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Published: July 23rd 2007
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Yeterday was interesting! A while ago Mrs. Noi had said that she was going to Bangkok to take part in a demonstration with Ao (they are very anti-Thaksin the ousted PM & very pro-King) and I think I may have half-heartedly agreed. Then she kept reminding me about it and said that she had booked me a place and I thought it might be a good opportunity to get some shopping done. What I didn't realise until Saturday was that we would be setting off at 2am. In the morning.
So yesterday I got up at 1am. I wasn't sure what to do, stay up and then try and catch up on sleep later or try and have a few hours sleep and set my alarm. I decided on the latter and actually didn't feel too bad. Although I did forget, in my sleep lacking befudddled brain, about Thai time. I got downstairs at 2am and sat there for a while, then someone came to collect us in a car to take us to the bus. Seven of us piled into a little honda, yes that's 3 in the front and 4 of us in the back, chugging away to
the awaiting coach. When we arrived we couldn't get onto the coach so we sat at the side of the road, then went into the bar next door. There were about 30 Thai women, 1 white woman (me) & 1 western man who had just selected his 'companion' for the night. I got to see first hand the Thai-girl-tactic which was just to rush up to a man walking past the bar by himself, ask if he needed light, did he have a cigarette for her, would he like to come into the bar, he was very handsome, giggle, giggle.... The poor bloke looked absolutely terrified, but obviously it works on some (alot) of the idiots!
We sat in the bar fo about 1/2 hour and I had a number stapled to my top, then we got onto the coach....and sat there until 3.30 am. That woudn't have been so bad if I could have slept, but the driver seemed to think that we all wanted to party and was paying rock music at full blast. NOTHING though was going to stop me sleeping!
We eventually arrived at Lumphini Park in Bangkok at 6am to be met by a sea
of yellow i.e. the Thai people wearing the Kings coloured shirts (he isn't yellow it's the commemorative colour of his birthday). I also had been instructed to wear my one yellow top so I fitted right in. Of course I didn't really and I got lots of bemused looks and quite a few surprised smiles that I was there. Once we'd got settled into our spots at the front near the stage my plan was to sneak away after a polite stay and try and hit the shops. Only problem with this was the hour of the day, I don't think there would have be many shops open at 6.30 on a Sunday morning! So I stayed for a while and Mrs. Noi explained what was happening, queued for 1/2 hour to use a flooded squat toilet and then went with Mrs. Noi to give offerings to the Buddhist monks. That was really good and something I've wanted to do for ages. I felt a bit awful though as Mrs. Noi made me give everything to the same 2 monks and I couldn't get to move along the line. I'm sure they will have shared everything out though. When I
Red Cross Sign
I was quite amused by this sign. Everyone else was disappointed when they came over to see what I was taking a picture of couldn't last any longer sitting cross legged on the road I made my excuses and went to..........MacDonalds, 8am and I sat eating chicken nuggets and fries, enjoyed the aircon and read my book. I went back to the park at 8.30, having arranged to meet Mrs. Noi again at 10am, when we would be going to the Grand Palace. I headed back to our meeting point earlier at 9am after watching/listening (but not understanding) some speeches and singing and it was a good job I did, it was finishing and everyone was leaving! I bumped into some of Mrs. Noi's friends that had collected us this morning and we trekked to our coach and then headed to the Grand Palace, me trying to keep up with Mrs. Noi who kept darting off in different directions. Every time I'd arranged to meet her somewhere she'd disappeared! It all adds to the fun and I just kept saying to myself that I knew how to get back if I couldn't find her. I'd already been to the Grand Palace so (I'm slightly ashamed to say) I wasn't all that interested. I would have liked to see the emerald Buddha again in the
Stage View
& we had prime positions right in front of the stage temple, as it would have been wearing the rainy season robes, but that was closed to visitors for the day. Despite Mrs. Noi's earlier promises that I would get time to go shopping we then set off back home at 12.30 - I'll have to make a separate trip to get normal sized clohes from Next another time! Back at the apartments I then crashed out on my bed at 5pm and after eating and an hour or so of reading didn't resurface again until 8am the next morning!
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