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Published: January 21st 2006
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As seen at Wat Po
Some interesting yoga type poses... Well, my time in South East Asia is coming to an end. I can't believe that I've been away from home for three months already and that I'll be standing in front of the Taj Mahal in a few short days. Unreal!
Bye South East Asia.
Three months. Four countries I've seen.
India beckons!
Yesterday was the last day of my three week tour through Cambodia and Laos (yup, still working on updating the blog...I'm working on it!) The tour finished up in Bangkok. We arrived via an overnight train and eventually made it back to our hotel around 8:30 in the morning. After settling in we met up with our local tour guide to check out Wat Pho. I actually went there on my first day in Bangkok five weeks ago but decided to go again since this time we'd have a tour guide and perhaps get a little bit more out of it. Plus part of the tour was to ride on a klong (long tail boat) on the Chao Praya River so I couldn't miss out on that!
I'm glad I went because I don't think I would have gotten around to riding along the canals on my own. First of all, I wouldn't know where to get on/off! LOL We were on the boat for about an hour. I think the khlong driver needs a bit of practice with "pacing" of his boat because he'd speed up for 3 seconds and then all of sudden slow down. Oh and some of those corners that he took! Glad to report there were no incidents while we were onboard other than a few splashes of water. It was interesting seeing all of the houses along the water. Some looked really modern while others looked all run down. There were a quite a few wats that we passed by. The most memorable one being the one with the massive laughing golden Buddha on the water. People seemed really friendly along the water and we did a lot of waving hello. There were quite a few kids frolicking in the water as well...presumably to cool down because it was a super hot day yesterday.
We eventually came to our stop (pier #8) and walked a short distance to the Wat. It was such a hot day...as usual dripping with sweat. Our guide, Ms. Lek was a really good guide. Too bad it was so hot out because it made it hard to concentrate on what she was trying to tell us. Or perhaps she was just telling us too much stuff. lol I would say that she was the first guide to ask if I was Chinese. BUT then I realized that Holly told her earlier that I was Chinese-Canadian.
After perusing around the Wat and saying hello to the giant golden reclining Buddha our tour was finished. Rob and Ann decided to pay a visit to the Grand Palace. I've already been there and didn't really want to spend another 250TB to visit it again so Penny, Richard and myself walked back towards our hotel. It was just so stinking hot that we decided to retreat to our rooms to try and cool down our core body temperature at least 10 degrees before heading out for some lunch.
The rest of the afternoon was pretty lazy. Surfing the net and sitting by the pool. The group of eight of us all met up at 6:30 for some pre-dinner cocktails across the street at one of the makeshift bars. Considering this guy has a cart on the side of the street that makes an appearance at night he sure did have quite the selection of booze!
Dinner was at a local restaurant that is known for its seafood. Always amazing that my meal is sometimes almost the same price as my beverage(s)! It was nice to have a Coke with dinner since in Laos Pepsi seems to be the drink of choice unless you want to shell out more for imported Thai Coke. It was only about 9PM so we headed back to the same street bar to sit down for a few more drinks. Or in my case, one drink. I think it was called an Illusion...vodka, rum and melon liquer. Quite a glowing green concoction that wasn't half bad in my opinion...mind you it could have been because it was pretty sweet. lol I bumped into my other tour leader, Deb from my Northern Thailand tour. She'll be headed up to Laos, Vietnam and then China soon. Apparently it has become a new thing that all tours in Thailand have to be run by local (Thai) tour guides. Anyway, after people had a few more drinks and the conversation turned a little argumentative over the UN and stuff we decided we needed to lighten up the mood a little bit went over to Khao San Road to find somewhere to dance. The two couples (Rohan & Maria and Rob and Ann) turned in while the "swinging" singles Penny, Richard, Holly and I continued on. Penny had been at the Shamrock a few weeks before where they have a live band. We had a pretty good couple of hours dancing. They didn't have a dance floor. More like you just dance right by your table. Seems to work. Lots of fun. We probably would have stayed longer but the bars close up at 1AM. When we got out on the street most of the stalls were all packed up but there were still hundreds of people milling around on the streets. We didn't hang out that long because both Penny and Richard had early flights/buses to catch. So we all made plans to meet up this morning for coffee.
So once again, I saw several people off this morning. I'll be the last one to leave today since Maria and Rohan already left for Ko Samui this morning as well and Rob and Ann will be leaving a little bit before me this afternoon. I was able to secure a spot on the mini-bus service to the airport this afternoon. Only cost 100TB compared to about 250TB or so that it would cost to take a metered taxi. So cheap especially when you consider when you're at the airport some of the rip off artists want to charge you upwards of 700TB for a ride into town!
Well, that's it for now. More when I land in India...New Delhi to be exact. I think I read somewhere that there is free internet at the hotel I'll be staying at...guess I'll find out tomorrow!
Hugs and stuff,
Bonz
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