Bangkok - July 2013

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As Thailand is my favourite destination in the world, a sale on Thai Airways was just the reason to stop in Bangkok on our trip to France. We've been through Bangkok maybe six times but this was the first time it was our actual destination and we had 5 days to have a look around and try and get over jetlag on what is pretty much the same timezone as Perth (1 hour difference).

We stayed at the Holiday Inn in Silom in a Kids Suite. We've stayed in a similar suite at a different location but this one had a seperate room for the kids (rather than half a wall hiding them) so that was very useful sound wise when the Little Miss was screaming at 2am 😞 The pool was just a normal pool (maybe 15m x 5 wide) but after the heat of France we actually found Bangkok not that hot so although we used it each afternoon that was more in an effort to keep the kids awake. It was mostly around 32 degrees the whole time and only rained once while we were there.

The hotel was right outside the 'skywalk' and 'skytrain' and beside a huge amount of shopping centres. During the day i really felt like i was in singapore as it was very clean, big shopping centres with some very upmarket shops such as prada and gucci etc, and the prices were very similar to Australia. AUD$100 for a pair of Adidas sneakers for example. We could however walk out the door of our hotel and straight up stome stairs and we were in a giant walkway right above the main street that took us pretty much everywhere, or to the train which would take us anywhere else we wanted to go. But what i thought was a bit odd was there is a Starbucks and a McDonalds on nearly every single corner!

What i really loved was the Grand Temples and Traditional style buildings hidden in amongst all the new technology and architecture - so you could still see Thailand every now and again 😊 We were very close to Erawan Temple so the kids got to see how the locals pray and give gifts to the temple such as yellow flowers and giant wooden elephants. There were also traditional dancers here so the kids got to see that too which was great.

The train system turned out to be very easy and we headed down to the river one day to see what we could. I had memories of being told there would be dead dogs floating in the river but we didnt see any thank goodness, just heaps of huge dead fish!?! I am guessing they have fallen off fishing boats or thrown away and didnt actually die in the water, but either way i wasnt go for a swim 😊

We also ventured in to Chinatown one day for some dimsum and decided to walk back to the train station, which happenned to be via the Grand Palace and some of the most amazing and huge temples. Chinatown wasnt as glamourous as some of its similar named placed around the globe, and in fact had heaps of homeless beggers with lots of disabilities that was a big gross. One guy had an infected leg and it was twice the size it was and completely mouldy -eewww and now stuck in my memory. A few were minus legs and would lay in the middle of the footpath which freaked out The Midgit a few times and we'd have to carry him past them.

On our last day there we decided to do a touristy kid event but most of them were an hour away by car...so we decided on Siam Ocean Park as that was about 500m from our hotel in a neighbouring shopping centre. We werent that keen as we've been to quariums in Perth, Melbourne, Baltimore and Singapore so figured this wouldnt be good - but it was better! We were stunned - it was really really good! The amount of 'strange' fish/creatures they had was huge. You walked down a ramp of about 3 stories and all the way along were different types of animals. There was a giant octopus, glowing eels, giant japanese crabs etc etc all surrounded by vines and ferns with cricket noises going on. Then at the bottom was the tank with heaps of sharks incluing a hammerhead. The scuba divers fed them while we were there and they genuinly seemed nervous! And although they were watching the great whites (or what looked like them???) very closely another flatter looking shark nibbled on one of their thighs and he whacked it in the head with a pointy thing. One thing the kids and my hubby wanted to do was go in a metal dingy above this tank with all the sharks. I was really nervous and way out of my comfort zone. Trying to keep a 2 year old on my lap and not hang over the edge of this dingy thing without worrying about her drowning but in fact being eaten, was quite stressful! It appeared that was for me only as everyone else had a great time and wanted to do it again 😊

The flight into Bangkok wasnt that good for the kids. The A380 was full and the kids really struggled with sleeping sitting up. Which meant we were holding them as they tossed and turned so although they partly got sleep, we had none. I had figured this would happen so had organised a car to take us to our hotel and we were all in bed and out cold within about 1 hour of landing. I think in the end it would have been better just to get home, and try and get the kids on routine in their own beds. And probably more importantly in a space bigger than a 40sqm hotel room. if one woke or cried out all 4 of us would be awake so it really took the 5 days until we were home to try and get them back onto our normal time zone. Lessons learnt for next time i guess 😊

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