Bangkok

So, What Were Our Favorite… Castles?!

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We’ve finished our RTW trip. We get a lot of questions about our favorite things on the trip, so we’ve decided to start a new series called “So, What Was Our Favorite…” We visited 29 countries on our RTW: Egypt (just 1 day), South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe (just 1 day), Namibia, Germany (just 1 day), Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Turkey, Ireland, USA, Myanmar, Singapore, Indonesia (just Bali), Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Macau, and Nepal.

This edition will cover our top 10 favorite castles/fortresses around the world. These are not in order of preference, instead they are in the order in which we visited them.

Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town, South Africa

The Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town was the first permanent European settlement in South Africa, built by the Dutch East India Company in the 1660s. It is quite beautiful, with yellow walls and a star shape. Entrance includes a tour which we quite enjoyed. We also were fortunate to see the “Key Ceremony” at noon.

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Český Krumlov Castle, Český Krumlov, Czech Republic

This building doesn’t quite look like a fairy tale castle, but was fun to explore! It’s free to walk around the grounds, but to go inside you do have to pay for a guided tour. There are a few different tour options; we chose the one that took us through Renaissance and Baroque era rooms (no pictures allowed inside, unfortunately). We also really enjoyed strolling through at sunset. You can get quite high in the castle which makes for lovely views over the city.

Spiš Castle, Slovakia

As you approach the town of Spišské Podhradie by bus, you are immediately struck by the enormous size and majesty of Spiš Castle on the hill above town. The entrance fee includes the use of an audio guide (free as long as you returned it within 90 minutes). We walked through the castle and listened to the stories on the guide. There actually wasn’t very much left of the castle. The royals stopped living in it in the early 18th century, and then in the late 18th century it burned down. What’s left has more of the feel of an archaeological site than the other castles we visited. It was built in the 12th century and went through many phases of construction and purpose. It has 3 baileys, which we learned were walls to protect itself. It is really more of a fortress. It went through many owners, but always was an imposing view over the valleys nearby.  The grounds of the castle are massive: there are multiple courtyards within the complex. After doing the audio tour, we spent some time just soaking in the ambiance from different places within the structure. The view was great as well!

Diocletian’s Palace, Split, Croatia

This palace takes up a good portion of old town Split. It was built for the retirement of the emperor of the Roman empire around 300 AD. There are an interesting mix of original Roman structures and other houses and shops built during the next several centuries after villagers moved inside the walls following the Slavic invasion in 700 AD. It was awesome to see that the area had been inhabited for so long, with people still living and working inside.

Diocletian's Palace is in the background, with all the modern development now surrounding it

Diocletian’s Palace is in the background, with all the modern development now surrounding it

Fortress and City Walls at Kotor, Montenegro

Kotor has a very impressive defense system. Not only does it have thick walls to protect from attacks from the sea, it also has a series of walls running up the hill behind the Old Town that protect from attacks by land. Today, you can pay a small fee to hike up the old walls all the way to a fort at the very top. We took advantage of this one evening, and had great views over the bay as the sun set.

Gjirokaster Castle, Gjirokaster, Albania

The castle at Gjirokaster offered sweeping views of the valley, an eerie collection of old tanks from WWII, and even a tomb of Bektashi, the founder of the Bektashi sect. It also had an old US Air Force jet that was shot down during communism that was just there, ready to play on. It was nice to spend time in the castle where we didn’t see a lot of other tourists. There was also a museum of more old armory which we did not choose to visit. The views of valley and neighboring mountains were absolutely stunning.

US Air Force Bomber
The castle grounds

Palamidi Fortress, Nafplio, Greece

We took an afternoon to visit the largest of Nafplio’s Venetian fortresses, which doesn’t have much in it but provides excellent views of the surrounding area. You can take a taxi up to the fortress at the top of the hill, but we decided to climb the steps. We didn’t start heading up until 2:00… and were disheartened when we saw a sign at the base that the fortress was closing at 3:00! We raced up the stairs and made it at about 2:30. The good news was that admission was free since it was the first Sunday of the month. We just had time to explore one of the seven bastions, but were quite impressed with the structure. (We think they should film Game of Thrones here!) We were kicked out at 3:00 and regret that we weren’t able to spend more time in the fortress, but we found a piece of the walls that was outside the gates to sit on, and read our books while looking down over the Old Town. It was a great place to relax and then later enjoy the sunset.

Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, Turkey

Topkapi Palace in Istanbul was the home of the Ottoman sultan from 1465 to 1856. The palace has four different courtyards and many exquisitely decorated rooms. We toured through all of the areas open to the public, including the harem which required an extra ticket. The grounds were expansive and, despite sort of bad weather, we enjoyed exploring most of the nooks and crannies. We were particularly excited here because it finally happened!! – Someone recognized Eric’s Rice baseball hat. We met a current Rice student (Jones College) who was studying abroad. How fun!

Wat Phra Kaew and the Grand Palace, Bangkok, Thailand

We spent a hot and crowded day in Bangkok exploring the ceremonial home of the Thai monarchy, the Grand Palace. We paid our steep (500 baht = $15) entrance fee and headed into the first part, Wat Phra Kaew, a.k.a.the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. We first explored the colorful chedis, then braced ourselves and dove into the big crowds squeezing in to see the Emerald Buddha itself. The statue was pretty, but far away and a little small, so we didn’t linger. We left the wat and then walked through the grounds of the palace. This was formerly the residence of the Thai royalty, and there are many fancy buildings that show a mix of Thai and Western architectural styles. Most are closed off to the public, but a few of the throne halls are open, so we wandered through them to see the splendor and take a brief respite from the heat. The splendor of the buildings with colors and sparkles is hard to beat. We also followed a tip from Wayne and Peggy, who had visited the previous day, and finished our visit at the slightly out of the way Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles, which ended making our top 10 favorite museums list.

Imperial Citadel, Hue, Vietnam

The Vietnamese city of Hue was the seat of the Nguyen dynasty and thus the capital of Vietnam from 1802 to 1945. The main remnant of this ruling period is the ruins of the Imperial City, the home of the emperors. It is surrounded by a large wall, and then within the Citadel is another set of walls and the impressive Ngo Mon Gateway into the Imperial Enclosure, where all of the main activities took place. From there we explored the large site which had been largely destroyed during the French and American wars. However, there is a lot of ongoing restoration work. We explored the Thai Hoa Palace which was used for official receptions and important ceremonies before heading to the Hall of the Mandarins. The Forbidden Purple City was once reserved for the personal use  and residence of the emperor, but there is not much left now. Some of the the most beautiful parts of the entire enclosure were the Truong San Residence and the Dien Tho Residence for the wives and mothers of the emperor.

The Ngo Mon Gate (under renovation), the entrance to the Imperial Enclosure

 

Budget: Thailand

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This is one of our Budget series of posts to give you an idea of how much we spent traveling around the world. Here we will look at Thailand. Check our posts to see what kind of activities we did and where we stayed!

In Thailand we used the Thai Baht. We converted to US dollars using the current conversion rates at the time of our visit. It was approximately 3 baht to $0.01.

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Total Spent (23 days): $1415.20

Accommodation: $390.07

We stayed in several places in Thailand. Our first time was in Bangkok for a few days in January before we headed to Myanmar. We returned to Thailand on the the 5th of March and we stayed mostly in small hotels or guesthouses. Much of our time in Thailand, we were traveling with Della’s parents. There was one hotel that we stayed at for 2 nights that Della’s parents paid for as a gift.

Activities: $369.65

This included a lot of things! Entrance fees to museums and wats, a movie in Bangkok, a day with elephants, a cooking class, and even a snorkeling trip!

Alcohol: $31.53

We only count alcohol costs when it is not purchased with other food.

Food: $327.73

We loved the food in Thailand and often ate out for lunch and dinner. Only a very few of our accommodations included breakfast, so we often purchased that as well.

Miscellaneous: $46.38

This included a lot of added toiletries as well as several souveniers. It is amazing how many things we start to buy when we know that we can send it home with Della’s parents! 😉 We also had to purchase a new battery for Eric’s fitbit.

Transportation: $249.67

We traveled around a lot in Thailand! This cost is actually quite low when you think about where we went. We traveled by bus from Chiang Rai, to Chiang, Mai, to Mae Sot, to Sukhothai, to Ayuthaya. Then we traveled by train to Bangkok. After that, we flew to Koh Lanta.

This divides out to $61.53/day which is under $100/day budget! Now that’s what we were hoping for in Asia! We even felt like we splurged on activities and accommodations, and we were able to remain this low, so it just goes to show that Thailand can be an inexpensive place to travel.

Back in Bangkok

globegazers 5 Comments

On our way south through Thailand, we knew we would end back up in its capital and largest city, Bangkok. You may recall that we already visited once in January, but we didn’t see all of the main sights, so we spent a few more days to discover more of what this immense metropolis has to offer.

Getting There

We were coming from Ayuthaya, which is pretty close to Bangkok – only about an hour or so by bus. Since we had done many long distance buses in a row, we decided to switch things up and ride the train into town. We had no idea what this entailed beyond that there were trains every hour or so. We were shocked at how low the price was: 15 baht (50 cents) per person! But this made a little more sense when we discovered that this was not a luxury train but a basic train car with open windows and old electric fans. It was pretty crowded, so at first we weren’t able to sit next to each other, but as the stops went on the crowds thinned out and we were able to be together. In the end it dragged a little bit and probably took longer than the bus would have, but it did take us into the heart of downtown and to a MRT subway station that was convenient for getting to our accommodations.

Where We Stayed

If you search on the Internet for travel blogs about Bangkok, you are bound to stumble upon a good number that rave about their stay at the Lub d Hostel. We had read enough about it that we decided to see for ourselves if this slick, modern hostel was all it was cracked up to be. We booked a “railway twin” room at the Silom location. The design scheme of the entire hostel felt “industrial chic,” with plenty of metal railings and exposed ductwork. The shared bathroom was large and nice. There was a bar and common area down below. We were very excited that they had a washer AND dryer for use for a small fee. They also had a movie room – but strangely no DVDs that one could borrow, so it seemed somewhat pointless.

With all these amenities and all of the rave reviews, we were expecting to love the place. But, as we have discussed before, high expectations are hard to live up to. We felt the service, especially at check-in, was a little slow and impersonal (they kept us waiting for about 10 minutes while filling out unnecessary paperwork, made us bring up the receipt on our phone even though they clearly had it on the computer, and didn’t bother to tell us to remove our bags or that our rooms weren’t ready until we had been standing there, sweat dripping, waiting to head up the stairs with our bags for over 10 min). The place was so big that we never made a connection with anyone (although I guess we could have tried to party more down at the bar…). It seemed like a lot of other travelers really had a good time though, so maybe we just discovered that the large, slick hostel is not our scene. It was also very expensive. We got a deal somehow, booking through agoda.com. But, the room that we were splurging on by paying $25/night (for almost no room, bunk beds, and shared bathroom) was apparently really worth $37/night. WAY too much. Especially since Della’s parents booked a ginormous room at a place with included breakfast, a jacuzzi, and a pool for $50/night. Lesson learned.

Quite nice bathroom
Industrial feel
Industrial feel
Our “railway” room

What We Did

Wat Phra Kaew and the Grand Palace – We had missed the city’s main attraction on our first stop in Bangkok so we made sure to visit this time. It was a visual spectacle, but also so crowded that we aren’t sure we’d recommend going out of your way to see it!

Getting there was a bit of an adventure. The grounds are located in an area that is not served by the Sky Train or metro system, so to use public transportation requires a bit more advanced planning. From the Silom district where we stayed, it seemed like one of the fastest and most interesting ways was to take the public boats that run up and down the Chao Phraya river. We lost a little bit of time by heading to a stop that is not currently operational (which begs the question of why stop 2 is still a numbered stop in the first place, but we digress). Once we got to the right stop, we got to see the intriguing loading of the boats for the first time. They try to move very quickly, so they zoom up to the docks, quickly tie a rope, and then back into place. You have to be speedy if you want to hop on or off!

Finding our way to the boat stop that no longer is functioning
Waiting a long time for the boat when we finally found the right stop
On the boat

We got off at the Tha Chang stop and headed with the crowds to the palace entrance. We paid our steep (500 baht = $15) entrance fee and headed into the first part, Wat Phra Kaew, a.k.a.the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. We first explored the colorful chedis, then braced ourselves and dove into the big crowds squeezing in to see the Emerald Buddha itself. The statue was pretty, but far away and a little small, so we didn’t linger.

super crowded
You weren’t allowed to take pics inside… this is a cheat pic of the Emerald Buddha

We left the wat and then walked through the grounds of the palace. This was formerly the residence of the Thai royalty, and there are many fancy buildings that show a mix of Thai and Western architectural styles. Most are closed off to the public, but a few of the throne halls are open, so we wandered through them to see the splendor and take a brief respite from the heat.

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We followed a tip from Wayne and Peggy, who had visited the previous day (they chose to come to Bangkok while we did Ayuthaya), and finished our visit at the slightly out of the way Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles, which allows free admission with a palace ticket. Our first intention was just to take advantage of the AC and uncrowded bathrooms, but we also checked out the exhibit on the Queen’s fashion and were fascinated. Apparently, before a world tour in the 1960, she helped revive some classic Thai styles and designed nine different outfit styles that are still used by the Thai women today. There was also an activity room that described silk fashions, and Della got a chance to try on a traditional outfit.

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Wat Pho – Next door to the Palace is this major attraction in town, and one that we turned out to enjoy even more than the higher billed Palace. The highlight that you encounter when you first enter is a large, reclining Buddha. We took the prescribed route around, admiring the decorations on his feet. The rest of the grounds also proved peaceful and interesting to stroll through. Highlights were colorful royal chedis, monks leading schoolchildren in classes, and old educational inscriptions that helped serve the purpose of educating the populace on a variety of topics. The visit here was much calmer (and much cheaper) than the visit to the palace, so if you only have time for one, we think we’d recommend this one!

Golden reclining Buddha
Frescos surrounding the Buddha
The rest of Wat Pho
The rest of Wat Pho
The rest of Wat Pho
Information on the walls – Wat Pho was the city’s first university

Saw a Movie – We had heard that the Thais love heading to a movie, so we thought we had to try and see a film while we were in the country. Each of the fancy malls has a nice theater, but we opted for a vintage experience and headed to the one-screen Scala theater. Luckily, it was showing a movie that we intended to see anyway: Insurgent, the second movie in the Divergent series. (Funny that both movies we have seen on the road are sequels in YA dystopian series). The inside of the theater felt old-school, with red velvet seats and ushers in yellow suits escorting us by flashlight to our assigned places. The screen and sound system were nice and modern however. One interesting experience unique to Thailand was that after the previews, they played the national anthem while showing a montage of clips of the king, throughout which the entire audience stood out of respect. The movie itself was good. It diverged (get it?) quite a bit from the novel, but in a way that made it have more action so it was pretty exciting.

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Danced in Lumphini Park – We joined Bangkok residents in their nightly workout routine!

Where We Ate

The Silom neighborhood where we stayed is more of a business district than a tourist district, so our cheap restaurant and street food options were a little limited. The Lub d staff did point us to one alley, Silom Soi 20, where there were some stalls and a few restaurants set up. We ate here twice, both times choosing restaurants with indoor seating to get out of the heat.

After visiting the Palace and Wat Pho, we decided to check out the Khao San backpacker area in the Banglamphu area to see what we were missing out on. We hoped to be able to find a lot of cheap street food, but we were looking in the middle of the afternoon and didn’t see nearly the variety that we had hoped for. We ended up choosing a small sit-down restaurant that was open and had Della’s preferred dish, pad see ewe.

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Before we saw the movie, we decided to visit a mall food court for lunch. We decided to branch out (the last time we had visited MBK’s two courts), so this time we went to “Food Republic,” the food court on the upper level of the Siam Central. It felt a little fancier than the cheaper court in MBK, but the prices were reasonable and the selection was pretty good. Della was able to get a pad thai and Eric had green curry with roti (Indian fried bread) instead of the standard rice.

Final Thoughts

We’re glad we had a few more days to see more of the sights in Bangkok. It’s a big city, so we still didn’t even see everything on our list! The heat and humidity made it hard to want to push to see lots of things, so we’d like to come back when it’s a little cooler. It was nice to be back in a big city and have easy use of public transportation as well. Bangkok’s a little frenzied and the climate isn’t the best, but we think we like it!

Bangkok, Thailand Part 1

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Our first stop for the second half of the trip was the capital of Thailand, Bangkok. We arrived on the evening of the 7th, and were leaving for Myanmar on the 10th, so we didn’t have much time in Bangkok. Therefore, we decided to not try and see everything we wanted to in Bangkok and instead take it easy and recover from jetlag. We know that we will be back through this Southeast Asia transport hub at least one more time.

Where We Stayed

Choosing a place to stay in such a large city is pretty overwhelming, especially when there are so many budget options. We saw good reviews for the U-Baan Guesthouse on hostelworld, and it sounded like it might be a little quieter than other places since it was in a non-tourist neighborhood. There was no double room available, but there was one with two twin beds, which is fine.

We ended up enjoying our time at the U-Baan, but didn’t really feel a connection to it. This was probably our fault though, because we never chose to hang out in the common area and interact with the other guests. The best part of the U-Baan is the owner, Joy: she was a great help with many of our needs while in Bangkok, most importantly coordinating with the airline to get our bags delivered the day after our flight.

Relaxing off the jetlag
Our small, but comfortable room at U-Baan

What We Did

Since we had the limited amount of time in Bangkok, we chose to focus on activities that were easily reached via the Skytrain (the elevated rail system), since there was a stop near our accommodations. This meant foregoing visiting the Royal Palace and the biggest temples, but we definitely plan to see them the next time through.

Riding the sky train
See the expansive Sky Train system above the roads
Sky Train heading into town

Our first afternoon in town, we were still pretty tired so we just took a walk around the neighborhood surrounding the U-Baan. We walked through a small local market then headed up a big road with a vague plan to make it to the river. On the way, we saw a temple of to the side and ended up investigating. It turned out to be the Wat Phitchaya Yatikaram, a minor royal Buddhist temple. There was hardly anyone else there, so we just strolled through the grounds. We weren’t really sure of the rules for visiting yet, so we didn’t linger. This was enough for the moment so we just headed back to the guesthouse.

 

Walking around Bangkok
Wat Phitchaya Yatikaram

In the evening we rode the Skytrain downtown to check out the MBK Center, one of Bangkok’s giant malls. We thought the mall we saw on Istikal Caddesi in Istanbul was large, but this one blew it out of the water! It was seven stories tall, and each story covered a huge amount of ground. This is known more for discount options, so instead of big chain stores it is dominated by small booths selling discount clothes, electronics and other merchandise. We took a while walking a loop on each floor to get a glimpse of all that was for sale. We also visited to try out the food court, which had come recommended – see Where We Ate below.

The MBK Center
International food court

The next day we hopped back on the Skytrain towards downtown, this time hopping off near Lumphini Park, Bangkok’s version of New York’s Central Park. We wandered through this shaded urban oasis and found a nice spot to relax and read our books for a while.

Reading in the park
Quite a creature! We saw these several places in Bangkok!
Lumphini Park jelfie

We then walked past more fancy malls and headed to the Jim Thompson House, the impressive complex of old Thai teak structures that an American expatriate put together to house his art collection. After his disappearance, it was turned into a museum. To see the interior of the main living quarters, we had to take a guided tour. The interior is quite impressive, with beautiful dark teak wood and Thompson’s art collection displayed throughout. After the guided tour we were able to wander through the other houses that made up the complex. Thompson made his fortune in the silk industry, so there were also some interesting displays on how the silk thread from the worm is turned into the fabric that is so highly prized in the garment industry.

Walking past the fancy malls
People worshipping
Entering the Jim Thompson House
The outside
The inside
The silk cocoon
Seperating the silk into strings
Creating thread
died silk

The MBK Center was in the area, so we returned there for dinner, then headed home on the Skytrain. While in the Skytrain station, we got to see a pretty cool Thai tradition: at 6 PM, the national anthem is played over the loudspeakers. Everyone froze in place and stood at attention as the anthem played. As soon as the song was over, everyone un-froze and continued on with whatever they were doing.

Where We Ate

We were very excited about the food, since we both love Thai food and we had heard that it would be very cheap! We were not disappointed. 🙂

On our walk the first day, we saw a small food stand on the side of the road that seemed pretty popular with locals. We wanted to jump right into the food scene, so we grabbed a plastic seat and waited for the magic to happen. Unfortunately, the cook didn’t speak English, and our effort to gesture at what someone else had didn’t work. Luckily, a traffic cop saw this and came over and helped translate. We ended up getting a tom kha soup with meat and seafood in it. It was quite tasty, and only $2.55 (plus $0.45 for a Thai iced tea).

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At the MBK Center, we were on the lookout for a food court where you could choose from a wide variety of international options for cheap. On the fifth floor, we saw the International Food Avenue and figured it must be it. We were given a plastic card loaded with a large value, and then you could go between different stalls and order what you wanted. They would then swipe your card for the appropriate amount. Della found a pad see eew (her favorite Thai dish) and Eric got a red curry with duck. The total with two beers worked out to be close to $20, so still cheap by American standards but not as cheap as we were expecting. Right after eating, we went up to the next floor and found a different food court that was almost half the cost, so we then realized we had ended up at the wrong place!

The prepaid card and a receipt for food from one of the stalls
Enjoying a yummy Thai dinner!

So, the next day, after visiting the Jim Thompson House, we returned to the MBK Center and ate dinner at the food court on the sixth floor. Here you also got a card to swipe at different stalls, but it was definitely less fancy but cheaper. Here Della got a fried noodle dish and Eric got a fried rice dish. The total with a beer was only $8.40, which was more in line with our cheap expectations!

Whoops, almost finished before we even take the picture!

Whoops, almost finished before we even take the picture!