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The outward journey - Sunday 30th August A nice leisurely start. Had breakfast. Sorted out the suitcases and caught the 10.30am bus to terminal 3. Nobody at check in/bag drop so we got rid of our suitcases immediately and went through security with the usual stop for Les’s knee! Went to the Servis Air lounge where we sat and read etc until we were called for the gate. Boarding was quite easy as it’s done by zones. We were in zone F - on the main deck immediately behind the cockpit. Very comfortable seats with lots of leg room. The lady at check in said the plane wasn’t full so she’d reseated us with an empty seat between us. This made the whole flight very comfortable. Whole flight to Dubai was very smooth. Entertainment system is very comprehensive with touch screens and loads of classical music. The most fascinating is the ability to have a live view on the screen from either the nose or the tail of the plane. Food was OK for Les but Anne’s veggie meal was a bit too spicy. Bit of a problem on landing at Dubai at midnight. We had to circle for at least half an hour and then when we were within feet of the ground when we suddenly felt the pilot put the power back on and the nose up. We were quite worried but eventually the pilot came on and apologised - apparently the runway wasn’t completely clear. The second attempt was fine but by now we were quite late and grateful for the gap between flights as it still left us a couple of hours. Had a quick walk into the transfer area and through security into departures. Needed to get some food for Anne so found a café. Started to get a bit nervous as we waited for about 20 mins for our food after ordering. Still left us a reasonable time to go to the gate after eating. Boarded on time. Were in virtually the same seats on another A380 but this time it was virtually full so we didn't’t have the spare seat. |
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Monday 31st Another uneventful flight apart from a few minor bits of turbulence which were negligible. The A380 really is very nice - much of the time it was difficult to believe we were actually in the air as it’s very quiet. Arrived in Bangkok on time. Quite a long queue for Immigration which took about 30 mins to get through. Stopped and grabbed a sandwich and drink before getting a taxi to the hotel. Quite a long ride but interesting seeing the sights.
Walked down to Asok station. We were obviously in the evening rush hour by now so decided not to try taking a train. We walked into the adjacent very smart multi-level shopping centre - Terminal 21. Looked round for a while - each floor was country themed. Found the food floor. Obviously a great deal of this is Asian. Didn’t seem very busy. Saw a couple of places where Anne could eat and decided on a fish restaurant. We were the only customers but the food was very nice. Les had sea bass and calamari with rice and Anne had calamari with chips - both served in frying pans! Tried the Singha beer. When we came out we walked around the whole food court again. It was now 7pm and it was very busy with many of the restaurants being full. Walked back to the hotel - now dark - saw a rat on the pavement! Anne had just commented that there were motorbikes, etc everywhere when one came along the pavement towards us. Popped into a convenience store and picked up some milk. Tried to do the crossword on the iPad but were too sleepy to finish it. Went off to sleep around 8.30pm - bit of a fitful night with both of us waking a few times. But slept well in the end. |
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Tuesday 1st September Woke at 8.30am. Had a cup of tea in bed and then up, showered and down to breakfast. Very nice restaurant with a complete range of Asian and western foods. Came back to the room and started typing this before going out. Took a taxi from outside the hotel to the Grand Palace. The taxi driver seemed OK and was very friendly. We didn’t really think much about it and looked at some interesting places on the way to the Grand Palace, including various military establishments and the very splendid buildings of the Highways Dept - very grand compared to Les’s working life. The fare was BHT150. Driver wanted us to use him every day.
Eventually when we’d seen everything we came to the one place where refreshments are available. We both had Häagen-Dazs sorbets - quite expensive by their standards but very nice and rather large. We had intended to come back by boat and train but we were so exhausted by the heat that we decided to take a taxi. The first one wanted to charge us BHT500 so we laughed and walked away. A taxi pulled up on the road and we told him where we wanted to go. He started the meter and we got in. A short way down the road he pulled in at a convenient point and looked again at our hotel card. He then said it would be BHT250 as it was the rush hour and would take an hour. We said no and offered BHT200, which seemed reasonable if the afternoon traffic was as bad as we’d seen it previously. In fact, we found we were back near our hotel in no time at all and the traffic was only bad at the very end and the whole journey took less than 30 mins. It was at this point that we realised that our friendly morning taxi driver had obviously taken us on a long tour of the city. We needed a shower when we got back to the hotel. After that we had a short rest and then downloaded the photos. Checked the internet etc. Message from Daniel saying ceremony would be Friday - did we prefer morning or afternoon?
D We walked round the outside of the food court where there are conventional self-contained restaurants and came across a branch of Manhattan Fish Market. After a further check round we decided to eat there and we shared a platter, finished in their usual flamboyant style with a blowlamp. After eating we explored a bit more of the centre and found the lower ground floor where we bought postcards and stamps. We then went into the supermarket and had a look round and bought a few other bits. Back to the hotel and went to bed around 10.30pm. |
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Wednesday 2nd Up about 8am and went for our nice breakfast. Came back to get ready to go out and had a panic when we couldn’t find Les’s camera. Thought the worst because we knew it had been in the room when we downloaded pictures previous evening and the cleaner had serviced our room while we were at breakfast, due. Finally we realised that Les had put the camera in the safe the previous evening as we didn’t want to take it out.
Were ready to go out when we saw yesterday’s taxi driver collecting a family group from the hotel - good news as it meant we wouldn’t have to negotiate him on our way out. Walked to Asok Station and found it fairly easy to buy tickets to Central. The train was quick and easy including changing lines, and of course it’s air-conditioned. Spotted Daniel’s hotel as we went. At the pier we bought day tickets for the blue boats as recommended. A large comfortable boat and we stayed on for the whole journey up river to Pier 13. We’d expected to stay on the boat and come back, but we had to get off. We went into a hotel(?) restaurant/bar next to the pier and had a light lunch. When we went back onto the pier we got the Orange boat back to Tha Thien - these are express boats - very fast and very crowded used by the locals for normal public transport, as opposed to the blue boats which are for tourists.
The pier at Tha Thien is right by Wat
Pho - the famous statue of the reclining buddha. No queues to get in
but a long queue to actually get to the best view of the statue
itself. Probably no bad thing a Went back to the pier and got a blue boat back to Central and the trains back to Asok. By this time we were heading into the afternoon rush hour. The trains were much more crowded but not as bad as London would be and it was a relief to be in the air-conditioning. Picked up more water, etc as we walked back to the hotel for the now customary cup of tea and shower. Ventured out again about 6.30pm and walked to Terminal 21 to eat. This time we went to The Terrace. This is a Japanese style restaurant and obviously popular with many Japanese people, so we assumed it’s reasonably authentic. We chose it because they were advertising deep-fried sea bass, but in the end we both plumped for fish in breadcrumbs. This was really good. Two pieces of fish with a nice salad. They seemed to be out of beer so we had soft drinks. Anne’s was straightforward freshly squeezed pineapple. Les’s was some strange sort of mocktail - bright blue with mint leaves and a maraschino cherry on the top. The meal was very nice and also one of the cheapest we’ve had. During the afternoon we’d realised that the Les’s wallet was coming apart with the stitching coming undone in a couple of places. We paid a quick visit to the floor that does bags and shoes, etc and found a tiny leather goods shop where we bought a new one. We actually managed to find one that would take English notes properly. As the restaurant hadn’t had any beer we went down to the supermarket in the basement and bought a couple of chilled bottles of Singha. Walked back to the hotel and sent some emails before going to bed and doing crossword. |
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Thursday 3rd
Looked in the shop while we waited about 20 mins for our guided tour to start. Extremely interesting to see the stuff and hear all about him. Photography not allowed inside. After the tour we went around outside and took all our photos. We then went in the restaurant for a light lunch. After lunch we started walking back. Had a long conversation with a local man. It turned out he worked for Nissan and had recently been sent to England for a two week trip to visit the Nissan plant in Sunderland. He was very amusing about understanding the locals, and did a perfect Geordie accent for us. We carried on to the MBK shopping centre next to National Stadium station. We’d gone to find the Croc shop but it didn’t have the ones Anne wanted. We did however manage to buy Anne a slip to wear under her dress for the wedding (forgotten to pack one). We then went up to the top floor. This was amazing. It is a vast area almost entirely covered with tiny outlets, mainly selling mobile phones, tablets, gadgets and accessories. The choice was almost bewildering. We only asked at a few stalls but we were offered a price of around £500 for two brand new 32GB iPhone 5s. We’re wondering what to do and have emailed Daniel. We did buy a new cover for the iPad to replace the original one which had started to wear out. This was BHT490. Back to the Skytrain which we accessed direct from the shopping centre. This time it was really crowded once we changed onto our line at Siam. More like being in the London rush hour except that the train had air-conditioning. Went into Terminal 21 when we got off the train to buy more orange and apple juice before walking back to the hotel. We had an email from Daniel saying he’ll collect us at 1.15pm tomorrow. Had the usual refreshing shower before sorting out photos etc and typing this. Walked back down to Terminal 21 around 7pm. Quite busy everywhere. Looked around and decided to eat in Reflections which is a Thai restaurant. Quite a leisurely meal as they seem to cook everything fresh. This meant a longish wait for the food (red snapper in sweet & sour sauce for Anne and fried duck with cashew nuts for Les) This gave us time to watch the locals walking by as we were sat in the window. After the meal we went down to the basement supermarket to stock up on cold drinks before heading back. |
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Friday 4th
Interestingly Terminal 21 was really crowded - there’s a Famers’ Market on the ground floor for the next few days. There was also a Beatles tribute band playing. Back to the hotel for our quick lunch and then got changed for the wedding. Phew - in the end we made it by the skin of our teeth. Daniel had said that he’d come for us in a cab around 1.30pm. We waited in Reception from 1.15. At 2pm we tried phoning his Thai mobile and it went straight to answer phone. Later on Daniel said he hadn’t received the call but that he’d been trying to phone us. At 3pm we gave up and went back to our room. At 3.15 we’d just made a cup of tea when Reception phoned to say there was a car for us. A quick word with Daniel on the driver’s mobile and we set off. The traffic was horrific - at a couple of points Les actually dozed off in the back while we were stationary. We got to the Amphur Office at about three minutes to 4pm - they close at 4. Sandra was outside waiting for us and rushed us in. The Registrar signed the certificates while Les was fumbling for his camera. We just had time for a few quickly posed photos - all the rest of the staff in the office were standing around obviously waiting to go home but trying not to look as if we were holding them up.
All done, and we were in two cabs going
down to Siam Centre for a meal. The p A nice leisurely meal with lots of laughing. We looked at Sandra’s video of the wedding but much of this is of the backs of Dan and Goy as they were led into the village for the ceremony. After the meal we moved to Swensens for ice cream desserts. By the time we’d all had these and left it was around 7pm. Goy was set on more shopping (at least that’s what Jan & Sandra were insisting), so we said our goodbyes. Anne & I had a brief look round as it was somewhere we hadn’t been before and then we caught the Skytrain back to our hotel. Checked in online. Qantas site very confusing especially about seats - we appear to be in row 55. Sent boarding cards to hotel email for printing. |
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Saturday 5th Woke at 7.30pm. Had breakfast around 8.30 - very crowded for the first time. Spent until about 10.30 packing and then decided to go out.
The indoor food bit was also very smart and had a section selling Harrods ice cream. Spent time talking to a man at the Jones the Grocer (a restaurant). He was French by birth but had lived and worked in UK, Australia and been in Bangkok for 26 years. Very interesting. We went up and around several floors of posh shopping and restaurants and then down to the food court in the basement to get a snack. There was the usual range of Thai/Asian outlets but we found one doing crepes/galettes so we each had a savoury galette. Leaving the building we crossed the road via the station and into a park on the opposite side for a quick look before going back to the hotel. Amazing that within 10 minutes walk of our hotel there are two shopping centres that are at least as good as, if not better, than anything in the UK. Should mention that we found a Uniglo. Back to the hotel and had a quick shower before finalising the packing. Discovered the iPad was dead! Taxi to airport was on time - took about 45 minutes. Check in was very smooth. Nobody waiting when we got there but must’ve been just on time because there was a queue when we left. The good thing was that we moved our seats forward and to the windowside. The bad thing was that their computerised baggage handling system was down and they were putting manual labels on the luggage. Hope it’s there when we get to Sydney. Immigration/Security was ok and the departure lounge is a very large area. We sat and turned on the Mac to look at Airport Angel to find our lounge. This was very smart and almost empty with loads of comfortable seating and simple food snacks. While sitting down we managed to get the iPad to fire up again by holding the home button and the on/off swtich together. The lounge has its own wifi - much quicker than the general airport one. This was mainly wasted - we tried using Facetime but couldn’t contact anyone. Boarding was fairly straightforward although they took away our bottled water at the gate. The flight was ok and we managed to doze fitfully through most of it. As usual Qantas failed to provide a vegetarian meal for Anne. Fortunately there was a plain fish meal on the main menu so Anne had that. They did provide Anne with a vegetarian breakfast which consisted of 3 slices of fruit!!! The plane certainly wasn’t as comfortable as an A380 but we had window seats together and were close to the loos so it wasn’t too bad. Qantas service not very good - unlike other airlines they don’t come round with water during the night. |
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Found
our hotel. The whole area is a bit ramshackle by the standards of
Singapore, but then probably most of the rest of south east Asia is.
Hotel is very smart even though tucked away down a side alley! We’ve
been ‘upgraded’ to a very nice room with a king size bed, a large
seating area with desk as well as a separate table and a kitchenette
area with fridge/freezer, sink and microwave. Had a shower in the
very nice bathroom and then went out to get our bearings. Had to
fend off taxi drivers who didn’t believe that we wanted to walk.
Tried to explain we’d been sitting down on a plane for 16 hours but
not sure we got the message across.
No
queues to get into the Palace despite guide book warnings. Went
first to see the Emerald Buddha - removing shoes etc. No photographs
allowed. Then spent the rest of the day visiting the rest of the
site trying to stay in the shade as much as possible. In fact for
much of the day it was quite cloudy. We took advantage of the water
stations. Photography not allowed inside most of the buildings.
ecided
to walk back down to Terminal 21. When we got to the front door of
the hotel we found it was pouring with rain so we had to go back for
the courtesy umbrella in the room. We’d already worked out that
using the overhead walkway to the station was the best way of
getting to the mall as it avoided the horrendous road crossing. This
time it meant we could keep dry as well. We explored the 5th floor
(San Francisco Pier 21) - another floor of restaurants that we
hadn’t looked at. The majority of this is a food court serving south
east Asian food. It’s a very slick operation with all the outlets
using a common debit card system for payment. You simply queue up at
a central point and preload your card and each outlet simply swipes
the card as you buy food. Unfortunately there wasn’t anything that
Anne could really eat.
Decided
to risk using the laundry service - the risk being that we’re not
quite sure what we’ve ordered. 
s
we were inside. Spent the rest of our time walking round this quite
large complex. Interesting that again there are only one or two
buildings that you can actually go into. It was very hot and sunny
and we were very grateful when we finally got to the building where
they were giving out free small bottles of chilled water.
Woke
around 7.30am and went for usual breakfast. Walked to Asok Station
on the other side of the road for a change. Caught the Skytrain to
National Stadium and then walked the short distance to the Jim
Thompson House Museum.
lace
is a shopping centre (or possibly at least two different centres)
with loads of eating places. We followed Dan and Goy around one
centre and then into another. After walking round quite a lot of
that we settled on a very nice place. We think that the others
must’ve been looking for somewhere that would suit Anne as it was
quite westernised. 
Stopped
outside and negotiated taxi to airport for 2.30pm. Decided to walk
away from Asok to see what was on the road in the opposite
direction. In about 10 minutes we reached Phong station and
found that there is a very smart new shopping mall! Or possibly more
than one linked together. There was all sorts going on with an art
show outside in an area where there are various food stalls - all
quite upmarket. Went into the indoor bit and found that many of the
areas were extremely smart as well as having what seems to be the
obligatory H&M.