Saturday 22 September - Bangkok, Thailand

View of Bangkok from our hotel room

We left Australia after spending 5 very relaxing days at Holloways Beach north of Cairns. We were starting to get itchy feet, so it was good to be on the move again even if it meant 24 hours of travelling. We arrived in Bangkok at 11.30 pm and were greeted by a wall of heat and humidity. Since it was very late and also quite cheap (compared to UK prices) we decided to take the limousine service from the airport to the hotel. We travelled in complete luxury in a brand new BMW 7-series for £10! Even our tight budget stretches to paying for a room at a 5-star hotel, it is very nice to be cocooned in such a bustling city like Bangkok.

Bangkok is a fascinating and crazy place that is an onslaught to all your senses. The heat and humidity is suffocating, the noise is deafening, there are masses of people and traffic everywhere, people shouting at you trying to sell you things you don't want, condensation from air conditioners dripping on your head and shoulders as you walk down the street, hawker stalls cooking all manner of intruiging food on tiny and very hot BBQs giving off delicious smells of thai food, street stalls selling a random mix of flowers, underwear, illegal copies of DVDs and fake watches, beggars playing instruments badly and in the background is the never ending soundtrack of traffic droning along the streets. Bangkok is an exhausting city unlike anywhere we have been to. This is also a booming city with what seems like an endless number of skyscrapers being constructed in stark contrast to ancient and very ornate temples that are within walking distance no matter where you find yourself.

Family of four on moped, Silom Road, Bangkok

Through the centre of Bangkok runs the Chao Phraya river which can best be compared to a super highway on water. Small boats, large boats, ferries, hotel boats, water taxis, tourist boats and enormous barges move up and down the river with no apparent order or organisation. The river is lined by an eclectic mix of modern sky scrapers, ancient temples and ramshackle homes that look like they could collapse any minute.

The temple of dawn seen from Chao Phraya River

It has been fun, intruiging and tiring being in Bangkok for 4 days. Now we look forward to 2 weeks of cycling from Thailand, through Cambodia ending up in Saigon in Vietnam.

Stephen at the library in the Grand Palace compound. This is where sacred buddhist scriptures are kept