To Bangkok

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DAY 13

This morning is a big travelling day. We are off to Brunei airport at 7.30am to take a flight back to KL, and then on to Bangkok! Can’t wait to go to Thailand. I hope everything is OK when we get there. Just seen a news bulletin that says that Thailand has suffered the worst floods for 70 years and that the rains (which should have cleared by the end of September) are very late this year. Oh well - I have my brolly! Bring it on.

We arrive pretty much on time at Bangkok airport. It’s absolutely huge and is pretty impressive when it’s dark too. We make our way down to floor 1 and buy our ticket for the Express bus into town. There is only Stuart, me and one other person on the bus. Mmmm.... it’s making me think that perhaps we haven’t chosen the best way to get into town! But anyway, we are onboard now, so let’s go with it.

We begin our journey well on the Expressway, but before long we hit heavy traffic. I’m glad we were on a bus! They are awful drivers and we have several near misses before arriving at our destination which is the main railway station in Bangkok. Stuart refers to his GPS which tells us that it is 1.3kms to our hotel (as the crow flies of course!). So with backpacks on and legs still quite painful from our climb we set off.

Everything is absolutely manic. The pavements are full of street vendors and makeshift restaurants which makes navigating with our packs up a bit difficult. But we do eventually find our hotel - the Mirimar - a new hotel which is remarkably stylish when you consider it’s surroundings!

After a nice shower, we decide to eat in the hotel restaurant. It looks quite nice and I can’t face going out into the melee again. I order the Green curry from the set menu and after the first mouthful I can hardly speak! All you need to know is that it was hot! Very hot! But the more you eat, the more you get used to it! Thank goodness for the ice cream that comes as a dessert!

DAY 14 (Sunday 31st October)

Today we set off on foot to discover Bangkok. We head for the Grand Palace only to discover that Stuart needs to be wearing long trousers and long sleeves and anyway, a very nice man told us that the Palace doesn’t open until 1pm. So we do what Stacey tells us not to do..... we are conned into taking a tour of all the Buddas in a Tuc Tuc for 20 baht (that’s 40p). That sounds extremely good value to me - perhaps I should be suspicious! He seems very nice and takes us to see the Golden Mount where there is a reclining Budda, then we visit the seated Budda and then the standing Budda! Of course in between each Budda we have to go to a souvenir shop, a tailor shop and the Tourist Information office (not an official one of course). Each time we stop the driver gets a voucher for free petrol - oh, so that’s why he only wants to charge us 40p! After seeing another Budda (let’s face it, when you’ve seen one Budda, you’ve seen them all!) we wait for our Tuc Tuc driver to pick us up. And we wait, and we wait, and we wait!!!!! Then the penny drops - he isn’t coming back to fetch us at all. We have been dumped. So we have to hail another Tuc Tuc to take us back to the Grand Palace.

OK. So we decide that we will visit the Grand Palace tomorrow. It looks huge and it’s now after 2pm and I think we need more time to enjoy it to its full. So we make our way to the river to have a spot of lunch and decide what to do next. We are accosted all the way as we walk by people trying to sell us tours at extortionate prices. It’s all getting a bit wearing really. But we decide to take the Water Taxi down the river to see the Golden Budda. It costs 20 baht (that’s 40p) each and is the best thing we have done all day. The river is running very high because of all the flooding.

We get off the boat and walk to the Golden Budda. This is definitely the best Budda we have seen so far - he is made of solid gold. The monks appear to be doing a roaring trade in souvenirs, robes, flowers etc which people buy and then donate to the monks. We reckon that the monks put the stuff straight back into the shop to be resold tomorrow! Am I being too cynical? I shall say no more!

We decide to walk back to our hotel through China Town. We spot a wonderful Chinese Temple and take some photos. A really nice man (yes another one!) starts to chat with us. He is an English teacher at one of the colleges in Bangkok and he tells us not to bother to walk through China Town as it is all closed on Sundays (yes I think we are catching on now!). Perhaps he could get us a Tuk Tuk and we could visit this great tailor that he knows, and perhaps we would like to go to this great restaurant that he can highly recommend? Needless to say that we declined, and walked through China Town anyway. And you’ve guessed it - it was all open and bustling with life. Strange! That man seemed so nice!

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