Day 31 - The day we go home :(

A good nights sleep as the room was deathly silent with no traffic noise etc despite being in the centre of Bangkok. A great breakfast with a good range to choose from including croissants and some other good pastries!

We had to check out at 12 but we decided we might aswell bring our bags down earlier and leave them at the hotel while we ventured out. We had most of the day to explore as our flight wasn't until 20:40 so we decided to visit the 'Grand Palace'. This is where the king currently resides and is made up of many many grand buildings including the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which we couldn't go into as there was a ceremony going on.

To get there we took the skytrain to the river ferry which we jumped on to get up the river to the palace. The river was so high that it was over the banks, I guess because they are pumping lower lying areas to the main river. When you visit, you have to wear long trousers and have your arms covered. Luckily Alice told me this as on arrival, you have to hire a sarong if you are wearing shorts. Let's just say there were some interesting outfits and a lot of embarrassed men!!

Because it so hot, it must have been high 30's, we quickly got around the palace in about an hour. On return to the boat station, we had to wait a while before the boat arrived to take us back down river. Back on the skytrain, we decided to go one stop past our hotel to Terminal 21, where we had dinner last night. We grabbed a bite to eat at a place called Thai Street Food. Alice had a pad thai and I had a fried chicken dish. If you put some petrol in your mouth and lit it with a match, you may be somewhere near the spiciness of the dish. Luckily the shopping centre was air conditioned otherwise the sweat would have come out of every pore!! I thought the dish the night before was spicy but this........

We returned to the hotel where we got changed and had a wash. I decided I wanted to wash my hair, and considering we were in the lobby toilet, washing your hair in the basin was interesting! We ordered a taxi, it would seem driven by Lewis Hamilton, fast and at times, reckless! I think we topped out at about 150km/h. I know not amazingly fast but in a rust bucket with no real lane discipline it didn't do the nerves much good. At one point we mad the hard shoulder a lane! The hotel said it should take 45 - 60 minutes......30 minutes it took us!!

Unfortunately we were now at Bangkok airport to fly home. We had a bit of cash left so bought some goodies for work and also had a bit of a feed. With about the equivalent of £1.50 left there was only one thing to have, ice cream! A large bowl of ice cream with chocolate, cream and banana, what a way to finish the holiday!

The plane nearly left on time and it was off home to a British winter. I know it's been only 5 weeks but it will good to catch up with family and friends.