Escape From the City with @theexplorer- Finding Greenery within the Chaos

Welcome back Steemians, my newest escape was a 'Plan B', due to the intended destination being flooded knee deep! But nevertheless an 'Explorer' always has a backup in the palm of his/her hand. We decided to go to a park in the north of Bangkok named Vachirabenjatas Park, or commonly known by locals as 'Suan Rotfai', which translates as Train Park and joins onto the famous weekend market park 'Chatuchak' or often known as 'JJ'.

            

 The only flaw was being trapped in traffic, leaving us with only an hour of light before it got dark.

            

But finally we arrived, escaping from the hustle and bustle of  The City of Angels' crowded roads and streets, welcomed into the vast area of the park by the towering trees, pondering ponds and buzzing bicycles.                                   

The park offers you a plethora of options to relax from the stresses and woes of city-life such as; walking, running, swimming, basketball, aerobics, painting classes, outdoor gyms, picnics, kayaking, sailing, bicycle rentals, photography, wildlife spotting and the list could keep going!

           

           

           Cyclists in the distance and walkers enjoying the beauty of the park.

          

          Park goers enjoying one of the many free outdoor gym areas.

                                     

 A Thai spirit house on a corner of the park, placed to provide shelter for spirits, the idea being that the spirits are provided for, thus they will leave others in peace. Often locals will provide offerings of flowers, food and drinks keeping the spirits contented within their dwellings.

Scampering squirrels are in abundance at the park, they have attached small boxes on the trees at several spots for the squirrels to hide out and be fed from.

                                  

The squirrels leapt from tree to tree at speed and were hard to get good shots of so late in the day, but my mini explorer son tried his hardest to spy them out.

                            

                                             

                                             Through the eyes of an explorer, can you spot the squirrel?

On completion of the squirrel hunt we made our way back around the park, trying to catch our final glimpses of the park's beauty before we were plunged into darkness.

                                        

                                        One of the many ponds which seem to freeze time.

                

                Approaching the end of the park, with Big Brother watching over.

 As an added bonus to the park's rich myriad of past-times, there are three restaurants available to provide a Thai feast for all lovers of local cuisine. One is on the left as you exit the park, a following one is diagonally opposite, catering for the karaoke audience and the final one is about 100 metres down the road on the right. We decided to choose the restaurant on the left, which happened to be one we had visited before.

               

               

 The dish above is called 'Som Tam KhaoPod' - This is a spicy Thai salad made with sweetcorn, carrot, dried shrimp, long beans, garlic, palm sugar, lime juice, fish sauce and chilli.

                                           

The above dish is called 'Som Tam Kai Kem', it is very similar as the above, but the sweetcorn is swapped for fresh sliced pappaya and salted egg, it goes excellently with sticky rice and a firm favourite of mine!

                                   

The soup above is called 'Tom Kha Gai' it is a delicious soup which is made with coconut milk, chicken, lemongrass, galangal root, mushrooms, lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, chilli and ginger. Once you taste it you can't stop!

            

            Fried chicken wings, sprinkled with fried garlic.

Well Steemians, I hope you enjoyed the blog and thank you for reading, comments are warmly welcomed and my next edition should be back to Mountain Bike Adventures!