The best reward for a busy week at work is a lazy weekend, right? Well, free weekend at least, no plans, no schedule, no stress no nothing. Time to explore the city I would say! Time to see something outside my dear Ratchaprarop street...
My adventure began with getting lost (of course)...well sort of. It was quite sunny, about 40 Celsius outside and the streets were crowded with demonstrators - what do I do? Decide to safe 20 Baht (that's like less than 50 cents) and walk instead of taking the sky train...I've never claimed to be too clever...and the outcome? No (safe) way getting thru the demonstration, had to walk back to the sky train station (about 1 hour extra walking in the heat) and ride it anyways. Hah.
What did I do next? Traveled to the river, took the boat to some tourist destinations I was interested in seeing - and got blocked again by the demonstrators. Damn red-shirts :) I kept on fighting my way back thru the crowd thou, until I reached the line of the riot policemen and finally felt I had tried my luck long enough...
At the end it was still a fun day, got to see some Wats (Tempels), the Giant Swing, walk a lot (and still some more), ate well and spent the rest of the evening shopping. Not too bad.
'The next day I was lucky enough to have a local guide, my new friend Pan. Saw some more wats, climbed some more stairs, walked some more and drank my first Thai-beer. And got to experience the famous Khao San road - and ate well, again.
I tried to be a good tourist, carried my camera around my neck most of the time and even used it...more will follow, as soon as I have more days off from work (looking forward to easter and songkran!). The results you can see in facebook...here? maybe later. Now it's time to enjoy some papaya for dinner - njam :)
maanantai 29. maaliskuuta 2010
keskiviikko 24. maaliskuuta 2010
Why I Have a Travel Insurance
3 days ago I arrived in Bangkok. A city that is to become my new home, in a continent yet almost unexplored to me. My expectations? Great food for sure, warm if not even hot climate, friendly people, crowded streets and cheap foot massages...
What have I got? The temperature that is definitely hot, also inside. Friendly people, although less of those on the crowded streets...maybe shouldn't put that one in plural as my experiences so far are rather limited to one street, where at the one end is my "home" and at the other my work place. And here we come to why I haven't yet managed to try the (cheap) foot massage - time has been limited and spent at home sleeping and at work working like a mad man. But the food is great.
Not that I would complain - there will be the weekends and I'll have 5 extra days off from work in April as the Embassy will be closed due to some holidays. Easter I knew of, Shongkran should be more interesting - we'll get to that later! And since my new collegues are fun to work with and the tasks at work are very interesting and challenging, why not spend some extra hours at work every day (life outside work is over-exaggerated anyways, right?)
Even if limited to a rather small part of a rather big city, my experiences so far are rather positive. A good beginning, if nothing else...
Many of my dear friends asked me to keep a blog so here we go! I'll try to stay active here and keep you up-dated on how I explore the world, street by street...stay tuned.
And to the title, as a warning to others...one-way streets in Bangkok seem to mean that it is allowed for the buses (and for the tuk-tuks and for the motorcycles andandand) to use the furthest lane for driving in the opposite direction...(what comes to the tuk-tuks and to the motorcycles, anything seems to be allowed).
What have I got? The temperature that is definitely hot, also inside. Friendly people, although less of those on the crowded streets...maybe shouldn't put that one in plural as my experiences so far are rather limited to one street, where at the one end is my "home" and at the other my work place. And here we come to why I haven't yet managed to try the (cheap) foot massage - time has been limited and spent at home sleeping and at work working like a mad man. But the food is great.
Not that I would complain - there will be the weekends and I'll have 5 extra days off from work in April as the Embassy will be closed due to some holidays. Easter I knew of, Shongkran should be more interesting - we'll get to that later! And since my new collegues are fun to work with and the tasks at work are very interesting and challenging, why not spend some extra hours at work every day (life outside work is over-exaggerated anyways, right?)
Even if limited to a rather small part of a rather big city, my experiences so far are rather positive. A good beginning, if nothing else...
Many of my dear friends asked me to keep a blog so here we go! I'll try to stay active here and keep you up-dated on how I explore the world, street by street...stay tuned.
And to the title, as a warning to others...one-way streets in Bangkok seem to mean that it is allowed for the buses (and for the tuk-tuks and for the motorcycles andandand) to use the furthest lane for driving in the opposite direction...(what comes to the tuk-tuks and to the motorcycles, anything seems to be allowed).
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