I think I only booked two nights in Bangkok to give myself a chance to recover after the twelve hours on the bus before I get on another bus to Kanchanaburi. It was not a mistake, but my choice in accommodation, forced by my budget, certainly was.
After being ransomed for two hundred Thai baht for a key deposit, I was walked over to the hostel next door, which looked nothing like the Agoda listing. This place was not so much a hostel as a flophouse, a storage place for the destitute and those with nowhere better to be. My dorm room had sixteen beds, was full both nights, and stank of dirty socks with top notes of a Frenchman’s sickly sweet vape. As far as I could tell, no one here sight-seed, worked, or did anything at all. I have stayed in dorms with people who worked, and you are barely aware they are there, this was different. Time seemed to have no meaning to the residents, spending their time in the dorm or the common room downstairs watching videos without headphones. No one was willing to meet my eyes. On the last night on my way to my room, I made the mistake of smiling at a Thai woman, and she glared at me.
That night the water supply to the hostel shut off, and people got even more anti-social as the miasma of unwashed bodies intensified. At ten o’clock the water was restored, I waited another hour lying in my bunk in my own stink before heading downstairs to the three shower stalls that serviced the thirty to forty people staying on the lower floors. I didn’t feel much cleaner, but at least I didn’t smell like nervous sweat and Bangkok grime.
I did manage to take a walk down Khao San Road, the most notorious backpacking strips in the world, featuring heavily in the movie The Beach, and often considered the spiritual heart of backpacking. But now it seems to be a more general tourist trap and party street, complete with loud house music.
That is progress I guess, but I didn’t find it as inviting as I did in 2007 when I was a first-time backpacker. Of course, it’s still loaded with tattoo studios, vendors selling drinks to walk around with (of course I partook) and stalls selling vapes, souvenirs, and smoking implements. Henna, dope, and clothing were all readily available, as well as deep-fried arachnids and insects, if you are hankering for that. There are also some upscale accommodation options that few backpackers, including myself, could afford.
The next morning after a Seven-Eleven coffee, I took a bowel-loosening motorbike taxi to Wat Pho, home to the famous Reclining Buddha.
It was constructed in 1832 by King Rama III, it’s forty-six metres long and fifteen metres high. It’s made up of a brick core, covered by plaster, then gilded. It’s impressive enough as you walk around it trying to get a handle on the size, then you realise that the soles of the feet are inlaid with Mother-of-Pearl, an incredible detail considering that the feet are considered unclean by Buddhist belief.
If you liked this post, please check out the rest of the posts from this trip here!
Adrian's Got The Moose 