Bangkok craziness
So we have arrived, finally, we are in Bangkok and my god is this place something a little bit "Special"
After leaving (L)adelaide with an emotional goodbye with Natalie, and Kathleen, at stupid o clock in the morning on Monday 21st, we finally arrived in Thailand at around Midnight, this was not before getting an announcment in Adelaide airport saying the following "Would passengers Andrew Meadowcroft and Adam Mcleish please make their way to the nearest desk"...this announcement being made over the main speakers just as I had sat down on the toilet to go about my morning business...a little bit flustered we made our way to the nearest desk...excited that maybe we had been upgraded? - or even worse that Adam maybe had become a secret drug dealer and his stash had been discovered in our bags?...nah nothing that exciting jus thte airport staff wanting to see if we wanted our bags to be exchanged directly at Sydney onto the Bangkok flight...pretty dull ending.
So bangkok it is, thinking as it being our first day, we should just go for a gentle wander to see what our surrondings are , and to get a cheeky barings of this over populated crowded city...no soon had we left the hostel, are we being bundled in to a tuck tuck and taken on a crazy misison around Bangkok, what we thought was a nice man helping us turned out to be what in bangkok is a tourist scam where everyone is in on it at a different level. Basically your taxi driver (or tuck tuck - like a bike with a cart on the back) offeres to drive you to the place you want to, whilst showing you a few cheeky little things here and there, all being offered at a stupidly low price...however the reality is that you are taken to all the places and businesses that obviously give him a commission on any purchases made, this ranging from Suit shops, Restaurants, Tourist agencies and Boat companies, So our day turned out to firstly being shown what suits we could get made for us in Cashmere for 40quid...think I might have to go back, then we were bundeled into a tourist agency who wanted to book us a 40 day trip around Thailand including a lot of things that we want to do whilst here but the reality being that the joy of backpacking is being able to be flexible and chnge your plans, not have a rigid schedule which you have had to pay a large lump up front. After this we were taken to a place on the river for a Boat ride...again bundled into a random boat, of which I have no idea how it is still floating, we were whisked up and down this river for no reason really apart from to see Bangkok from the river...being harrassed by women selling things on small boats, me and adam were convinced to buy some beers and our journey continued, all whilst our tuck tuck driver is sat waiting for us to come back.
Catching onto this little money maker the driver was getting, we asked to be taken back to our Hostel...and all of a sudden his english understanding died...he was desperate to take us to a massage parlour where you can go "bump bump, all very good, full package 2 hours"...we quickly declined and eventually managed to get across we wanted to be dropped off back at the start from where he picked us up... So that is the start of our South East Asian adventure, if this was only the first day, it excites me to think what will happen in the coming weeks.
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