Welcome to China Town

We planned another day on foot taking in the sights sounds and food of bustling Bangkok.

When I worked as a tour guide for Intrepid, their start point hotel was in Banglamphu, in the Old city are known as Rattanakosin.

This area is north of our hotel so we decided to wander over to that part of town, heading along Yaowarat rd and through China Town.

Of course every great city has a China Town and Bangkok can certainly boast that it has one of the best. As we wandered along Yaowarat rd you could be forgiven for truly believing you were in China itself. The street and shop signage all morphed from Thai characters to Chinese as soon as we past Traimit temple.

It seems everyone has something to sell. Street vendors were crammed along the street with all sorts of bits and bobs for sale. No one was in your face to sell sell sell. Just happy smiles stained with Paan ( a betel leaf and areca nut combo chewing stimulant that stains your teeth blood red )

Little alley ways disappear off the main street lined with umbrellas and market stalls selling everything from dried fish to children’s clothing and excellent fresh fruit.

The older buildings along the street are only a few stories high and have a semi derelict look about them and they reminded us both of buildings we saw in Penang, Malaysia.

We headed towards Bangkok’s Grand palace and Wat Pho, one of its finest, and oldest Buddhist temples in Bangkok and is famous for the 46 m long reclining Buddha.

Gools and I had both visited this part of town many times before so we simply enjoyed wandering around the busy streets that surrounded these iconic Bangkok landmarks.

We didn’t think we were hungry until we heard the wok tossing scrapes of the street vendors sitting on their little stools. We decided to search for the foodie place we discovered yesterday. Quite a hike but time to kill. It had a number of street food stalls all clustered together called “The Walking Street’ near Surawong Rd.

Gool’s had an omelette stuffed with diced pork, carrots and shallots, atop a plate of fried rice. I tucked into sautéed greens with chilli and chicken and rice. Once again delicious and cheap. A wopping $2 a serve.

Lips buzzing from our over excited dose of chilli we made our way back to our hotel.

After a bit of chill time and a couple of cold ‘Singha’ beers we headed out for dinner.

Once again we stumbled across another set of street vendors and made our choice of fish curry for Gool’s and and chicken and snake bean curry for Thommo.

It was a great way to finish our day before heading home for an early night. We have a 4 am taxi ride to the airport booked for tomorrow! Next stop Delhi!