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Published: March 6th 2018
Woolly says – We’d had a great flight, the food on board was really good and washed down with a couple of wines (all included) I sat back to watch my film of choice. Bangkok International was huge and having stood in a queue for an hour to go through immigration we were finally stamped and ready to get going…..to another queue! Several weeks passed as we waited for our chance to get into a taxi, with humidity at one hundred per cent my fur was completely stuck to me and the women looked like wrung out dish cloths, just as I’d started to think abut where to put the Christmas tree on the concourse we were led to a waiting vehicle and our next adventure had begun. It seemed like a good time to fill the ladies in about our current location. Thailand is officially the Kingdom of Thailand and was formerly known as Siam, with Bangkok our home for the next five days being the capital. Bangkok traces its roots to a small trading post during the Ayutthaya Kingdom in the 15th century, which eventually grew and became the site of two capital cities, Thonburi in 1768 and Rattanakosin in 1782. The city was at the heart of the modernization of Siam during the late 19th century, as the country faced pressures from the West. The city was at the centre of Thailand's political struggles throughout the 20th century, as the country abolished absolute monarchy, adopted constitutional rule and underwent numerous coups and several uprisings. Now it was a modern metropolis and one that I was eager to explore.
With such high humidity sleep was hard to come by and although rested after our first night I certainly didn’t feel fresh as a daisy or a mammoth come to that.
Woolly says - I was up and raring to go, except for once I had no idea where, Zoe had taken over the days plans and I had my concerns that we might be embarking on a mammoth shopping trip! Feeling a little apprehensive I followed her onto the main road and trotted behind her as the green man appeared on the crossing and into what appeared to be a park, what a pleasant start. Lumphini Park was created in the 1920s by King Rama VI on royal property and was the first park in Bangkok. During the second World War the area was taken over as a Japanese Army camp, at the time of its creation the green space stood on the outskirts of the city, today it lies in the heart of the main business district. It was an oasis amongst the traffic, we wandered along the pathways admiring the clock tower and the pavilions that seem to be dotted everywhere. As we paused for a sit in the shade I saw a flash of movement as a monitor lizard raced across the bank of the lake and slipped into the water, I couldn’t believe my eyes as having seen one I then realised that they were everywhere. We sat watching them for a while, with Jo attempting to get close enough for a shot, before continuing our walk. A whole gym was laid out under trees and at least thirty or more Europeans jogged past us, are these people insane!? I was losing enough water from my body just from standing still! We had arrived back at the entrance and having crossed over a whole range of roads and slip roads to get to the other side I
wondered when the shopping was going to start.
Bless him, his sweaty face looked up at me and thinking to be funny I told him that shops had air con!
Woolly says – Of course they do, I considered my options as we sat in the freezing temperatures of the metro that Zoe seemed to know all about, taking us from one line to another with great ease I began to think she had been here before! As we arrived back at ground level and the heat took over once again I plodded along behind them, maybe I could find a nice corner in a cool shop to sit and try and get the jam out of my ears. We passed another park before coming to a huge shopping mall, I wondered what would happen if I refused to go in? Would they leave me to my sweaty death outside? Would they put me in my bag which was even hotter than the air around me or would they make me look at clothes! It’s hard being me. As I turned to enter the mall I realised that the girls had continued walking and didn’t seem to be stopping, I went into a trot and caught up with them at a ticket booth, curious, we don’t usually pay to go into shops just to get out. My curiosity got the better of me and I followed them past a security check and walked straight into a dinosaur! I blinked several times and looked around, everywhere was to do with dinosaur’s, I smiled up at Zoe, she’s not a bad egg really and quickly followed Jo into the first part of Dinosaur Planet. The first part of the exhibit took us into a very cooling circular room where a large screen welcomed us to the park before a door opened behind us and the small group we were in followed a guide into a huge room with some truly massive dinosaurs. A short description of each one and the chance to grab a couple of pictures before we moved into the ‘Egg Lab’, were a gentleman who was behind glass showed us a variety of dinosaur eggs, suddenly an alarm went off and the man ran out of the lab and an immense T Rex appeared, snarling and stomping, he made short work
of the lab before crashing off at which point the gent reappeared and suggested we leave, well I wasn’t going to hang round, just in case! We left the air con behind and found ourselves back in the sweaty realms once more, I trotted to the corner and could hardly contain my joy as dinosaur after dinosaur was there for me to see, all of them moved whether that be their head or tail or both and it was pretty noisy with all their roaring, but I loved every one of them.
His face was a picture as he hurried from one huge beast to the next, we arrived at an area that told us was the extreme experience and followed him into a seated area before the doors closed behind us.
Woolly says – We seemed to be gong down and as the lift took us lower and lower we could hear sounds of roaring, I looked out of the windows and could see some of the scariest dinosaurs that ever walked the earth fighting and throwing each other around and at us, the lift bounced at the impact and started to lift back up just as the huge teeth of a T rex were coming in our direction, I held onto Jo’s hand in case she was scared and tried to ignore the fact that only a piece of glass separated us from the blood soaked teeth. Having survived and left the lift I hoped for a more peaceful encounter, apparently that wasn’t going to happen as we headed into the T Rex zone, I really hoped the women knew what they were doing! Our small group stood in the dark of what appeared to be a derelict control station, a tv flickered on with an urgent message from crew on the ground telling us they had been attacked by velociraptors and that they wouldn’t survive if we didn’t find a key to let them out, at this two doors opened and all of the humans galloped out and into a range of containers to search for the key, I wandered out after them to nearly fall over a man dressed up as a dinosaur, he roared into my face and I grinned before shouting ‘boo’ at which point he ran away, who knew that fighting these animals could be
so easy. The humans appeared to have tired of finding anything when the gates opened, and we were released leaving the pretend dinosaur to reconsider his frightening capabilities.
The last part hadn’t been great but as we sat with big bowls of noodles in front of us we all agreed that we had enjoyed the museum a lot and that Bangkok was a fine city to be in, tomorrow we would head back to the cultural side, but it had made a pleasant change to see something a little different.
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
Welcome to the city of my birth!!!
Bangkok is crazy interesting. I look forward to reading about your time there and hopefully the rest of Thailand. If you make it to Chiang Mai, take a tour to the top of Doi Inthanon, the highest mountain in Thailand. I was construction manager for the road and the radar station on top.