Thursday 31 December 2009

Banglamphu area of Bangkok

After a later night last night, we spent some time by the pool, then set off for a walking tour of the Banglamphu area.  Most parks were being set up for new years eve stuff, we just walked around, kept buying bottled drinks to keep us going in the heat, and made our way to the big central park in between all the Wats and the royal palace and some national museum and such.

First, most of these need shoes and pants and sleeves to go in.  You can buy them out on the street, I'm sure they weren't stolen out of backpacker hotels... anyway, maybe this is me being blase or suffering travel fatigue, but seeing the big old structures in tip top condition from the outside is cool.  Getting inside and hearing which king in which century commissioned it after which battle or god or whatever is losing it's draw, call me a uncultured westerner if you must.  They're really big, pointy, gold adorned, and are entirely impressive though.

We wandered around through some markets where there's a million goofy shirts, hit up a 7-11 (of which there are hundreds) to break change from a bank machine that gave big bills.  I skipped the burgers with the rice "buns" and bought a bag of tamarinds in apricot powder which were fantastic.

We walked through what we're guessing is a lotto system people buy books of tickets for, but we couldn't exactly figure it out.  It's either that or we stumbled onto a massive counterfeiting operation.
Lunch was an 11 out of 10 on the flavour scale at some basic restaurant, man this place has flavour in copious quantities.

It did a tropical rain on our way home which brought in a nice breeze, was nice to walk in.

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