Angkor Trip - The Grand Palace Bangkok

The next morning, after we had breakfast at our hostel, we were then off to The Grand Palace. We walked there as it’s within a walking distance from Khao San road. The Grand Palace is a must see for people visiting Bangkok. It’s just simply beautiful! I was amazed with the elegant architecture and the detail of each wall, ceiling, roof and statue. Basically everything attached to it, everything in it and everything around it, is designed for the pleasure of the eye. They’re just amazing. I couldn’t take photos enough.

Travel Tips:

1. Official site of The Grand Palace. It opens everyday from 8.30am to 16.30pm. Tickets are sold until 15.30pm. Ticket costs 250 Baht.

2. The Grand Palace is Thailand’s most sacred site and therefore strict dress code applies. There is a booth at the front gate that provides clothes to cover you up if you turn up without proper clothing (a deposit is required). At the website above, select ‘13. Helpful Information’ at the drop down bar for more information on this.

Phra Sri Rattana chedi

Buddha statue at Phra Mondop

Taking a break - palace complex in the background

One of demons cast in metal is guarding stairways into Phra Mondop

Close up - the intricate detail of one of the walls

Angkor Trip - and so the trip began at Bangkok...

We arrived Bangkok in the evening and the first thing we did after arriving at the Airport was to look for a bus that could take us to Khao San Road. Khao San Road is basically THE place to look for cheap accommodations for budget tourists like us and we had to get one that night, as we didn’t make any bookings for the 2 nights there. I was a little panicky myself when I found that out. I didn’t want to sleep on the street especially in a place I knew nothing about. I guess the reason why we did that because we were sure we would get rooms easily. And so we looked at several places and finally found one room available for the girls at one hostel and another room for the guys at another hostel. It’s not ideal but it was the best we could do. I don’t know if this is normal practice in Khao San road but apparently you can ask to look at the rooms first before you decide.

Khao San road was very happening that night. It was 31 October and people were celebrating Halloween. The streets were lit up, the bars and pubs offered deals to passers by, people were out and about wearing fancy Halloween costumes and there were many street performances too. And another good thing about Khao San road is the abundance of street carts lining up and selling street food. We had pad thai (Thai fried noodles), pancakes...I remember having banana and chocolate pancake, and I don’t remember what else we had that night but I do remember we stuffed ourselves with a lot of yummy but unhealthy food...not that I'm complaining :-). Then we spent the night walking and enjoying the atmosphere before eventually went back to the hostel and rested.

Travel tips:

1. The bus ride from Airport to Khao San (Route A2) takes about 60-90 minutes depending on traffic, as Bangkok can get very congested at times. The cost is about 100-150 Thai Baht per person.

2. I can’t give you much tips on accommodations in Khao San road as we didn't make any bookings in advance. We walked in and paid cash. We paid around 600-900 Thai Baht per person per night (this was 3 years ago). The good thing about walking in is you can have a look at the room before hand so you know exactly what you're paying for. There is a site that you may find useful (Travelfish.org) but I haven’t used it myself so I can’t say much on it either. If you have used it, please let me know if it’s a good site.

Waiting for the bus at the airport

This is the lounge of one of the hostels we visited while checking for room availability. Unfortunately there was no room available in this nice little hostel.

Yummy street pad thai cooked for you on the spot

Posing with a guy in fancy costume

The lively atmosphere in Khao San road. This was around 1 am in the morning.

Angkor Trip - The Highlights

I thought I start with my trip to Angkor Wat, a famous temple at Angkor, Cambodia. The trip took about 2 weeks. We started with a few days in Bangkok, Thailand, and then we took the overland route from Bangkok to Aranyaprathet in Thailand, then to the border of Thailand and Cambodia, and then the Cambodian side from Poipet to Siem Reap. We spent 4 days looking at many temples at Angkor using the 3 days pass. And then we're back on the road again to Bangkok and ended our trip shopping in Bangkok for another few days. I think we spent about an overall 3-4 days on the road.

The overland route is probably the most talked about route for its overpriced visas and taxis, and the very terrible and awful roads. Not to forget the scams everywhere! To me, the roads were so terrible that it's actually the most unforgettable part of the trip :-). I don't think I will use this route the next time I visit Angkor though. Once is enough. Having said that, this route shows you the side of Cambodia that you will not see if you were flying straight to Siem Reap. So it really depends on what you're looking for.

The next few blogs will be about this trip in details. Also, please note that the photos presented here were not all taken by me. At the end of the trip, we merged all of our photos and so each of us has all photos of the trip.

It was 7 of us on this trip. 

When we started off at Bangkok we met with 2 friends who were visiting Bangkok as well.

The 7 of us at Ta Phrom, a temple made famous by Angelina Jolie in Lara Croft: Tomb Rider

The magnificent view of Angkor Wat. It was a bit cloudy when this photo was taken.

The second layer of Angkor Wat.

There are many temples at Angkor. This is Banteay Srey - famous for its beautiful carving on every sides of its temple.