Bangkok - day 1

As our flight descended towards Bangkok we could see the infamous smoke haze that we'd been warned about before leaving. Apparently, this is the season when farmers burn off their old crops, and this can cause visibility to drop and the sky to become a bit opaque. We hoped that this wouldn't have an impact on some of the places that we were going to visit over the next few weeks, but time would tell. One thing that did have an immediate impact was the tropical heat and humidity!
Australia had been in a LaNiña weather phase for the past few years. Sadly, that brought some devastating flooding, but it had helped to keep the temperatures down. Now we had stepped out into a 36 degree day, with 10000% humidity, and heavy backpacks weighing us down. Ok... this might be a little melodramatic because Bangkok's amazing public transport transport system kept us cool, calm and on the move to within 700m of our hostel in Chinatown. But, inevitably, that final 10-minute walk left us drenched in sweat as we tried not to get lost in the maze of alleyways. We eventually found our hostel, and we immediately knew that we'd chosen well.
Photo Hostel & Cafe is run by Klas, a friendly Dutchman who teaches photography courses to locals. The hostel occupies a former residence and only has 4 rooms above its narrow footprint (one per floor). To be fair, although it calls itself a hostel, Photo Hostel was stunning, and could easily have been marketed as a boutique hotel. Actually, it didn't take long to fall in love with Bangkok itself. It was clean, had very efficient public transport, and the locals were friendly. Sadly, we'd only have 3 nights here, but we couldn't wait to get started!

Part 2 by Mel
Getting food recommendations from locals is always the best bet (rather than relying on questionable online reviews) and the cryptic instructions to look out for the street food vendor “with the yellow plastic chairs” was spot on! Our first night and we had our first Bangkok street food win with delicious crispy pork, garlic chicken and stir fried morning glory (Andrew’s all-time fav). 🤤 a strong to start to our culinary adventures…

The next day we were up stupidly early (due to the time zone difference) and headed off to find coffee and to make some plans!
As anyone who knows us would attest, plants and gardens are our happy place and having seen pics of the Jim Thompson House in Bangkok it was #1 on my list!
It also did not disappoint… plenty of inspo for dream garden in this place!
The history of Jim’s life, his house and his role in Thai traditional silk manufacturing was an interesting insight - Thai silk shot to fashion fame after his company’s fabrics were used in the ‘King and I’ musical. The house, grounds and his story (which sadly ended in his mysterious disappearance in Malaysia’s Cameron Highlands in 1967) were a tranquil escape to the bustle of downtown Bangkok.

Back to Andrew:
Jim Thompson House was an amazing oasis of calm, in the middle of the city. But we were realising that the Thai's themselves were pretty chill. Even the ambitious Tuk Tuk drivers, who seemed to be in a perpetual state of hope that you wanted a tour of some kind, weren't oppressively pushy.
After we'd finished with JT House we returned to our corner of China Town for lunch. Corner being the operative word there. We noticed a street vendor that had accumulated a decent assortment of local patrons and went to investigate. On the wok was an elderly lady who looked like she'd been doing this every day of her adult life (and maybe she had). The smells were amazing, and the meals looked enticing. A new fold-out table was set up to accommodate the two tourists, and a menu with pictures was brought to us. Sadly, we couldn't see the dish that had attracted us in the first place, so we pointed to the dish being prepared and looked confused (which didn't take much effort). Realising what we were asking, we were only able to make our the word "special" in her response, but our enthusiastic nods must have told the story, so the menus were removed, and we waited eagerly. As with all our meals so far, the wait was brief, and this one really was special. To describe it simply as a "noodle soup with duck" really doesn't do it justice, but those were the main ingredients. It's anyone's guess what else grandma had put in there, but it was fantastic!

We didn't plan any more sights for that afternoon, because we knew that we'd have a big day at THE main attraction tomorrow. And Bangkok currently felt hotter than the surface of the sun, so we saved our energy and got ready to see the Grand Palace and Wat Pho!Read more