One night in Bangkok

As I said before, I left from Vienna to Bangkok, where I arrived Wednesday morning, after a short stopover in Doha. From the airport I took the bus to my hostel (which is the only thing I booked for my trip in advance) which is located in Silom. The hostel was definitely a good choice, as it is one of the best I have been at so far and I met people to chat to and hang out with. I was thinking before to choose something in the famous Khao San road, but I am glad I didn't. Khao San is the center of backpackers in Bangkok and everyone is going there and therefore it is a road full or Westerners and Thais who try to sell everything from fake ID's to books, tattoos or food.

Khao san road

Lumpini park

Being still heavily jet-lagged I decided to do sightseeing on the first day and figure out how to continue my travels. I started with a visit to Lumpini park and continued to see the shopping centers around Siam square. As I didn't want to get ripped off by tuk-tuk drivers and since I am a fan of walking anyway, I did most of my sightseeing on the first day by foot. So I was walking for the whole day and collecting impressions of the city. After being on my way for just some minutes, I was already feeling the heat - the temperature is around 35 degrees, so it's a bit warmer than in Austria ;)

At night I visited the infamous Patpong area and was looking around the night market there. I managed to resist temptation so far and didn't buy anything, but I guess it's just a matter of time till I'll take advantage of the really low prices. The next day I continued to visit the main temples and arranged my travel up to the North.
Obviously, I am not the first one to backpack in Thailand so I got many tips where to go and which route to follow. So I decided to go North first and visit Chiang Mai and to meet people I know and then to go South to the islands and eventually to Malaysia and Singapore. For now I plan to do that in a month, which should be fine, but let's see.

I must say I haven't really made up my mind about Bangkok yet. I am generally a fan of big cities so I don't mind pollution and traffic and so on. And somehow I like the bit of chaos, but I don't kow if I could stay here for a long time. I guess I would get bored of the fact that as soon as people see you and recognize you as an non-Thai they try to sell you stuff or offer transport and so on.

current music: Razorlight - Wire to wire