Bangkok Day 3: Giant Lizards, Skyscrapers, Chinatown and More

On our second morning in Bangkok, we again woke up super early from jet lag. This time, we decided to make the most of it, and started our day with a gym session when the fitness suite opened at 6 am. That's definitely not my usual holiday routine, but we felt better for getting up and doing something rather than trying and failing to sleep. The fitness suite was on the top floor of the hotel and had great views over the city, so it was a nice way to start the morning.

After breakfast, we decided to start our sightseeing in the nearby Benchakitti Park. We had seen a lot of temples the previous day and were keen to see a different side of the city. The park is really beautifully designed and peaceful, and we loved the sky walk, which takes you over an area of wetlands.

Crossing over a bridge, we arrived in another park, Lumphini Park. This is actually a place that my sister and brother-in-law told us about. They also had a honeymoon in Thailand and recommended this park because of its large population of monitor lizards! These lizards are absolutely massive, and we had a lot of fun spotting them going in and out of the park's lake. 

You can take a pedal boat out on the lake free of charge for 20 minutes, which is a super nice experience. We had a great time looking for the lizards and also spotted a little turtle!

We also saw a few lovely cats! When we had our vaccines before travelling, we were advised not to touch cats or dogs in Thailand because of the risk of rabies, but it was still nice to admire them from a distance.

After a coffee break, we took our first tuk-tuk ride! It was really fun, and we were at our next destination in no time at all.

We'd arrived at King Power Mahanakhon, one of Bangkok's tallest skyscrapers and an interesting building architecturally. It looks a bit like a game of jenga! There's a modern mall next door, which we had a look around, and you can also pay to go up to the top of the building, but at 1000 baht per ticket, we thought it was a bit too costly.

By this point, we felt ready to see some more temples, so we decided to take the Skytrain over to Wat Paknam Phasi Charoen, where you can find the biggest Buddha statue in Bangkok, which stands at 64 metres tall. 

Unfortunately, we came at a bad moment, as the statue was covered in scaffolding! However, we still enjoyed visiting other parts of the temple complex.

We took a taxi over to a mall to pick up a quick bit of lunch and then took the Skytrain and metro over to Chinatown. To be honest, this wasn't a place I'd really thought about visiting, but Claudio wanted to see it, as it had been featured on a Chilean TV programme.

While we were in the metro, the lack of sleep really began to hit me, and I was actually falling asleep a bit while standing up. But as soon as we stepped out into the streets of Chinatown, the smell of durian accosted us and woke me up good and proper!

Bangkok's Chinatown is really different to the picturesque streets of London's Chinatown - it's noisy, choatic and crowded. In fact, it's rather like how we imagined Bangkok would be in general, though the rest of the city surprised us with how modern and attractive it is. This is the part of the city where you can find culinary delights such as scorpions and maggots on sticks! It certainly wasn't our favourite part of the Thai capital, but it was interesting to experience.

We had hoped to do some other activity in the evening, even if that was just going to the hotel pool, but as soon as we got back to the hotel, I went to sleep and pretty much slept all the way through to the following morning. After that, my jet lag was finally gone!

This was our last full day in Bangkok, as the next day we took a day trip to see the historic temples in Ayutthaya. Overall, we had a fantastic time in the city, and liked it a lot more than we expected to. It would have been nice to have spent a bit longer there, but who knows, maybe we'll have the chance to go back at some point in the future!

Bangkok Days 1 & 2: Wat Pho, The Grand Palace and Wat Arun

Hello again!

We've just got back from the honeymoon of our dreams and I have so much to write about it all! As you might have guessed from the title of this post, we went to Thailand, spending a few days in Bangkok, two days at a jungle camp in Khao Sok National Park and a week at a beach resort in Khao Lak. During those two weeks, we also took day trips to the historic city of Ayutthaya, James Bond Island and other nearby sights, and the Surin Islands. So we packed a lot in, but at the same time, I feel like we had a lot of time to just relax and enjoy being in the moment.

I hadn't mentioned exactly where we were going on our honeymoon on this blog before, because Claudio says it's best not to tell too many people about things you're really looking forward to, in order not to tempt fate. I think he's right about that, because everything about this trip turned out even better than we imagined, and we both feel it was very possibly the best holiday we've ever had.

Our trip started out with us travelling down the M4 to Heathrow Airport on a rainy, windy Sunday and touching down in the humid heat of Bangkok the following afternoon. It was the first time either of us had ever been to Asia, and we couldn't quite believe we were finally there, especially Claudio, as it's almost unheard of for Chileans to travel to this part of the world. 

We didn't really know what to expect from the first part of our trip. To be honest, out of our three destinations, I think Bangkok was the part we were least excited about beforehand. However, we actually ended up loving our time there, and would have even liked an extra day or two or in the city.

We spent our first evening in our hotel, the Rembrandt Hotel, which had a kind of old-fashioned grandeur, which we quite liked.

Naturally, our favourite part was the rooftop pool! Even though it was actually on the 4th floor rather than the top of the building, it had great views across the city. After we got settled into our room, Claudio suggested going for an evening swim, which was a great idea, as it helped relax our muscles after the exhausting flight and also got us into the holiday feeling.

Back in our room later, I had my first taste of Thai food in Thailand! I ordered a red curry, which I expected to be similar to the Thai curries I've had at Thai restaurants in the UK. However, it was much, much spicier! The first mouthful was a bit of a shock, but after that, it was really delicious.

The next morning was when the jet lag hit us. We woke up at around 4 am feeling wide awake. I then made the mistake of going back to sleep too soon to the time when we wanted to get up and really struggled to get out of bed. But after some coffee and breakfast, we were ready to go and get the metro over to the city's main sights. We had a bit of a laugh at this sign in the metro station!

We got off at Sanam Chai station, which is one of the most beautiful underground stations we've ever been to.

The first place we visited was Wat Pho, a temple complex where you can find the famous Reclining Buddha statue.

We were absolutely amazed by the variety of temples, stupas and statues in the complex - it was completely unlike any place either of us had ever visited before. Some of the structures were so beautiful and ornate that it was almost hard to process.

The Reclining Buddha was definitely the highlight. At 46 metres long and 15 metres high, the size of it was just incredible.

Before continuing with our sightseeing, we stopped at a café for a energy boost. Claudio had a pineapple smoothie and I had mango sticky rice. This is a famous Thai dessert that I wanted to try, though I didn't expect to like it very much, as I sometimes find mango can taste soapy. However, this Thai mango was absolutely delicious and the dessert as a whole was really tasty and filling.

Our next stop was the Grand Palace. We had to make a quick detour to buy some elephant print trousers before entering, because the guard told us Claudio's shorts were too short. Claudio felt a bit embarrassed wearing them, even though there were many other men in the same position, but I was happy, as I'd wanted to buy a pair for myself anyway, and they became mine for the rest of the trip!

The Grand Palace is a complex of buildings including the famous Temple of the Emerald Buddha, and was another place that was hard to take in just because of the sheer amount of opulence surrounding us. It was even hard to take decent photos because almost every metre of space was taken up by a beautiful building or stupa.

Our final sightseeing stop of the day was Wat Arun, which lies on the other side of the river and is one of the most iconic landmarks of the city. We took the ferry over, which was only 5 baht, and then had a nice time exploring the temple. We even climbed part way up the main pagoda which was a bit scary but gave us great views! 

Back on the other side of the river, we looked for somewhere to grab some food, but lots of places were either closed or full. We eventually found a small place on a side street, where Claudio ordered noodles with tomato and an egg, and I ordered a tofu Pad Thai (the first of several during our trip!). Claudio was underwhelmed by his, but mine was pretty good.

We then went back to the hotel on the metro. By this point, it was rush hour, and more and more people got on the train as it travelled towards our stop, Sukhumvit. It was interesting to see that when we got off the train, people on the platforms waiting to get on had formed orderly queues - something we'd like to see happen in our own countries!

We spent the evening at the hotel, relaxing and swimming in the pool. We then decided to have dinner at the poolside restaurant, which is actually a Mexican restaurant. The food was amazing, especially the guacamole, which the chef made in front of us, and the setting was so nice. A great way to end our first full day in Bangkok!

Come back soon to read about our next day in Bangkok, when we discovered several different sides to the city, and met some of its animal inhabitants!