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Hello from Bangkok! It's taken almost as long to update this page as it did to get here
Our journey began on 10/10/06 from Heathrow, 11.5hrs later we arrived in Bangkok. After much confusion with our taxi driver over our destination, we headed off for our hotel. 2hrs later and absolutely no English spoken he dropped us off at the end of the Khon Sarn Road as he didn't know where our hotel was. After about an hr wandering the very muggy streets we found our 300 bedroom neon lit hotel!!!
Our first day began with us being declined entry to the Grand Palace - something about a party and shutting early - language issues all round! We wandered away with our trusty lonely planet guide only to be accosted by a very "helpful" local who promptly drew all over our guide with places of interest. He then continued to hail us a tuk-tuk, tell the driver where to take us and to wait at each place for us. How very helpful indeed. Not only did our tour guide take us to the suggested places, but to a suit and jewellery factory too. We've only been here a day, how much money do they think we have?!? We made our way back for round two at the Palace, only this time to be completely ignored. Guess it's just not meant to be. De ja vu with the lonely planet/helpful stranger - and this time off to Wat Pho, the giant reclining buddha. So all in all a very "buddha-like" day! After all the trekking around we settled ourselves down for an evening of monsoon rain!!!!
Day 2 involved a wake up call at 6.15am (aren't we meant to be on holiday?!?!) Once again our very "helpful" taxi driver failed to simply take us to the floating market we had booked to visit, but also added in stops to a cobra show, wood carving factory and government jewellery shop. We still have no money, and definitely no space for a 4ft wood elephant! The cobra show was received with mixed response - Rich waited in the bar with a beer whilst I sat in the back row near the exit!!! Didn't actually feel too clever after the "show" as it turned out to be extremely cruel, think I've learnt my lesson. Plus point of the day was making a couple of friends who we had lunch and coffee with (how very civilised!) and recommended us to our tour agent for the next leg of our trip. A much more chilled night ensued with our first thai curry and our now favoured Chaing Beer (640ml bottle, 6.4% alc!).
Next stop Chiang Mai......
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