Bangkok and the start in the south

Since my laptop has now decided to continue its service, there is another update.

In the meantime, we were in Bangkok. This city is truly a city of superlatives, everything is hectic, thousands of people, street stalls everywhere, and constant traffic jams on the streets. Fortunately, unlike Chiang Mai, there were at least pedestrian traffic lights here, although not many. Often, you just had to weave your way through the traffic on foot to cross the street (often multi-lane :D).

In the hostel, we quickly got to know Marc from Barcelona and Fabienne from Rotterdam, and we went together to visit the Grand Palace. It is located not far from Khao San Road, also from our hostel, so we could walk there.

The entrance fee to the palace itself is 500 Baht (about €12.50), which is a lot for Thailand. Accordingly, our expectations were high as well. Before we were allowed in, we all had to put on long pants or dresses. Fortunately, we were able to borrow them there for a deposit. Then we finally entered the palace, but unfortunately, it did not meet our expectations. Of course, it is beautiful and very impressive, but at the end of the day, they are just temples of which we had already seen enough in Chiang Mai. Another problem was the thousands of Japanese and Chinese tourists and their guides. On the one hand, they all carried sun umbrellas which, due to their size, were always hanging in front of my face or in my eye, and on the other hand, the guides shouted with such loudness through the complex that there was no trace of the peace and relaxation you could expect in such an important temple.

All in all, we were glad when we were out again two hours later and took the river taxi towards the metro. The second destination on Saturday was the Chatuchak Weekend Market, one of the largest markets in the world. Here you can buy everything from clothing to decorations to animals. The clothing is mostly not from brand manufacturers, or if so, definitely not original :D. However, if you want to experience how European tourists get into a real shopping frenzy, this is the place to be :D.

Afterwards, we went back to the hostel, especially Marc and I were looking forward to a cool after-work beer after the long day of shopping. Unfortunately, the Thai government put a stop to that. Exactly on the weekend when we were in BKK, a vote was held on a new constitution in Thailand, which meant that alcohol could not be served or consumed from Saturday at 6:00 p.m. until Sunday at midnight..... We reached the hostel at 6:20 p.m.......

We still went to the Khaosan Road to have something to eat and drink some soft drinks. The street itself was quite well visited, but the bars were, of course, almost empty. It's a pity, we would have liked to spend a real party night in BKK, but it wasn't meant to be.

The next day, Marc and Fabienne continued their journey, and Kristina and I decided to walk around the city and visit various department stores and Chinatown. Chinatown itself is truly amazing. It's simply huge and loud, my guidebook also says it's the largest in the world. In the evening, we went to the Asiatique, the riverfront night market. This market is a bit tidier and more upscale than the others, and it is located directly on the waterfront, easy to reach by river taxi.

The next morning, we started early to go to Victory Monument to take one of the minibusses to Hua Hin. Everything went surprisingly well, but unfortunately, the minibusses don't have a luggage compartment, so we had a problem with our backpacks. However, nobody told us this when we bought the tickets, it was only when we were on the bus that they wanted to charge us for a seat for each backpack. We argued with hands and feet, and in the end, the solution was that the backpacks stayed in the middle aisle. This in turn meant that at every stop, our bus driver had to haul out my backpack, which amused the whole bus because it was simply too heavy for the small and thin Thai guy, but he took it with humor :D.

After a 3-hour drive, we arrived in Hua Hin, a smaller city directly on the coast. After walking 4 km with backpacks in the blazing sun, we finally reached our hotel completely drenched in sweat. In the evening, we took a look at the nightlife and were a bit surprised. Here, too, sex tourism rules, or whatever you want to call it. In any case, in every bar along the nightlife street behind the Hilton Hotel, there are some women sitting and waiting for nice older gentlemen.

Today, we rented a scooter and drove along the coast on our own. After 41 km, we reached Dolphin Bay, where dolphins are often seen, but it is also a beautiful bay with over 7 km of white sandy beach. Riding a scooter in Thailand, or let's say driving in Thailand, is not without its risks. On the one hand, there is supposed to be left-hand traffic here, but it is not uncommon for some, especially scooters, tuk-tuks, or mobile food stalls, to try out right-hand traffic. On the other hand, there are no traffic rules, or nobody cares about them. The only thing that somewhat works are red traffic lights, but even here, you can't rely on them. In the end, there are two rules that may sound stupid to Europeans but work:

1. He who brakes loses

If you drive here as a German like you do at home, it is only a matter of time before someone crashes into you from behind. Even if the Thais see that you are a Farang (foreigner) and therefore usually leave a little more distance, they cannot expect that you will, for example, brake when someone from the left moves onto your lane and accelerates. This type of turning is completely normal, the traffic simply passes the car on the right that is accelerating, and the car itself tries to stay as far left as possible while accelerating.

2. The one with the larger vehicle has the right of way, priority, etc.

If a car drives out, evade or try to brake, here it is assumed that you simply drive around it or stop.

At the end of the day, it wasn't as bad as it seemed. Large intersections in the city or changing lanes across multiple lanes to catch an exit were the most exciting situations, but everything went well. You should always drive attentively and simply adapt to the local driving style, then it will be fine. The small Thai gas stations are quite practical, here the fuel is sold in Coca Cola or water bottles. You simply drive up and buy a bottle, that's how easy refueling can be ;D.