Bangkok Part 2 ...

Bangkok is very familiar, like a cosy armchair. We could explore outside of previously trodden ground, but there is a lot of pleasure to be gained from walking the same streets again and finding new alleyways and food stalls in recognisable places. We’ve done a lot of that while we’ve been here, wandering around and rediscovering the same temples we’ve seen before but arriving by a different, or unplanned route. That’s how we found Golden Mountain again – but sadly it had already closed for the day, so we walked the perimeter and went back a day or two later.

It’s not the most exciting temple, but it has some great views from the top, and the walk up can be quite haunting, as there are lots of ringable bells along the way and everyone wants to give them a ring – but the sound never feels too loud, it is more of a discordant echo.







The haunting is inevitably helped along by the many memorial plaques and photos placed along the walk up. Half way up Golden Mountain, one of the summer storms started to brew, so we took shelter in a handily placed covered picnic table – excellent place for a storm!







 We had a very relaxing half hour watching the rain crash down while staying mostly dry and getting some cool snaps as we waited!

Once the rain cleared, the view from the top was great, though it was a little overcast still. You get a great 360 of Bangkok - and there's one enormous gong at the top, the king of bells! 

 
Next stop was Wat Suthat and the Giant Swing – sadly not an actual swing but instead a huge red gate in the middle of a roundabout

It’s quite a sight and it was once used in Brahmin ceremonies. Much more interesting is the neighbouring Wat Suthat, a stunning temple complex that is a fully functioning Buddhist temple and welcomes both tourist visitors and regulars. 

Although they were very welcoming, we mostly stayed out of the main temple (which has a very impressive interior with intricately painted walls telling a multitude of stories) and explored the temple surroundings.

We’d forgotten how impressive this temple was – it might even rival Wat Arun for impressiveness, and I’m sure the reverence for the temple shown by the regulars made quite a difference to our perception. The atmosphere inside was intense, and reminded me of visiting cathedrals and churches in the UK.

We’ve seen some pretty scary driving while we’ve been here – crossing the road is a bit of a gamble, even when the lights are green, and the buses are no more likely than the cars or taxis to stop for pedestrians. But the most baffling and heart-warming (though terrifying at the same time) sight is seeing a whole family piled onto a small motorbike. There is often a main adult in control, with another adult sat behind with a baby or toddler on their lap, and in front of the ‘driver’ there are sometimes one or two young children standing up or perched on the driver’s knees. This is the Bangkok school run! You wouldn’t get half way through Bognor or Chichester without being stopped for this traffic transgression, but here it is somehow the norm.

Either side of our sightseeing weekend, we had two days from hell, after all the relaxing into our trip enjoyed so far. We had decided we would reverse our trip – instead of starting in the South and heading North to China, we investigated a bit more and realised winter in Beijing might be a tad cold!

In our defence, we hadn’t originally planned to travel in Asia for quite this long, so the route made perfect sense at one point… but with the extra time added on, Beijing was looking to be poorly timed. I guess it’s a good problem to have, though if only we’d thought of this before… still, those last few weeks at home were VERY hectic! So, to maximise the weather everywhere, we are now going to travel Northern China down to Bangkok before we fly to New Zealand (where it should also be very summery – score!). And in order to do this, we needed to secure our Chinese visa earlier than planned.

We always knew it was going to be a frustrating process getting our visa – there are lots of rules and regulations to follow, and a visit to the Chinese Embassy is an essential. The Embassy in Bangkok was confusing enough to start with – when you arrive there, a sign immediately points you to go round the corner – where there doesn’t appear to be anything other than a backstreet full of shops selling passport photos and offering internet and printing (for those emergency visa needs). After a bit of exploring, however, we realised that ‘around the corner’ actually meant over the road, and it was right there in front of us the whole time. Sadly though – our internet resources had let us down, and the visa office was closed (it opened in the mornings, instead of the afternoons as we’d thought). So we gritted our teeth, vowed to come back first thing the next working day (as the queues are reported to be massive). Of course, the next working day would have to be a Tuesday in this case, as the Monday was a Thai holiday!

So we arrived at 8.30 on the Tuesday morning – to discover that the internet was right about one thing, the queues were massive. People were already lined up outside frantically filling in their forms. We joined them, getting all our paperwork in order, and began queuing to have our forms reviewed before we joined the actual queue – you each get a ticket number as if you’re waiting at a deli. We’d picked up numbers already and were hoping our number would be called soon after we’d had our forms checked… but fortunately this didn’t happen as when our forms were checked we were told they also needed to see our travel insurance details, and they required a photocopy of our passports and the stamp of entry for Thailand to confirm our visa for our stay in Bangkok! So those internet and photocopying shops turned out to be extremely useful. We managed to get all these details together before our numbers were called, but then at the counter we were told we also needed to prove how much money was in our bank accounts… so back to the internet we went, starting to panic as time was ticking on and we really needed our visas asap! (One condition of a visa is that you have already booked your flight and arrival accommodation, so we were due to leave the next night!) So back we went, and this time we were there for another two hours waiting for our numbers to be called. And when they finally were… they did accept our applications, but were close to questioning our route and accommodation throughout China, which we haven’t yet booked or confirmed. This is not something we’ve ever read about being a problem before – so we headed off to get some lunch with the knowledge that any moment now we might get a call saying our application had been rejected and needed to be resubmitted.

We’d applied for a fast track visa, so we went back later that afternoon to collect it (feeling reassured by the lack of phonecall, which had been promised if there were any problems). When we got to the counter, however, we were referred to a different window and then asked to wait for an hour before finally, thankfully, being delivered our visas (without any further questions). Mysterious, but we’re just glad it worked out ok! We headed back to our hostel for a tired celebration drink and dinner, and collapsed into bed feeling mightily relieved that we didn’t have to go back on the day of our flight to reapply!

On our final day in Bangkok, we went for a wander round the local streets, grabbed some lunch and a drink while we wrote our finished our first blog, and took a quick walk to the incredible Standing Buddha. It is unbelievably tall, towering over the awed visitors and praying Buddhists (who barely come up to the Buddha’s ankle). With this sight I mind, we headed back to the hostel, grabbed our bags, and boarded a crowded minibus to the airport. Beijing, here we come!

This blog was brought to you with the musical supervision of Gary Numan's latest album, Dead Son Rising! :)