Bye bye Burma and hello again Thailand

---

So it's bye bye Burma and dust, hello again Bangkok, food, separate showers and the chance to get clean! First though we had to spend 1 1/2 hours getting through Don Muang Airport which was not fun and longer than the flight took from Yangon!! Still that was forgotten once we arrived at the Avani Riverside Hotel, omg we went from no hot water or soap and a view of a wall to 5 star luxury with a view of the river and the city, not to mention pillows like clouds and all those little toiletries etc etc, we must have looked and smelt totally out of place ha ha.

The hotel was also connected to a small shopping centre, all decorated for Christmas, with ribs for tea and a Dairy Queen (that gave you loads of bits!!) for pudding, there was a Boots to buy a much needed hair dye and cans of coke zero and it all felt a million miles apart from Burma in all respects. I decided I better not risk dyeing my hair here after all as everything is white so it will have to wait for the next hotel - don't want to loose the deposit!!

I slept for a solid 12 1/2 hours that night! In fact the bed was soooooo comfortable and the pillows soooooo divine and the view sooooo amazing that we spent the whole of the next day in bed.

We only bothered to get up when it was nearing tea time and then we took the hotel shuttle boat across to the main boat jetty and from there caught the complimentary boat down to the Asiatique, a kind of open air amusement park come market place come food choice heaven. Where we ate and browsed and shopped before doing the reverse journey, ending up again at Dairy Queen as Howard is now addicted to the mocha almond.

Another divine nights sleep and reluctantly we got up about 1 to catch the boat and then the train to Chinatown. Chinatown is mental, it is packed with people, the stalls line every inch of space and sell THE most weird assortment of things I think you are supposed to eat that I have ever seen!!! It was most odd but interestingly there were no flies around, despite great piles of raw meat and fish everywhere, how strange is that?!

We caught a boat from the Chinatown jetty back down the river again and picked up the hotel shuttle bus back. Then it was time for a swim in the rooftop infinity pool, it looked amazing! It was amazing but it was also freezing cold, took Howard a while to get in! But swimming to the edge and seeing the river below us and Bangkok stretched out as far as the eye can see was pretty special.

It was our last night at this hotel and I don't know how I am going to be able to leave that bed!!!

30th-1st Jan Boat, train and a millin steps and we were back at the Siam Swana hotel again, the one super handy for the Rock Pub. It's not the Avani by any means but a decent little place still, except I can't get the wifi to work. The pillows are like giant logs and rock hard 😞 but I got my hair dyed at last and there is a Hungry Nerd restaurant - where all the staff wear glasses and it does steak so all was not lost. This was followed By the Skate Bar for cheap beers and then the Rock Pub for a few more.

The next day we slept in and then caught a local bus (I'm still amazed) down to the MBK shopping centre on a mission to buy a bigger suitcase! Yes we only made it for 6 weeks with our 2 carry on.bags, I just had to buy souvenirs in Burma after all I doubt we will ever get back there again and the birthday monks just take up too much room! So decision made I am now able to buy more stuff haha.

This shopping mall is immense and there are 7 floors to it, we ended up confused, spaced out but eventually with a suitcase and a few more things besides. The bus didn't want us with a suitcase so we walked back and it actually wasn't that far, we called in at HN again and got back to the hotel for a bit of a chill before the night out.

Had a couple of beers in the room before the Skate Bar and then onto the Rock Pub, the first band had already started and we walked into SOAD so knew it was going to be good 😊 and it was, an excellent set and we later found out that they had only been together for a couple of days! So all going well and then in between bands they put the footy on a tele, Boro scored hooray, the Man U did twice, you can imagine Howard's reaction. The second band started off with Bon Jovi and things went slightly downhill, but we still saw the New Year in but weren't out for much longer, bloody football!!

Totally forgot we had to be up to check out the next morning so it was just as well we hadn't had a massive session! All the local food places were shut for Ne Year so we took a chance and went over to our next hotel - The Baiyoke Sky hotel. We are here for 2 nights. We read a review on trip advisor which compared it to the hotel in The Shining and walking the corridors I can see where they were coming from. The first night in an ordinary room which was pretty decent and the last night in the Space Zone, woo hoo that should be interesting.

What a bizarre hotel to stay in though as it is a major tourist destination also and there are great hoardes of Chinese, Japanese and Indian tourists all scrumming for the lifts and you have to kind of worm your way through them to get to the residents lift, then you get to the lobby and the 18th floor and then there are another two sets of lifts according to what floor you are staying on and what you are going to see. Still we've been up to the revolving rooftop on the 83rd floor and the observation deck and Howard has been up again since and found a secret glass elevator that went down the outside of the building, so he had a go!

It's not all been fun though as I finally managed to get onto my emails to find one from Amazon saying my email address had been changed as requested????? There followed a frantic series of emails from me to them as I couldn't access my account and when I eventually did it had been hacked and some thieving git had used my card to buy stuff, this happened 2 days ago when I hadn't got access so I had no chance of stopping the payment, I was worried and furious and managed to cancel my card online but now both Amazon and the bank are saying the other is to blame and as I can't phone either to sort it properly it will have to wait until we get back. It wasn't a vast sum thank god but any is top much! but all the worry and trouble it has caused is unbelievable.

Still back to the Space Zone for our last night and there are no moons, stars or planets, I am disappointed, the room is nice but just looks ordinary, not what I had hoped for. Oh well more up and down in lifts, more emailing and changing passwords and tomorrow we fly to Maccau.

---

Photos

Avani Riverside
Room with a view

Avani Riverside
And he's in!

Baiyoke Sky Hotel
Ha ha