Busy In Bangkok !

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Tuesday 4th January – Back to business (class !). We left Australia and headed for Bangkok the last leg of the trip.

We arrived late, luckily we had arranged our transfers as it is quite mind-boggling to step out of the airport to chaos ! Checked into The Bel-Aire Princess Hotel on Sumkhivit Road.

Wednesday 5th January - Following a few hours sleep we were up early for our 7.30am pick-up for our City Temple Tour. There are 400 temples in Bangkok ....we only managed to get round three.

We visited the Golden Buddha at the Traimat Witthayaram Temple. The Golden Buddha is made of pure gold and measures 12 feet 5 inches in diametre and has a height of 15 feet 9 inches from base to crown and weighs 5000kgs gold is currently £28500 per kilo so work that one out! Originally, the Golden Buddha was completely covered with plaster to conceal it from the enemy then invading Thailand. It was only in 1955 when preparations were being made to move the Buddha and the plaster covering was partly broken that it was discovered to be solid gold. It is a valuable treasure of Thailand and Buddhism.

We then went to Wat Po, Bangkok’s oldest and largest temple and home to the country’s longest Reclining Buddha. A Reclining Buddha appears to be relaxing or even sleeping, but in fact symbolises his arrival at Nirvana, state of all-knowing awareness that is the complete antithesis of relaxation or sleep. We have been converted to Buddhism and are now chilled in our state of nirvana...or is that the ale!

In complete contrast in the evening we hit the streets of this intriguing city to the onslaught of sights, sounds and smells.

We passed the line of street vendor carts preparing an array of weird and wonderful bites. These include 'som tum' (spicy green papaya salad), 'kai tod' (charcoal-grilled chicken) and fried insects, grubs, locusts among other odd delicacies.

We made our way to the Nana Plaza – a Bangkok Hotspot, notorious for its go-go bars - from school-girl and leather dominatrix to ladyboy – Nana Plaza is literally a 'sex mall', we experienced it from the bar at the entrance with a few beers and a raised terrace view onto the street and alleyway, though John was accosted a few times, you know what they say about travel broadening your horizons !

Thursday 6th January – Chilled out all day at the hotel’s lovely rooftop pool, seems like the first day we have chilled in ages, before we went out in the evening on a dinner cruise on the Chaophraya River (River of Kings) - a bit different from the Chaophraya Restaurant in Manchester !

The cruise served buffet style choices of cuisine from authentic Thai to international and also included a sushi bar. We dined alfresco in the warm evening breeze with views along the river of the spectacular temples and we were entertained by the live band singing a wide variety of songs including Elvis as only the Thai can...a valiety of ‘lock and loll’...awesome stuff, together with traditional Thai dance and even Thai line-dancing to Achy Blaky Heart !

It was a fun evening and we were certainly entertained and looked after by the wonderful crew. Vicky was serenaded by the clarinet player and then we were got up to boogie, it was great fun and our hosts really looked after us.

Back to the hustle and bustle of Bangkok streets and a few drinks at Nana Plaza to people-watch at the Rainbow Bar.

Friday 7th January – This is our last day and in true Thailand tradition we started with the day with a Thai Massage ! That was different......fly at 9.15pm tonight back to the UK.

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