Dear friends,
Thailand is amazing, absolutely a place to visit (and to come back, in my case!).
As soon as I arrived to the airport I've noticed some strange characteristics about this country: considered poor but with some technological things to remain surprised! For example, the webcam in front the immigration desk, used to take your photo and to see if it really match with your passport! More, the traffic light with a panel on top used to tell you how long you must wait before the next green light (so you don't get stress)....the new underground 10 times better than Rome (most of the underground around the world are better than those one found in Italy...:-( and more and more...
Living in Thailand is really really cheap: after have paid 200 bath for a single room you can have breakfast for 50-100 bath more, then you can travel around the city with tuk-tuk (similar to taxi) or local transportation (extremely cheap and interesting), have some snack on the way with local fresh fruits (pineapple is my favorite!), then have lunch or dinner for 150 bath or less! A beer it could cost 100 bath in expensive places, generally it ranges from 50 to 100 bath anyway!
Thus, at the end of a day you can spend something like 500-800 bath with corresponds to 10-15 euro!!!
I'm really enjoying stay here in Thailand, just Bangkok impressed me enough to like this country, and now that I'm in the south (on the islands!) my idea of Thailand is even better! Bangkok itself has many many attractions: Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew are two amazing temple where you can spend a whole day, amazing objects and architecture completely different from the Western culture! Another interesting temple is "Temple of Dawn" , cool to see and also you're forced to use the local boats to reach the other side of the river (it cost 3 BATH, less than 2 cent of euro!!!). Other interesting areas are Silom rd (especially for the nightlife), Sukhumvit rd for its local market (and some great salsa clubs absolutely to see...people here dance really really good!), Jim Thompson's house to have an idea about how the old Thai houses were, and Vimanmek Mansion if you're interested in a old style rich house (I think the king lived there, not sure!)
Moving around Bangkok is another amazing experience: you can bargain with those "tuk-tuk" (as italian, I always have make great deals, but most of the people just pay for what they ask!), use normal taxi with meter or, the BOAT! Bangkok has a main river and many channels so you can ride a local boat (just like Venice) and travel in some areas of the city, an experience absolutely to do! Also, there are motorbike driver that can be useful when there is traffic, but of course they are a little bit more expensive and very dangerous...dangerous for not italian people, in Rome I was used to drive even more crazy than them, but for the average people it is considered quite dangerous.....did anyone of you have had a ride on my Vespa when I was in Rome??!!
Anyway, just staying in Khaosan rd and around it could take 2-3 days, too many interesting things to see and do, it's hard to find the words to tell you why here is so good, maybe the main reason is because everything is so different from European style that really attract me!
As you should know, I'm a salsa dancer so after few days I've found some clubs where to dance latin music! I didn't believe Bangkok was so good about latin places, instead just staying at the bar and watching the people dancing can be really enjoyable...but of course I haven't been there to watch! Thai girls are really good with salsa, some of them mix salsa and tango steps, making this dance really interesting! If you're interested to dance salsa in Bangkok, let's visit "La rueda" on Thursday or "Fico vivo" on friday, but I recommend to check the latest news on google since places always change!
Unfortunately Thailand is also very famous for the cheap sex and prostitution. Fortunately I still don't need of them but if you came here it's hard to no find those girls on the streets or in go-go bars! I don't like at all since if you are interested to meet a Thai girl, it's basically impossible to meet a "normal" one, everybody ask you for money, even inside normal clubs or bars (fortunately the salsa bars are fine, girls doesn't look to be prostitutes). One of the worst places where this problem is so evident is Pattaya, where I spent only one night, enough to understand how the system works! Those girls must work for a kind of pimp (which is generally a normal man/woman that own a bar), and they work till late all nights looking for customers! Now, if you like one of them, you can pay directly how much they ask or, if the girl likes you, you can just pay some money to the pimp to make free the girl for that night, then the girl became normal girl and it's up to you to decide what to do (just to let you know, I've spent one night there with my mexican friend Ancel and we where talking with those girls in one of those go-go bars, talked enough to guess of it work, maybe the system is different, I haven't tried but it looks like that!).
Bargains with all the local markets, taxi, prices for goods are considerer normal here, but if you think in other currencies, at the end you're dealing for cents, so after a while is not so exciting anymore....but still, I like to bargain to reduce the price since I know that the showed price is for tourist and not for local people!
Anyway, this was only an overall of Bangkok, next post will be about the islands (south Thailand!), which are famous worldwide.
See ya next post
Andrea
No comments:
Post a Comment