Thursday 6th October 2022
Not much to write about yesterday – we flew from Cairo to Amman, Jordan in the morning. Original plan was to take a bus into the city, but I had developed a cold and Pete was struggling to walk (the effects of squatting in a pyramid tunnel for too long!) so we had a very chilled day in the airport (me slowly sipping red wine, Pete intermittently napping), as our flight to Bangkok departed late at night.
We landed at 3.15pm local time, but by the time we’d cleared security and customs, waited for our bags, and navigated the vast airport it was getting close to 5pm. Pete sent me into a bit of a panic, when he casually mentioned they’d not stamped our passports when we went through security. I was sure we needed this to exit the country, and a quick google search confirmed this! After frantically looking through our passports, we breathed a big sigh of relief to find there were indeed stamps with our entry date into the country.
The next challenge was to find out where to get our Grab (an Uber type app widely used over here) from. The airport has multiple levels, which all seem to reachable by road. We eventually found out it was Level 2, exit 3 for Grab car pickups and had a smooth journey into Bangkok. After Cairo, I was surprised by how calm and organised the roads seemed, with no one feeling the need to honk their horn.
We checked into our hotel, dropped our bags, then headed out for dinner. We were staying at Hotel Orchid 153, and I was very impressed with the large, comfortable room we got for the c.£10/night we’d paid (although the shower and toilet were in the same cubical, which was a little weird – we had to keep remembering to remove the toilet paper before we had a shower so it didn’t get soaked!)
We ate at a little restaurant called Momo Samsen. As it’s in the name, we had to order the momos (we chose pork) followed by a chicken Thai green curry with rice and chicken fried noodles. We shared all the dishes, and they were divine. Definitely the best Thai green curry I’ve ever eaten (the only one in Thailand though, so hopefully there will be many more to match it on our travels!)
After dinner, we headed to the infamous Khaosan Road for a drink. We didn’t actually make it that far though, as the rain had resumed. So we ducked into a nice bar on neighbouring Soi Rambuttri Road, which had some live music (a guy playing guitar and singing, he was very good!). When I say ducked inside, we actually sat outside but it was fully covered so we stayed dry.
After a couple of drinks, we braved the rain and walked back to our hotel to bed.
Friday 7th October 2022
I think we must be very jet lagged! (Plus I’m still recovering from my cold). Woke up to Pete saying, “wow it’s quarter to eleven” – we never wake anywhere near that late. After showering and dressing, we went in search of lunch. We ate at an awesome little restaurant called Nava – it’s always a good sign when you’re the only obviously foreign looking people in the restaurant and no English is spoken! We ordered a shrimp Pad Thai and a peppery soupy chicken noodle dish (can’t remember the name!). Both were excellent, but the Pad Thai was definitely my favourite – I loved the salty, crispy, tiny shrimp in it.
Our plan was to head to the Grand Palace, but we got waylaid by a friendly local who started chatting to us. He gave us directions to the Grand Palace, but also said it was closed today (I wasn’t 100% sure whether to believe him, but we gave him the benefit of the doubt), and instead gave us a list of places (mainly involving Buddhas) that he recommended. He also suggested we visit by tuk tuk, and very conveniently, one just happened to turn up at that minute. We didn’t particularly want to take a tuk tuk, so politely declined – they tried to persuade us, but were way less persistent than the guys in Cairo.
We didn’t have a specific plan for the day, so walked in the direction that the tuk tuk guy said the big Buddha was (although we never did find it). We shortly passed by the Democracy Monument.
I was quite surprised how eager the locals were to point out Pete’s belly on our walk “me 5 months pregnant, you 7 months pregnant, hahaha”. Although I guess being around 6ft he does stand out a bit (not so much in the touristy areas filled with westerners though).
We carried on along our way, and shortly came across Royal Pavilion Mahajetsadabadin, a royal pavilion set in a neat little park.
We carried on walking, until Pete spotted a Model 3 Tesla – which of course he needed to take a photo of. Unfortunately, we were right outside the army base so immediately had a guard running to tell us off as photos weren’t allowed, ooops!
Luckily we were allowed to continue on our way (and Pete get to keep his photo!) and walked further down the road to a temple, Wat Benchamabophit Dusitwanaram
Just after we’d entered the temple, it started raining. There was a small cafe / ice cream stall with a bit of shelter, so we decided to grab an ice cream. Good decision – even as we walking over, the heavens opened and it started absolutely pouring with rain.
The rain morphed into a huge thunderstorm, so we ended up staying there for well over an hour. It was actually quite relaxing though, and the ice creams were good too.
As soon as the rain eased, we we started off back to our hotel. Although it was no longer a torrential downpour, we still got pretty soaked so went to our room to change and relax for a short while.
It was still raining when we went out for dinner, but the hotel very kindly gave us a couple of umbrellas to borrow. We already knew exactly where we were going – last night we’d spotted a small outdoor food cart, where they were were constantly stir frying delicious smelling food, with a continuous stream of motorbikes coming to collect them for what I assume were takeaways. It seems to be predominantly takeaway based, but they were happy to set up a little for us outside, but under the shelter of a roof canopy. We ordered chicken fried noodles, and pad kee mao with crispy pork. We were both in agreement that the pork was our favourite dish we’d eaten in Thailand so far – crispy yet melt in the mouth, and the sauce was flavoursome with a nice kick to it! We enjoyed it so much we ordered a “dessert” to share of crispy pork fried rice.
It was still a bit wet, so we headed to the nearest bar on the main road for a couple of beers and to update our blogs before retiring to bed.
Emma and Pete’s Asian Adventure 