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Flying once more
So, yet again I headed to the airport and was off on another long-haul flight after a tearful goodbye with the parentals. Luckily I chekced in online so didn't have to wander the airport for too long. The flight was also pretty empty so, once boarding was complete, I moved to an empty row of four, much to the annoyance of four guys behind me. Thus, once we were up in the air, one of them proceeded to take one of my four chairs! I still had three though to sprawl across; I wasn't going to give another one up! After dinner, I slept for the rest of the flight or attempted to sleep so for me at least we soon arrived in Bangkok airport. After a marathon walk across the terminal, I eventually reached immigration and got my bag (thank you BA) and left the airport terminal to try and find the Greenway person that was supposed to be meeting me. Naturally though I couldn't find them, so I headed to the desk for Thai travel associations (or something) which was on the letter I had been given and some man there found my guy for
me! So finally we left the airport and entered the world of sweltering humidity and transfered into the city to my hotel which is the centre of old town. From my room I have a view of the Grand Palace and we are just around the corner from the Khao San road!
Venturing into the unknown
Unfortunatly, RealGap had put me in a room on my own so I had no idea of whether anyone else from my group had arrived yet. So after much deliberation, I decided to be brave and go for a wander round the hotel to get my bearings and find something to eat. Naturally, as soon as I got outside it started tipping it down. However, thanks to my experiences in South America, I was already armed with an umbrella! As for everyone else on the streets, the Thai people are certainly in no hurry to go anywhere. It's obviously the rainy season and yet none of them had an umbrella and they were all quite happy to just sit under some shelter until it passed! I eventually made it towards the Khao San road which was exactly how I'd pictured it, just
in a less obviously location. I wandered up and down for a bit before trying some street food which, suprise suprise, I didn't really like so finished it off with some chips instead! I then decided to head back to the hotel as I was tired. However, along the way I had to cross a major road and as I was crossing I noticed that one side of the road was completely void of any cars which was interesting in itself as it had been heaving when I crossed it earlier. Anyway, I continued to walk and as I did I also noticed that everyone was still stood along the road under the shelters even though it was no longer raining. And then it occured to me that the road was also lined with policemen. Hmmmm. I soon realised why though as two of them starting screaming at me "STOP, STOP" and some random woman, who didn't speak a word of english, dragged me to one side, put my brolly on the floor and gestured to me to put my chips away. The policemen then started to salute and a convoy of about 50 cars and motorbikes came driving down
the road with several white fancy cars in the centre flying the Thai flag, so I can only assume that it was a convoy for the King. Certainly an interesting experience. I was soon after allowed to go and arrived back at my hotel to watch the Green Mile on tv and go to sleep.
Seeing the sights
The following morning I decided to go and explore the grounds of the Grand Place and temple of Wat Phra Kaew seeming they were just down the road from the hotel. Thus I decided to walk which was quite an interesting expereince but I managed to navigate the traffic and avoid the bird woman and eventually reached the Grand Palace walls. However, with two directions to choose from I obviously chose the wrong one and ended up having to back track quite a way to find the entrance. I then entered the Grand palace grounds and bought my ticket to get into Wat Phra Kaew. It was quite possibly the most beautiful building I have ever seen. I wandered around for about an hour and entered the temple of the emerald Buddha and took lots of photos!! I then wandered
around some more of the place grounds but much of it was closed off for some unknown reason (I later found out that a short while ago the Kings sister died and her body was lying in state somewhere so maybe in was in the Grand Palace?) It was then back to the hotel for a mid-day nap before getting up and getting ready to meet everyone downstairs for the evening!
The meet and Greet
At about 8pm I left my room to head downstairs and thank goodness I met some boys in the lift on the way who were also doing the Thailand program. Once downstairs, there was just a random group of people standing around in the lobby chatting. Luckily I recognised one of them from facebook so all was good. After some uncomfortable chatter and standing around, we headed off around the corner for something to eat. It was then back to the hotel bar for some and off to Khao san road for others and we were all pretty much in bed by midnight as most people were jetlagged! However, the next morning most of us went of a boat trip around Bangkok which
The ladyboys!
At the caberat show was a good way to talk to more people! The boat trip was fun too and involved feeding these crazily big fish and walking around some plantations. A large group of us then decided to head off to Chachuchak market which involved the craziest minibus ride there! This minibus was pimped out to the max with a tv, microphone, mega-base and these crazy blue and crystal lights and panels all over the ceiling. After crusing along to "Hotel California," we arrived at the market and set a meeting point as soon as we entered because it looked so huge, we knew we'd never find each other if we got lost. So we wandered around for a few hours and Ellie and I ended up getting an amazing but painful Thai massage before we tuk-tukked it back to the hotel to get ready for our evening out on the town!
Life is a caberat
So off we headed in the minibuses into the centre of Bangkok to expereince the wonder that is a ladyboy caberat show. The whole experience was a mixture between a nightmare and a Las Vegas show! The show was in a nice room with tables and chairs etc in the downstairs of an expensive hotel but as soon as the show began, I could tell I would have no idea what was going on. It was a mixture of drag queens and ladyboys all miming to the music and it was just the most sureal experience! Plus I swear half of the ladyboys looked like real women! After the show, we headed back down to our side of town and went down to the Khao San road and after a quick MacD's dinner we headed to a bar and managed to squeeze a good 20 or so of us around a table with lots of cocktails. It was then off to a club for a couple of hours of booging before heading back to the hotel for the night.
The following day then. it was a lie in until we had to check out at 12 and then we hung around for two hours before meeting up to catch our two hour minibus ride to Singburi and Brown House, our home for the next two weeks!
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Mum
non-member comment
Oi!
Less of the parentals if you please-what you meant to say was my wonderful Mum and Dad xxx