Disembarkation...

After leaving the plane, the first thing we noticed. was O God it was HOT! At least a good 29c and very humid. This made the once leisurely stroll between plane and airport a race to move from one air conditioned room to another (Good thing is I assume this issue will never come up again...)

Security, whilst long, was fairly pain free. Fingerprints and face scans and such. Then onto baggage which again wasn't as painful as usual, pretty sharpish off the carousel. We then set about finding some transport to the hostel. 

We had all very good intentions of finding the BTS skytrain and catching that to the city centre, then getting a stomp on to the hostel. A slick 1hr 30mins. At the airport however, we realised this was of course a ridiculous idea and proceeded to get a 30min taxi instead. I think we got a little taken advantage of here, paying something like 5x the normal taxi rate, but still cheaper than a taxi in Bristol. 

First thoughts of Bangkok; there is a lot of cars. But considering the stereotypes of driving in Asia (and seeing the crazy driving in action in Russia and Turkey), it wasn't too bad. I would later find out that this might be the most absurd thing I've ever said. We learned a lot of the drive from the airport. First that Digital Data is destroying the environment:

Second, translations are not a strong suit for the marketers here

It took us quite some time to get to the hostel, it was quite a long way to go from the airport, and apparently police closing random roads for random reasons at random times isn't all too uncommon. We finally got here and were fairly impressed by the hostel from the outside, check in was easy, although there card reader wasn't working, so we couldn't pay the remainder of the room (o no... how will we cope...we'll have to drown our sorrows... using all the extra money...).

The room is fairly basic (read almost nothing inside) but it does have air conditioning and because it's low season, we're pretty much the only people here, so the shared bathroom is now our very own, very detached, ensuite.

We thought we should probably get something to eat to help our body clocks adjust. Trying to be a little authentic, we decided to ask for some street food recommendations. Luckily enough the strip of road between the hostel and the river is filled with street food vendors. Score! We literally walked across the road and the first place we saw was a little street place with metal folding tables with what must have been kids stools at them. Very haphazard and not the kind of professional place we are used to (this ain't no shitting nandos).

But the smell was incredible!

We literally got a sniff of the duck and noodle broth and just sat down for some grub. The language barrier was an issue, with nothing in English and no prices, but we ham fisted our way through and did get some food in the end. It was beautiful, really rich broth, tasty noodles and amazing duck. I may have gone a little hardcore on the chilli, but what doesn't kill us makes us stronger (and cry manly tears of growth). We debated quite hard on whether to get another bowl (literally can't explain how good it was). We thought better and signalled for the bill and made some guesses on how much we might think it cost. We thought, in Bristol, we would be willing to pay £5 (c400 Baht) per bowl, pretty decent lunchtime food. When the waitress came over and wrote the amount down (we obviously couldn't understand when she told us the amount), it came to a grand total, both bowls, to £2.10 (90 Baht). Amazing food for these prices, I think we're going to enjoy this. 

Fun side note, the restaurant is this one (https://goo.gl/maps/QsmTi2kg6SnTVNf16) and the name translates to "Braised duck noodles, Chinese medicine, Aphai"

It was eating here that we decided the tagline for this trip needs to be "McDonalds...Not even once". Tasting the amazing food from literally the first place we saw, we decided we couldn't go anywhere that we knew from the UK (McDonalds, Starbucks, KFC etc). 

We then went for a little wander down the road, looking at and smelling all the other street food vendors. Various broths, rice's, noodles and meat & fish on sticks. Looking forward to trying more. At the end of the road you come to the river and one of the main bridges over to Bangkok proper. We stopped and had a few photos and headed back to the hostel.

Sleep was needed as I don't think this is going to be a slow paced city.