Bangkok

Left for Changi airport straight from the Heerron. Arrived @ the
airport an hour early for our 17:45 flight to Bangkok only to
find it had been cancelled and replaced with a flight @ 19:10.
Having plenty of time after check-in, we wandered to terminal
2 for dinner. We found an American Chili’s and after spending
10 minutes figuring out how to get into it (had to cross though
immigration) we had a nice dinner of chicken nachos, buffalo wings,
and a couple of beers.

Flight to Bangkok was uneventfull, Jill slept while Keith read.
We arrived in Bangkok and began searching for a taxi. We were
approached at least three times by people who appeared to be offering
a helping hand, but really wanted to book us on tours or give
us a taxi ride for over two times the metered taxi rate. We remembered
reading in the travel guide about how it works and went to the
metered taxi que. We got a taxi but the driver didn’t understand
us, and couldn’t read the hotel confirmation in English. After
stopping for directions twice it took us 2 hours to get to the
hotel. By the time we got checked in it was around midnight and
we were too worn out to tackle any of Bangkok so we went to bed.

Saturday morning we had a suprisingly wonderful buffet breakfast
that was included in the room price. After that we jumped the
hotel free shuttle to one of the local shopping malls, and from
there got a taxi to the Grand Palace. The taxi driver here didn’t
understand us or read the English map, but thankfully the girl
at the information desk at the mall translated for us.

At the Grand Palace we were approached by a guy offering a 45
minute guided tour for only 300 baht (about $7.50) but we decided
to do it on our own. Keith had to borrow long pants at the gate,
shorts are not allowed. Jill had on a loose dress that was barely
down to the knee but that passed as acceptable. The Grand Palace
was an amazing sight of glittering and gold and we saw the “Emerald
Budda” which is rumored to be solid jade. The killer about the
Grand Palace was the heat. It was extremely hot and sunny.

We left the Grand Palace for the Wat Pho just down the road. It
had numerous golden budda’s and is the center for the school of
Thai message. It also houses the impressive and massive reclining
budda.

Hot, sticky and ready for lunch we grabbed a tuk tuk for a ride
to the River City shopping plaza which is close to the famed Oriental
hotel. A tuk tuk is a three wheel taxi with a Japanese two stoke
engine. It’s basically a small scooter with a small roof on top,
of course non air conditioned and as we quickly discovered, you
get extremely dirty and full of traffic exhaust riding in one.
They are all non-metered so you have to negotiate the fair. It
was a neat experience but we only chose to ride the tuk tuk once
over a regular taxi.

We spotted a little caf’ type restaurant for lunch and had spicy
vermicelli salad with seafood, fried noodles, and green chicken
curry. Then we enjoyed the air conditioned shopping mall and wandered
through a couple floors.

We walked from River City to the Oriental in search of Jill’s
stainless steal flatwear. We found three shops selling the ones
we wanted and finally settled on the smaller one with the two
nice ladies. She also had lower prices which required no bargaining.
In addition to an entire set of flatwear with “loop” handles,
we bought a pounded stainless steal serving bowl and small serving
set. Can’t wait to get it home and use it. Of course now I need
another silverwear chest for all the stuff.

Exhausted we headed for our hotel for a couple hours of rest and
a cold dip on the pool. The hotel made reservations at a nice
restaurant for us and we enjoyed a Royal Thai meal. Royal Thai
means what they used to serve the royalty, the recipes have only
been available for a couple of decades. We had a crispy fish with
chili paste, chili chicken with cashews, green vegetable with
oyster sauce and of course white rice. From there we expolored
the night market which is the red light district for Bangkok.
It starts out as booths selling every type of copy good you can
imagine, copy watches, t-shirts, purses, sunglasses. It then turns
into bars and clubs with almost naked girls dancing on the bars.
We didn’t go in any club but could definitely see from the street.
One club had the girls dressed in glowing green bikinis so you
could really see them from outside.

Sunday we headed out to the Chatachuk market or weekend market.
It’s like a huge flea market or bazaar type thing with so many
booths you get lost. It’s only open on the weekends and they sell
all kinds of food, antiques, cloths (old and used) and other misc.
things. It was interesting but extremely hot. A good bargaining
mouth is really needed here. We bought a couple things like a
basket and a ceramic pitcher. After Chatachuck we needed a cool
break so headed of Siam square which is the area where Hard Rock
Cafe is. We ate a little fast food joint and then shopped in the
World Trade Center and headed to the hotel to pick up or bags
and head for home.