Bangkok was a real culture shock from Sydney! We are already appreciating what we have at home!!! It is a very vibrant city with so much to see and do. We had a great apartment right in amongst the locals. They were so friendly and would say hello to us when we passed en route to the station. Especially lots of admirers of our Josh!
The food carts were always busy especially at night. I think many people just buy ready made marinades in wee plastic bags from the food stalls and reheat at home. I bet there's no additives or preservatives in these little bags of flavour!!!
Thai Green Curry Absolutely delicious!!!
Water taxi. There were lots of these zooming about. We used the slightly bigger, slower & cheaper boats to get about which were just fine. These smaller ones zip you up into the narrow waterways but we just went up and down the main river to our destinations so the cheaper ones worked for us.
Tuk Tuk (pronounced Took Took by the locals) These are small taxis holding 2-4 passengers depending on its size. They are everywhere especially at the tourist haunts.
We spent a good couple of hours just meandering through the markets, of which there is plenty. They are full of some great artefacts and eateries. You become encased in the rows and always end up disorientated and lost until you se daylight again! Just a pity we have no space to buy anything!
The busy waterways
The city skyline view from our balcony
This was our station to our apartment
Maths lesson with Baht
Our neighbourhood.
We stayed in an Airbnb apartment which we had all to ourselves. It was a 5 minute walk from Mo Chit train & subway stations, across the road from a large local park, 2 minutes to a pizza restaurant and it was full of local charm & charisma. There were little food stalls all around with brilliant aromas although they did sit out in the sun all day with little or no cover. Couldn't quite bring ourselves to try any of them although we did have very nice omelets for breakfast from our open air food hall one day. It came with rice and was delicious. There was a couple of spoonfuls of some secret ingredients in the cooking process which I'm sure gave it extra taste! Maybe when we have been on the road a few more weeks we will become braver and try out some of the local delicacies!!
The motorbike in the photo is a taxi. They zoom along the pavement and up the alleys to avoid the traffic. Ladies seem to just perch on the back with nothing to hold onto & no helmet! I would be riding on it like a bike and gripping on to the taxi driver for dear life!!!! These proved very popular with the locals as a means of getting to the station in the morning.
They didn't even bother to drive up the right side of the road sometimes!!!!!!!!
Their chosen colour for some local transport seems to be pink!?
The night time view from our apartment. If you look at the traffic on the two roads you will see that one is very busy and the other not. We think that the one on top could be a toll road. We had a great week exploring Bangkok, it certainly is different to what we are used to but such a great experience! The people, food & smells all combined to give us our first real experience of South East Asia!
