Finally made it back to Bangkok at about 2am after leaving Ko Phangan by ferry, passing through a nice big storm then bus back from Chumporn. Set off for Chatuchak weekend market the next morning, a vast collection of over 15,000 stalls selling pretty much anything you could possibly ever want, so we set about buying the rest of our souvenirs and presents in an exhausting 4 hour traipse from stall to stall, mainly getting completely lost down all the mazes of shops! Finally found our way back out and headed back into the city centre via the skytrain to Siam Square, full of fancy designer shopping malls and lots of Japanese people dressed as weird anime people, apparently some kind of Japan day in Bangkok! Ellie was much more impressed with the shopping than me, by this point I was thoroughly bored, so much so that I followed a man in a Nemo costume around the mall! Got on another skytrain to Lumphini Park for a wander round and to watch the evening aerobics classes then got a metro and a bus back to the hotel, Bangkok has very good and easy public transport which is just as well because the roads are permanently full of traffic! Had a slightly less drunken night out on the KSR this time around, mainly because it was election day in Thailand so the pubs couldn’t serve alcohol! No signs of any unrest this time around which is lucky!
Headed to the river for a new form of public transport, river ferries, to the Royal Palace and Wat Phra Kaew which both looked very impressive from the outside although we didn’t actually go in, partly because it was really expensive and partly because we’ve seen enough temples to last a life time! Instead wandered around the surrounding markets and spent the entrance fee money on a lucky Buddha head – very cool! Not content with our market visits so far we headed to chinatown, which is basically one big market. Found Sampeng Lane, which must be the worlds longest shopping street and wandered along it for hours without managing to buy anything except lunch, it seemed to be more for wholesale than retail. Made our way back to KSR for some more wandering up and down, discovered that the sellers double their already inflated prices after dark which didn’t go down at all well! Spent our last day packing before heading off on a nice convaluted trip on public transport to the airport by bus, metro, taxi and airport train and waved goodbye to Thailand – the end of an epic and amazing trip with some fantastic memories! Will have a think and post some kind of highlights page when we get back – see you all soon!
