Arrived late evening in
Bangkok, we have struggled greatly to find a guest house to spend the night, but in the end as usual, luck helped us. An arrangement that initially seemed very bad, especially for the reduced size of the rooms (looked like cages, cells or so), but then we used to and all in all it was not all that bad ... then the price was really low!
Bangkok offers really everything you want ... ask and you will be given ... whatever you're looking for any in
Bangkok you can get! Incredible!
We spent the first day dazed by the size of the city, trying to understand it, to capture the essence ... but
Bangkok is not easy. Our guest house was near one of the most lively and crowded (with tourists) across the city: Khao San Road. It is a way in which you develop a large open air market that offers mostly clothing. The interesting thing is that you can find branded products (including major brands Italian) a very insignificant price. Also for this reason we spent the next two days to go shopping. Seemed crazy wild, children in the country of balocchi, bees on honey ... it was not easy to switch off but after 48 hours non-stop shopping, we were able to detoxify.
In the evening we returned to our guest house and we had a meeting to say the least essential if you really want to see
Bangkok: Tuk Tuk a men.
To turn the city there are essentially two ways: by taxi or tuc tuc which is a sort of Piaggio Ape, used for transporting passengers. I tuc tuc are everywhere, and all illegal or that there is little clean them in
Bangkok you can procure him, in fact, I want to procure. Tuc Tuc The men in fact take a percentage of what they sell and even to sell "ancillary services" are willing to take you around for free. It is not easy to explain in two words contorted this mechanism and perhaps is not the place to do it ... Only one thing, if you happen to go from here Statec careful, try to take from curiosity, but in the end believe us, it take a regular taxi.
Jatu Jak market
I said that we were exiting the tunnel shopping ... But not completely. The fourth day we spent visiting another market: the market Jatu Jak. To get there we have developed a trick: we have stopped a tuc tuc, and we have told us where we wanted and in return we suggested that the same evening we went where he wanted him ... but promise nothing and do not give anything for certain. In this way we managed to cadge the passage of return, without spending a cent at the end we invented that one of the three of us were wrong and the story is over there ... seems easy but it is not!
But let us return to the market Jatu Jak ... really huge, a city within a city, this is not a case of the largest outdoor market in the world! Needless to say, it is necessary to turn a map, and despite this we have also lost a couple of times!
The fifth day we have well thought of us a bath of culture ... and so, using the same trick on the day before we hired another tuc tuc. Without the promise of the case, we direct the Golden Mountain, a small promontory in which the top characteristic is constructed temple (Wat Saket) with an immense dome of sea bream in which they kept the sacred ashes of Lord Buddha. Apart from that also offers a breathtaking view of the city.
It was then the turn of the gigantic Stanting Buddha, a huge reproduction of a Buddha of oratio strictly standing (given the name). The exact size we can not provide it, but believe it is really huge!
The last stop of the day the marble temple (Wat Benchamabophit), constructed according to the classic Thai architecture but with an entirely Italian material: white marble.
It ended so our first part of the visit in
Bangkok on ... to 9:30 the same day we took the night train to the north of Thailand ... the direction of Chiang Mai for three days of hard trekking.