safe and sound

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Our flight was late leaving heathrow due to a problem with one of the runways which meant we were late arriving for our flight from dubai. I happened to glance at the depatures board and saw that our flight number had hong kong next to it and it said final boarding. Marc and I got a golf cart to drive us to the departure gate which couldnt have been further from all the shops...etc! The flight was ok, was great to finally land in bangkok and it was only about an hour from the new airport. We checked into an awesome hotel called the Prince Palace, where they upgraded us to a suite!!
Day One in Bangkok
Woke up for the sunset in bangkok which was great because were on floor 23 so nice and high to see it rise over the other buildings! We hd our complimentary breakfast, which was great and then decided to wander around to the biggest mall in south east asia and Hong Kong called Central World. It turned out however that it was not open until 10am, so we decided to head over to Wat Pho, which is the temple of the reclining buddha. It was the birthplace for thai massage. We hired a guide called Chatri, who was great. We learned that the monks would study massage and herbal medicines, there were tablets located around the temple grounds, which they would use rice paper to take copies of, so these tablets in effect were textbooks that you got copies for yourself. He took us into a large room with a large buddha, surrounded by his disciples. We learnt how every man in thailand must shave his head and eyebrows and move into a monestary between 1-3 months, or when an elder dies. He then decides whether he wants to continue this life or leave, either way every man has to do it, even the king! After Wat Pho, we were going to go to the Grand Palace, but we decided that the heat was very strong and headed to Central World where we had lunch at triple o's. We went back to the hotel for a sleep until 8pm, then got up and headed to Khoa San Road. It was horrible and claustrophobic, it was full of grungy people and I really didn't not enjoy it. We decided to check out a ping pong show, it was uhm interesting to say the least. It was full of old, fat women doing the 'acts' and the skinny girls were just standing around. It was so awful, but worth going to see.
Day Two in Bangkok
Woke up early again, had some breakfast. Went back to sleep until mid-day and took a taxi to wall street tower to see about getting some flights however half way there, the taxi broke down and we had to get a sky train. After this we went to a mall and and went to the cinema, before the film started we had to stand for the national anthem, it was very moving moment.

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