The beginning of my journey

Hello dear family and friends,

Over a week has now passed since we landed in the first country of my trip: Thailand. First of all, we are doing very well! The diverse Thai culture fascinates us, the warm temperatures (up to 35 degrees) and the food get us. In the short time we were able to marvel at, try out and experience a lot, but see for yourself!

Arrival and first day in Bangkok

Our journey started right on New Year's Day at Hamburg Airport and took us smoothly via Dubai to the metropolis of Bangkok with a population of 10 million. We took the BTS (similar to the S-Bahn) directly to our hotel (Sathorn district). On the way there we were already hit by Bangkok's heat of 34 degrees. Nevertheless, after the long journey and little sleep, we pulled ourselves together to drive to the first temple, Wat Saket, shortly before sunset. The golden temple complex is located on a small hill from which you get a first overview of Bangkok.

To enter a temple you have to follow a few rules: your shoulders and knees must be covered and your headgear must be removed. However, sometimes more and sometimes less attention is paid to whether this is adhered to and the dress code primarily affects women. So on the first day we bought a sarong (a simple cloth that you can tie around your waist) for Nele. Over several steps, past bells, all the golden Buddha statues and incense sticks, you reached the top of Wat Saket. From there you can see the setting sun and how the lights in Bangkok slowly turn on. It was a really nice moment to arrive in Bangkok. We could already see some of the sights in the distance and went back to the hotel looking forward to the days ahead.

Second day in Bangkok

On the second day, after sleeping in, we went across the Chao Phraya River, which winds through Bangkok, to another temple, Wat Arun. This would later be one of our highlights of Bangkok.

It is decorated with elaborate porcelain mosaics and consists of a main tower (prang) in the middle, around which four other smaller towers are arranged. We were also lucky enough to be able to visit the temple as the sun was setting or to view it from the other bank of the Chao Phraya.

In addition, the second day in Bangkok was to be the beginning of our love for street food (food stalls). As we took the boat from Wat Arun to the other side of the river, hunger overwhelmed us and we stopped, fascinated, at a small food stand. There a woman was preparing so-called “roti” at a crazy pace. These can be somewhat compared to crepes and can be topped with different ingredients. Our choice fell on one with banana and Nutella, which we tried a few meters away on the side of the road.

For dinner we visited the Night Market, a 15 minute walk from our hotel. Since we didn't quite dare to go to the food stalls for the main meal, we went to eat in a restaurant in front of it for the equivalent of €5 per person. We then bought a portion of “Sticky Rice & Mango” at the market for dessert. This is sweet sticky rice with mango and coconut milk - simply delicious!

Trip to Ayutthaya

For the next day we spontaneously decided to take a trip by train to Ayutthaya, an hour away. Early in the morning we stood at the huge train station in Bangkok to get on the train and I would be lying if we weren't a little skeptical about how the whole thing would turn out. Our doubts were ultimately unfounded because the Thais were really well organized here. It's a bit like at the airport: you wait until the train is called, then your ticket is checked and only then are you allowed to enter the platform and the train. So we set off for Ayutthaya punctually at 9:30 a.m. (which Deutsche Bahn could copy from).

A quick bit about Ayutthaya to help you understand it better: It used to be the capital of the Kingdom of Siam. Thirty-three kings ruled here for over 400 years and it was declared the capital for the first time in 1350. During this time, many different temple complexes were built, but they were destroyed and looted during the siege by the Burmese in 1767. In any case, we came with the idea of starting a little temple marathon and being able to marvel at the different influences of the temples, some of which are over 600 years old. At first it was just hot.

Probably the most famous temple that you could visit was Wat Mahathat. In this one, a Buddha head has grown into a fig tree over the years.

After a refreshing drink and a small meal, our temple marathon continued with four more. The highlights here were the Wat Phra Si Sanphet and the Wat Lokkayasutha (reclining Buddha).

In general, we have to say that Ayutthaya really offers a lot of different temples, but the day trip (especially when it was over 32 degrees) was definitely enough for us. So it was a really tiring day for us and unfortunately the train was delayed by an hour (perhaps we praised the Thai train too early after all).

Two more days in Bangkok

We originally planned to only stay in Bangkok for four days. We still lost a day on our day trip to Ayutthaya and since we still had a few things on our Bangkok list that we would like to see, we simply extended the accommodation by one night. That's the advantage over a package holiday: you can decide for yourself when, where and how long you want to be. This meant we now had another two full days to further explore Bangkok.

Thailand is a kingdom and has been a constitutional monarchy since 1932. King Maha Vajiralongkorn has ruled since 2016. With a total fortune of $30 billion, he is the richest royal in the world and is not entirely without controversy. He welcomes his guests in the “Grand Palace”, which is a must-do for anyone visiting Bangkok. We walked through the palace with hundreds of tourists who were led through the huge complex by their guides in the midday heat. We now stood in the middle of these crowds with our audio guides and listened to the reports about the various temples and buildings of the “Great Palace”. It is really an impressive place and - without question - important for the Thai government, but on our next visit we would probably come in the morning or shortly before closing time to avoid the heat and the many tourist buses.

After an intensive 1.5 hour in the royal palace, we had to cool down with freshly cut fruit and cold drinks from the numerous food stalls before heading to nearby Wat Pho. There is a 46 meter long and 15 meter high reclining Buddha. This is completely gold-plated and is of course the main attraction of the temple complex.

However, Wat Pho is much more than just the reclining Buddha. As we explore the complex, we discover other towers (Chedi) that were decorated similarly to Wat Arun and other smaller halls with different Buddha statues.

For our last day we had two destinations: Lumphini Park and Chatuchak Weekend Market. We took the BTS again to the station at Lumphini Park. Similar to Central Park in New York, it is located in the middle of the city and has many skyscrapers all around it. The special feature of this park is that there are a lot of Komodo dragons in the two lakes and like to cross the paths in front of the visitors.

After we were able to marvel at some of these animals, we continued to the Chatuchak Weekend Market. It consists of around 15,000 stalls lined up close together. There really wasn't anything you couldn't buy here. You could really buy everything from imitation branded clothes, plates, figures, pictures to well-known souvenirs. Only if you found something nice at a stand and then moved on, you had to be really lucky to find that stand again on the 1.13 km².

So we let ourselves drift through the events one last time until we finally went back to our hotel to pick up our luggage. Our next destination: Chiang Mai!