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Published: January 17th 2011
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Beijig Airport
Coming in to land in really windy conditions! Sawatdee Kaa (Hi) from Bangkok! After a fairly long journey, my friend Mizzi and I finally arrived in Bangkok on Saturday night. It was not possible for us to fly together because Mizzi will continue to Australia after our trip, whereas I will fly back home, so the best option for her was to take another flight than me. She flew from Munich through Heathrow to Bangkok, whereas I had a rail and fly ticket from Hamburg to Frankfurt and then flew to Bangkok via Beijing.
I left home around noon on Friday. When I arrived at the train station, my train was delayed a couple of minutes already. However, things went fine until we were about 45 minutes from Frankfurt. Suddenly, the train stopped, and the train driver told us that there was a technical problem and that he did not know how long it would take to fix it. We waited for about 20 minutes, and I was getting a bit nervous. But finally, the train rolled on, and I arrived at the airport only half an hour later than expected. I was glad I had taken a pretty early train.
The journey to Beijing took eight
hours and 40 minutes, and I arrived there around noon local time (Beijing is timezone UTC+8). I was surprised that even though I was not going to leave the airport, they wrote down all the information on my passport and put a stamp into it. I also had to pass a camera and a heat detector. Very weird! However, the airport is really nice, with lots of flowers, shops, and even still some Christmas decoration around.
I left for Bangkok about two hours later, another five hour flight. When we were above the airport, they did not allow us to land for another 45 minutes, but finally we landed, at seven'o clock local time. I got my visa, and when I arrived at the baggage claim, Mizzi, who had arrived three hours before me, was waiting for me already. Her flight had been really stressful because she had left Munich with 45 minutes delay, and she only had 1.5 hours in Heathrow. When she arrived there, she was told that she had missed her flight and that there would not be another one for her within the next 48 hours. She decided to try and ran, ran, ran. She
Beijing Airport 2
Little temple and pond with fish. arrived at her plane five minutes prior to its departure, close to a nervous breakdown and totally exhausted. But she had made it, yay!
But of course, her luggage had not come though, so it would be delivered to our hostel the next day. We caught a taxi into town. Driving here is really crazy, people drive fast and don't leave a lot of distance between cars. So you better don't look out of the front window.
Our hostel, the "Cozy Bangkok Place", was really nice, very clean, with extremely nice people working there. Mizzi and I went out for a tasty Thai dinner, then went to bed.
Yesterday, we slept in and did not leave the hostel until late in the morning. Then we decided to catch a bus to Wat Pho, a temple area. There is a huge recumbent Buddha inside one temple, and there are many interesting buildings, nicely decorated and very well maintained.
When we got out of the temple, there was a guy offering us a trip in a tuk-tuk to several attractions at a very good price. We had read of such offers, and usually they take you to a
Beijing Airport 3
Christmas decoration at the airport. place in which you have to buy expensive stuff before they take you back. But Mizzi and I thought we might as well give it a go and see what happens. The guide took us to a temple where there were hardly any tourists. We got to talk to a local guy who had apparently been to Hamburg before, visiting Airbus. We showed him on the map where the guide wanted to take us next, and he told us that that was a taylor's place. So we gave our guide some money and said that we had changed our mind and wanted to continue on our own. He looked puzzled, but let us go.
We climbed the Golden Mount, an artificial mountain with a relic of the Buddha on its top, from which you have a nice view of the city. From there, we caught a taxi and went back to Wat Pho because there is also the Grand Palace, which is a royal palace and temple. But it turned out that it was closed already, so we caught the bus back to where we stayed, had dinner on the way, and then spent some hours waiting for Mizzi's
bag, which was supposed to arrive at 9 p.m., but did not arrive until 11. But we were both happy to have it back.
Today, we first organised our trip to Siem Reap, a place in Cambodia not far from Angkor Wat, where we are going to stay for the next couple of days. We consulted several travel agencies and talked to a number of other travellers, then finally decided to do the trip by ourselves, which means being at the train station at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning, travel to the Thai border, then get a Cambodian visa, and catch a minibus from there to Siem Reap. OUr little organising trip also gave us the opportunity to try out the metro and sky train.
After having all that figured out, we went to the houe of Jim Thompson, who was an American entrepreneur who had built up the silk business after the Second World War in Thailand. He built a wonderful house that is also a museum. And he disappeared when he was 61, went on a walk and did not come back.
Our next place to visit was the Grand Palace, an absolutely amazing and unique
palace and Buddhist temple. There is the Emerald Buddha, situated in a beautiful temple. The Buddha's clothes are changed three times per year, according to the season, by the Thai King. There are so many beautiful buildings around that temple that it would take me forever to describe them all, so just look at the pictures and enjoy!
After a trip with an audio guide, we were sort of exhausted, so we caught the bus back to where we are staying, had a nice dinner, and will have a calm evening. Then go to bed early because we will have to be at the train station at five tomorrow morning!
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