on offer as well as a big number of very inviting bars and restaurants. The place was busy on a Thursday evening and we only spotted a few other tourists like us, many visitors seemed to be locals. If we would live in Bangkok, this would definitely be a place where you could find us on numerous occasions. We loved the atmosphere and the vibe and were very happy to have discovered this.
