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Published: October 18th 2009
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First stop: Bangkok Hospital
What a pleasant experience. Lovely place, sorted me right out! (written in a random internet cafe in Vientiane, whilst Kerry tries to hunt down/replace her passport which has, unfortunately, gone missing..... Also apostraphe/s are not working here now so using "/" instead. Very annoying!)
It/s been a month since we left India and I have serious, serious cravings for yellow dhal fry and nan pretty much every day. I need it.
Wow, Thailand is tourist friendly - I guess sometimes you want to feel like its a challenge getting from A to B and here its so much easier compared to Russia, China, Mongolia and India - will someone PLEEEEEAASE try and rip me off, sell me something or refuse to understand me?!?!?!
Bangkok
....has the reputation for being loud, brash, busy, bustling, hectic, stressful even......but we flew in from Delhi and Bangkok is practically a sedate English village by comparison! Traffic flowed in
organised lanes, for goodness sake. And the cars use their
indicators rather than horns when they want to overtake or turn left or right. Really, Bangkok could learn a thing or two about bustle from its Indian counterpart 😊
In all seriousness, Bangkok was cool, loads to see and do, really easy
to get around and we used the veeery cheap and extensive bus system rather than tuk-tuks for the majority of our time here.
Rather than stay near backpacker central in Khao San (headed there for drinks one night but otherwise didn/t see much of it - one night was enough, we are clearly getting too old.......) we stayed in the centre of the city near the main railway station, in what was a very peaceful wooden hut area surrounded by the busier business, entertainment, tourist and shopping districts. The guesthouse was called the Bangkok Cozy and was very nice, with a good view of the Bangkok skyline at sunset.
Some of the things we got up to in Bangkok (which, incidentally, has a BI of around 0.6 if you are purchasing Thai lager from a 7/11).......
By the way, its Kerry typing now after an eventful couple of hours of passport related nonsense. China Town Just up the road so it was a must for our first evening meal. Pretty standard stuff, we could have been in any major world city, except for the heat so it was a pleasant relaxing experience all in all. Graham
felt slightly dodgy the next day....
Grand Palace Very cool to see. Although billed as the palace the main attraction was the Palace Wat (temple) complex which we spent a pleasant couple of hours wandering around with the aid of an audio guide. It contained some of the most beautiful religious architecture weve seen to date. Oodles of gold paint, mirrored coloured tiles and delicate carvings.
The palace itself is off to the side and closed to visitors. The king doesn/t live there but I think he spends some time there now and again so its kind of in use. Don/t quote me on that though. We saw the outside which was very tastefully done with a classic beauty of its own so not a disappointment. We were melting in the afternoon sun so didn/t gawp for too long.
Wandered around for ages on the way back trying to find the bus stop - one way system so couldn/t just go where wed got off. Then it started chucking it down monsoon style so we decided to hop off in China town for a bit food. Grabbed some very satisfactory pork & rice. After food we got
What a great park!
and free nightly aerobics classes. Definitely going to go do one if Im well enough when we go back (Kerry, obviously soaked en route to the bus so decided to walk home in the continuing storm. The roads were flooded so we ended up wading down the last 2 streets in about 6 inches of water. It was good clean fun.
Jim Thomsons House Bloke who introduced Thai silk to the West. Nice house, pretty little gardens. The entry fee includes a free tour of the house & grounds - they don/t let you in on your own as everything is left more or less as it was when he left - so we learned some interesting little facts about Thai home living/customs. Graham was more impressed with it than I was. I found it vaguely interesting but couldn/t help wondering what the point was: They didn/t tell us much about the bloke (whom Id never heard of) so it was just like wandering round some random house. Well, a Thai house with a fusion of Thai, Chinese & Western designs & furnishing. Incidentally, he/s still considered missing so might rock up (at a now grand old age of 110ish) and claim it back - probably why they/ve left everything in situ!
General appreciation of a large city Went to a big shopping centre for a bit of clothes shopping - didn/t buy anything, ate in the food court then went to see "District 13" at the cinema. The cinema was actually a cultural experience in itself. We had read about it on the flight over but had forgotten so it was a surprise when the national anthem started playing and everyone stood up to show respect for the king. The anthem was accompanied by a film advocating the greatness of the king and the devotion of the Thai people to him. It was actually quite moving, even for me (Kerry) so we concluded that it was a very good example of national propaganda. This is not to say that it was not true, just noting the clever use of media to excite national pride.
Lumphini Park Very beautiful park that/s maybe 1km by 1km in size and surrounded by high rises on all sides (a bit like a mini Central Park in NYC). Loads of people come here in the evenings to walk, jog, skate, play basketball and take part in free, instructor led disco-aerobics sessions. An awesome spectacle!
Centre for Snake and Venom Research Went to watch a talk on different Thai snakes and their venom, walked around an interest exhibition in the research centre.
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