Bangkok

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Hi again,

We arrived in Bangkok yesturday afternoon and we have probably got the best kept secret, and the most hidden hotel in the city. It took our taxi driver 3 tries to find it, even tough we had a map printed off from the hotel site that was written in Thai. We have a gorgeous view as you can see and my photos barely do it justice. I have not zoomed in at all when taking these photos from our balcony and from inside our room you can't quite see the whole of Wat Arun, so it is bigger than it looks.

Our hotel is an old Portugese building at the end of a tiny alley right on the river front and is surrounded by the 3 wonders of Bangkok - Wat Arun across the river, and across the road is Wat Pho and the Grand Palace. It is tiny with only 6 rooms, but it is very opulent inside and a lot of the decorating is in a similar style to Grandma and Grandad's, ie; their lamps are here - very cool. It is like being in a Humphrey Bogart movie and you've stepped back in time, but with all the modern needs satisfied. The only down fall about this area though, is there are no food places around here at night.

Last night we walked to the nearest warf ( 300 metres ) as we wanted to take one of the many lit up river boats up or down the river to see the city lights and sites and find food. They were charging 1500 baht ( $75 NZ per person ). We got on a local express boat instead for 39 baht in total ( $2 NZ ). No fancy lights but it was way more fun as it was faster and you had to act fast to get on or off and it didn't fully pull up to warves. We had no idea where we were going, but took the boat as far as it went. When we got off the boat we found a station for the sky train a few steps away from the dock, so we bought tickets for 30 baht each and took it as far as it would go. We found ourselves in the heart of downtown Bangkok and with McDonald's right in front of us - Jack was the happiest kid arround. After dinner we looked around a little before catching a taxi for 8o baht back to our hotel which included a traffic jam in front of the Grand Palace which we enjoyed as an experience, but which frustrated our driver terribly.

We have free internet at the hotel so it will be easy to keep you all updated for the last few days before we come home. We are off shopping now.

Bye.

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Comments

[Mint]

Such majestically stunning pictures. very nice shot.