Bangkok (and getting home)

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Arrived in Bangkok from Vientiane at about 8 at Hualomphong railway station. Got a taxi to Koh San Road, with the meter it was only 75 baht.

Once at the Koh San road area, I'd been told to look for Rambutiri road, because there was supposed to be good and cheap guesthouses there, and the street is close to Koh San without being as busy. I started walking in a random direction, then asked for directions and found out that Rambutiri actually was the road on which I was dropped off by the taxi. Too easy.
Walked down the west-direction of the road for a bit, saw a big sign saying "Lamphu guesthouse, rooms starting at 200 baht", I followed the sign into a nice green courtyard and got a room with shared bath for 200 baht. I had to give a 500 baht deposit, which kind of blew my whole spending scheme, especially since I'd lost the 300 kuai in the money belt. I still had 100 kuai in my wallet and decided to change the money later.
The room was very clean, and the bathroom was right next to my room, so that was very convenient. I immediately took a shower - it was my first guesthouse in 3 days after sleeping on a bus and then a train, so a shower was well overdue. I couldn't seem to get the hot water to work though, although the sign outside had claimed "24 hours hot water", but at that point I was beyond caring about comfort, and just had a nice cold shower instead.

I then decided to go visit the King's palace. The nice girl at the reception gave me great directions and a nice little map, so after a 10 minute walk I found myself at the north (Viseschaisri) entrance of the palace.
I was not allowed in though, as my shoulders were visible. They had free rental of t-shirts though, so I went in the shirt-office to rent one. They asked for a 200 baht deposit - which I didn't have - so I convinced them that my 100 rmb were worth way more than 200 baht (which they were), and after a bit of debating I was finally allowed my borrowed shirt. The entrance to the palace was 350 baht - 100 more than I thought - so I counted up all my coppers, scraped everything together and walked into the palace with a completely empty wallet (and no water).
The palace was divided into three parts. "The Pavilion of Regalia, Royal decorations and Coins", a temple section and a throne hall/weapons exhibit area.
I latched on to a Chinese tour group and followed them and their guide through most of the regalia-exhibit. I now know that the king is 82, and his son speaks fluent Chinese and has been to China often. A lot of the things in there are apparently borrowed from China or have Chinese origin as well. After a while the whole guided tour got a bit too China-oriented, so I went ahead.
The temple section was by far the most spectacular, all sections had huge "guard"-statues, there were so many different building styles and of course the famous emerald buddha - which is actually quite small and made of jade. He wears different clothing according to the season though, and he was dressed in his winter-finery this fine morning. There was even a miniature model of the Angkor wat.
All the buildings glittered in the sunlight, and I again got the feeling of "wow, too many beautiful things", almost couldn't take it all in.
After spending a little time in that area, I went out and saw the royal mansion, a couple of throne halls and the weapons museum. There were lots of guards with funny hats, and a couple of nice elephant statues as well. The architecture outside the temple-area had more of a European/Colonial touch to it, but it was all very magnificent.
In the end I was too thirsty to continue, went to a nice cafe selling ice creams near the western gate, and got some free hot water.

I walked out at about noon-ish, and I was very happy I did. When I walked in to borrow the shirt there was no line, but returning my shirt I saw a huuuuuuuuge line for borrowing the shirts. I got my yuan back without a worry in the world, crossed the road to a money changer, got 425 baht for my 100 yuan and started walking west towards the river. I found lunch near the pier, had delicious tom yum soup for 80 baht, went and had a look at the river, and slowly walked back towards my hostel through winding alleys and millions of "antique" street shops. I also passed several temples.

I spent the afternoon looking at Koh San and Rambutiri Road and surroundings, going on the Internet and looking at curry paste. Couldn't buy any curry paste till I got back my deposit the next day, but did a bit of a reconnaissance-tour anyhow. I wrote a bit in my diary at my guesthouse, but was getting eaten up by mosquitoes, so decided to walk about again.
I had a 25 baht coconut and 50 baht Pad Thai for dinner at a small street shop, very delish'.

Shops along that area sell loads and loads of clothes, I was tempted to buy a few things but carrying it all and the hassle of changing more money in order to buy more stopped me. I did get a 40 baht top though.

I went to bed early - I think I needed that after all that sleeping on buses and trains - and I got up at 7 to get some breakfast. I checked out and got my 500 baht, and left my bags at the guesthouse, free of charge. The restaurant didn't open till 8.30 at my guesthouse, though, so I decided to go for a walk.

After walking for about 100 metres I saw a huge sign offering cooking classes - so I decided to have a look and see if it was doable, since my plane didn't leave till 19.10 and I had arranged a minivan (130 baht) to the airport at 16.00, but basically had nothing to do till then. The cooking classes on offer started at 9.40 and finished at 13.00 so I thought - awesome! Another day of eating and learning to cook great food. I asked the lady at the counter if it was possible to book now, for that day - she called up someone on the phone and said "Ok, you can go, there's just one spot left out of 12 people, they'll pick you up in 5 minutes" - WHOA - rushed to the ATM to get 1000 baht out for the class, got picked up at 8.15 and off I went in a taxi with a french chef, who was also doing today's lesson.
Our teacher had to go get someone else, so he just gave me a phone and 200 baht. I think he called me about 8 times to hear how things were going :-) The first taxi didn't start again after putting on petrol, so we got into another taxi - the driver refused to put on the meter, but we bargained him down from 200 to 100 baht. Didn't want to squander our nice teacher's money.
We met everyone at a fancy hotel somewhere in town (no idea where, as Bangkok traffic is busy, the streets are plenty, and the taxi driver took several shortcuts to avoid long queues) and walked off to the local market.
Everyone got a little basket with a bottle of water inside, and we then walked around to the different sections to purchase all the essential ingredients. In the end everyone had a full basket, and we were told interesting things about various ingredients, and how to tell them apart. The most interesting part of that market, for me, was the coconut-shredding section. They take old coconuts and shred them in a huge machine - the shreds are then used for making coconut milk!
You drink juice straight out of a young coconut, but it's not actually coconut milk.
Back at the kitchen everyone started washing the vegetables. It was a really pretty sight in the end, all the clean and green vegetables all arrayed nicely on a tray.
After washing we went in and had our coconut milk-session. You just take the shreds, massage them a bit, add a tiny bit of water and squeeze the shreds - voila - coconut cream. You can then use the same shreds, add a little more water (I think about half a cup), and squeeze them again - voila - coconut milk! It was very fun, produced more milk than I thought, and all 12 of us worked together to produce a huge tub of coconut milk. Doesn't get any fresher than that!
I also squeezed up a bit of tamarind in water and made tamarind-paste.
We then went into another room where we sat on the floor and were instructed how to cook up the ingredients for our first dish - tom yum soup. Everyone then took their ingredients out to the woks, where we were instructed step by step. After about 5 minutes, the soup was ready! So easy! And very tasty.
We repeated the same process for pad thai, then we made curry paste together and then a green chicken curry. We were also shown how to cook sweet potato in coconut - our dessert - and sticky rice.
All tasted very nice, and we got a good recipe-book to take home.
The course was called "Silom" - and although it was very good, I preferred the concept of the cooking class I took in Luang Prabang. This way of doing it seemed a little more rushed, and a little less hands-on. But the food was great, and I still take home a new found confidence in my Asian cooking :-)

Four of us were heading back to the Koh San road area, we got 120 baht for a taxi and off we went. We were back at about 14-ish.
Just had time to buy curry pastes, drink another coconut, buy another 40 baht top and wander around looking for a big size stubbie-holder. I got one in Luang Nam Tha, but felt bad for not getting one for Josh, but didn't have any luck in Bangkok either. So now I'm the only one drinking my big Chinese beers all nice and stubbie-holder-cooled.

The minivan left at 15.45, picked up a few more people on the road, and we were at the Suvarnabhumi airport at 17.00. Checking in and finding the gate was easy and quick, had a little bit of a wait at the gate, but the plane left on time and landed in Shenzhen at 22.50 Chinese time.

I asked the nice lady at the money changer at Shenzhen airport how to find Vienna hotel, crossed the road and walked for about 5 minutes, found it, paid a 200 yuan deposit and went to sleep in a nice clean room.

I got up early the next day, was at the airport at 8 for my 9.25 flight - or so I thought. Turned out that this flight I thought I booked didn't exist. At first I thought that I didn't have a ticket at all, that it had all been an Internet-hoax, but then I found out that I was booked for the 14.25 flight instead. Yay, 6 hours in an airport, Weeeeha!

Walked around and around, listening to my music, had breakfast at KFC (how bad am I), checked in at 11.25, walked around a bit again near my boarding gate, wrote a bit in my diary and waited... The boarding was delayed 20 minutes, and when as we were finally boarding I could still see people loading stuff OFF the plane.. We then sat in the plane for another half hour or so before we were allowed to leave the airport.

Landed in Xiamen at 16.00 - a bit late considering I thought I'd be home by 11, but I was there nonetheless. My bag was of course one of the last to come out, and for the first time in history there were no taxis in the taxi queue at the airport. Not my day :-)
When I finally got into a taxi, the driver didn't want to drive out to Xinglin (my part of town, off the island) because he was going on a break soon. I convinced him to go, but had to pay 15 kuai extra, and he didn't use the meter. Oh well, at least I got home in the end!

Was met by Josh outside our apartment, yay, happy reunion, we then had a beer and some alcoholic drinks and chips while looking at my photos, then he made steaks, potatoes and a wonderful mushroom sauce - am I lucky to be marrying him or what? :-)

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Photos

I really liked this bird
(I think you'll like it too bedstemor)