Re: Winter 2015 | Page 62

It’s also completely normal to walk past vendors wheeling carts full of dried cockroaches, scorpions and various other creepy crawlies that make for an interesting snack. I tried a very crispy scorpion 60 Bangkok That evening we met our tour guide, whose real name was Kasidit but he quickly became known to us as ’S”. S is honestly the nicest person I have ever met. He made us feel welcome and safe straight away. On our first night we sampled a variety of local food, massaman curry quickly became my favourite dish. We then headed to the infamous Khao San Road which I can only describe as an assault on the senses. There is loud music playing from every street bar, smells from the amazing street food and the humidity is stifling. It’s also completely normal to walk past vendors wheeling carts full of dried cockroaches, scorpions and various other creepy crawlies that make for an interesting snack. I tried a very crispy scorpion. The next day we took a tuk tuk ride to the temples. We seemed to have the craziest tuk tuk drivers in Bangkok who raced each other through the traffic and didn’t seem to think that driving head on into oncoming traffic was a problem! Health and safety doesn’t exist in Thailand! The temples (or wáts) are incredibly colourful. My favourite temple was Wat Pho which sits right next to t he Grand Palace in central Bangkok. It is one of the oldest temples in the city and is best known for its 160ft reclining Buddha. Waterfalls From Bangkok we travelled to Erawan National Park. We spent one night camping before exploring the famous Erawan waterfalls the following day. The Erawan waterfall gets its name as the top level is said to resemble Erawan, the three-headed elephant of Hindu mythology. The waterfalls have seven different levels, the first three are easy but after that it is a steep hike to the top. All of the waterfalls have little fish that like nothing more than to chomp on humans and they’re easy to spot because the water is so clear. You have to constantly thrash about in the water otherwise a group of them will surround you and start to nibble. Jumping in and out of the waterfalls was so refreshing after the hike to get there.