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Published: February 7th 2007
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So we land at the new and very smart Bangkok airport (Suvarnabhumi) and are immediately besieged by a hoard of waiting taxi drivers. All offering to take us into the city via the expressway (all tolls included),in fact I think that there were more taxi drivers than there were people coming off the planes, all the drivers seem to offer a very similar price, which is about three times the amount you should actually pay, if you can find your way to a pre-paid taxi booth.
We arrived in Kho San Road and stopped to have a drink before we set about finding where we would lay our heads for the next few nights and are pleased to discover that the café we are in has a few rooms out the back for rent, Emma goes out the back to check out the room and comes back giving a thumbs up so I don't even have to get off my backside, we drop our bags in our new room and wander down possibly the most famous road in Thailand, looking at all the market stalls selling everything from little trinkets to the latest version of the Ipod, come the evening
all the market stalls change and the evening traders do there best to relieve you of your money. The next morning we are up early for breakfast and cannot believe how quiet “the road” is, at 8 am the loudspeakers (that have been presant across our trip so far) leap into life playing a mixture of the asian equivalent of reverie and morning campers, after breakfast we flag down a tuk tuk and head off to the Indian embassy to get our visas, this is where we get a bit of a shock as we are told that the visas will take 5 days and we were due to fly out in 3, so off to the Cathy pacific office to try and change our flights again, with a little bit of jiggling we manage to delay our departure to 5 days this done we then have to returned to Kho San and a bit more shopping, Emma is getting in to the full swing of buying Christmas presents now and seems to be switching into overdrive in a effort to make sure that we have presents for everybody.
That evening Emma decides that she would like some more clothes
made, and as there is not shortage of tailors, the only problem is which one to choose, after talking to a few of them Emma makes her deision and we arrange to meet tomorrow after she has brought the material she wants from the local market.
The market is the biggest I have ever seen we arrived at 9am walked in a straight line until 4pm and never reached the end, the beginning of the market was cloth and haberdashery followed by stationery so Emma was in her element, the day flew by and in the evening we went to our chosen tailors and Emma gave them the material and explained what it was she wanted them to make, we agreed to return the next day for her fitting, during this time we bumped into a couple we had briefly met in Paksi a few weeks ago so we arranged to go out for a meal and a beer to swap stories of our travels (they were on there way to Vietnam and China). We met up and decided that we would go to the petrol station round the corner (the forecourt was being used as a bar and resturant),
it was a bit pricey so we walked a little further down the road and ended up at one of the street side eatery's and had a great evening telling tales and listening to there adventures so far, buying beers from one stall and food from another.
While we where in Bangkok Emma had come to the conclusion that she wanted to get her teeth whitened (I'm not to sure why she wanted it done, but she felt the need,so who am I to argue) we found a dentist that could do it and away she went, a few hours later emma emerged with her new white smile (her teeth were a little sensitive for the next 24 hours but she highly recommends it).
Next morning we went off to see the reclining Buddha, which is a large complex, this time we opted for a guide to to take us around, as this was a little faster than we would normally look at things we took a second tour around by ourselves, which is a nice way to see the temples (as you get to learn about the temple from the guide and then get to go back
and look at the things that you now understand). The temple was also a school of medicine and had taught acupuncture in the past, after our visit to the temple it was getting very hot so we visited the art gallery (which had fantastic air conditioning) and was the perfect place to visit when the sun was beating down on you. Tomorrow we will go and see the Emerald Buddha and the kings palace.
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