Tagged with: Travel

  • Day 10

    Lorna’s alarm clock didn’t go off, and I didn’t have one, but we were both awake anyway so it didn’t matter. We met Sue and Steve at the lodge and were just deciding what to have when Meo arrived saying: “GOOD MORNING BREAKFAST SETS COOKING EVERYONE HAVING SAME”

  • Day 9

    On Charlotte’s orders, we had to be in the lobby for 6:30am. I had set a wake up call for 5:45, and it didn’t work, but I was awake anyway, having slept fitfully on an aching stomach. I was still the first to arrive in the lobby though, and started to check out for the second time, as Steve and Sue arrived. The laundry I had done yesterday had cost me 650 baht, very high considering that you can get the same amount of laundry done on Khao San Road for 100 baht or so. Came back in very nice shrink wrapped packaging though.

  • Day 8

    I got up early to pack. After checking out, I met Charlotte, my tour leader. She looked puzzled, and asked why I’d checked out. Obviously we were going to stay at the Viengtai another night then. As I checked in again, to the general amusement of the reception staff and confusion of the porter, another member of our tour group arrived. Lorna, who was travelling alone, worked at a hotel in Edinburgh. The final two members of the group were apparently sleeping off their jet lag after arriving only this morning. I got a different room, with quieter plumbing, but a distinct smell of cigarette smoke. I put the aircon on and went back to the lobby in time for the first full group meet at 12:30. Sue and Steve, a couple from Swindon, completed the group.

  • Day 7

    I woke up to find it was almost noon. Wow – slept for AGES. Then I realised that I’d sent an email to Wee telling her I’d be in the lobby at 12 if she wanted to meet. I’d never make it in time, but fortunately she phoned just as I was starting to panic and asked to meet at 2, which got me off the hook. I had a chocolate croissant for breakfast. The regular ones had run out and the breakfast buffet was long gone. In fact, they were serving lunch. Wee arrived at 2:15, and we set off for the National Museum.

  • Day 6

    Today I was prepared for the poor organisation skills of the tour operators. I stuck a note to my door saying “I’m in the lobby, wearing a black T-shirt and dark green trousers”. I notified reception that I was sitting in the lobby – yes in that seat over there – and if someone asks for me don’t call my room. I waited in the lobby again, and this time the tour guide arrived and told me to follow him. He led me to a bus on Khao San Road, which I boarded for the drive to Ayuthaya. As I expected, there were a number of unpublished stops along the way, but not for cash-grabbing as on my last tour.

  • Day 5

    I was in the lobby by five to seven for my trip, and at 7:45, remembering what happened yesterday, I asked the reception desk to phone the travel company and find out what had happened to the guide. Turned out he’s already been and gone, so obviously he hadn’t looked for me very hard. I decided to abandon governments of Thailand past and go look at the current administration while I waited for the travel agent to open. A very moody taxi driver takes me there after I insist that he switches on his meter instead of charging a flat 100 baht. Saved 40 baht in the process.

  • Day 4

    As instructed, I was in the lobby at 0600 for the canal tour. The bus didn’t arrive until 0715, which didn’t seem like a very good start, though apparently it was the travel agent’s error. I picked up a croissant for breakfast and got into the bus to find only one other occupant – a costa rican girl working as a marine biologist in Australia. When we arrived at the pier there were more people, so the boat was actually about two thirds full. It motored down the river to the lock gates at one of the entrances to Bangkok’s canal system. As we moved from the flowing waters of the river to the stagnant canals, I was hit by the smell, which I thought would have to be unbearable for the people who lived here. Fifteen minutes later I had forgotten about it – it’s amazing how quickly you can get used to your environment.

  • Day 3

    Got up around 7:30, and went down for breakfast shaking off a light jet lag. There wouldn’t be any spicy food served for breakfast, obviously, so I got a plate of somethig that looked nice and took a big bite. How wrong I was. Strictly as a face saving exercise I ate most of it then rushed back to my room to drink several gallons of water. I phoned Wee, and we agreed to meet at 12, which left me enough time to buy a map of Bangkok. Wee arrived on time and suggested visiting a floating market but this turned out to be too far away. Instead she took me on a brief tour of the city by bus, ending up in her favorite hang out at Siam Square, a very westernised shopping and entertainment complex. We met Wee’s friend Jill (pronounced ‘Dew’ for some reason I was unable to establish), and I got my first proper taste of Thai cuisine, as well as a crash course in speaking Thai from Jill and Wee, who found my pronounciation very funny. To my amazement, Wee and Jill both support Enlish football clubs, Liverpool and Leeds respectively, although Wee doesn’t know where Liverpool is, and Jill only knows the location of Leeds because her boyfried lives there. As relationships go, I don’t think you can get much more long distance than that!

  • Day 2

    After the layover in Dubai, which lasted about three hours in the early morning of 10th Feb, I boarded an identical 777 for the second leg of my trip to Bangkok. Despite getting the exit row seat I had been promised, it was much more tiring than the first leg, partly because my body was telling me to sleep, but couldn’t actually pull it off, and partly because I was seated in between two particularly uncommunicative travellers. Finally I reached Bangkok at about midday, local time. I remembered something I had been told about being sure to use a metered taxi, and set off towards the rank. I didn’t quite make it though, because a rather forthright woman stepped in front of me and said something like “You want taxi – where go?”. I would have stepped around her except that she was wearing a Thai airways uniform, which caught my attention almost as much as the offical looking information kiosk she appeared to be running. I showed her the business card for my hotel.

  • Day 1

    Dad drove me to Heathrow at around 11am for my flight, which was with Emirates via Dubai. At check in I asked for an exit row seat, as I usually do, and I got one for the second leg. First though, I had to get to Dubai. This involved a 6-hour flight, during which I kept myself entertained by watching movies and playing video games on the inflight entertainment system. There were even a couple of cameras on the plane which you could look at on the TV screen – one pointing out the front of the plane and one pointing down towards the ground.