Our arrival at Bangkok Airport went far more smoothly than our unplanned arrival there at the start of our holiday. This time we passed through their passport control extremely quickly, thanks partly to our 'normal' status in which we were allowed to keep our passports and partly due to the fact that the airport has a 'fast lane' for anyone over 70 years old.
The coach journey from the airport to the Peninsula Hotel was not a long distance, but it took quite a long time because people use cars instead of motor-bikes in this busy city and as a result nearly every road is gridlocked. The hotel was just wonderful: situated beside the river, our fantastic room looked out across beautiful gardens to the busy waterway and included every imaginable convenience. We found a souvenir shop there, selling items in aid of orphaned elephants (we just had to buy something there), and also watched as a member of the hotel staff fashioned exquisite decorative flowers from water-melons.
The hotel itself had superb (albeit rather expensive) restaurants and bars, a beautiful 3-level swimming pool, and even a private jetty from which its own river-shuttle boat would take guests to and from the shopping mall and other important destinations. The shopping mall had shops featuring all the biggest retail names, which did not tempt us, as well as a range of wonderful cafes and restaurants. We ate there twice, having local Thai food one evening and Hong-Kong Chinese food the next; both were wonderful!
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Our wonderful hotel room ... |
... looked out over the river ... |
... which was always busy. |
Carving a melon into flower decorations |
The finished products |
The next morning it rained for an hour while we ate breakfast; this was the only rain that we experienced during our entire 3-week trip; it was the most torrential rain that I have ever seen and we were very glad that we weren't walking about in it! Fortunately it had stopped by the time we were collected by a long-tail boat and taken for a tour of the river and local canals, including a visit to the very beautiful Temple of Dawn (Wat Arun). Most of the statues at this temple were decorated from pottery which had been salvaged from sunken Chinese boats, giving them an extraordinary range of colours. As well as the few photos here, I have placed many more on the 'collections' page.
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Getting on and off the long-tail boat was rather precarious |
Some of the long-tail boats had huge engines. |
There are water-monitors along the canal banks ... |
Wat Arun by day (see below for night view) |
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Statues on guard in front of the temple |
The temple has several magnificent towers |
The decorations on the towers are exquisite ... |
... with thousands of beautiful figurines |
The final day of our holiday was quite a busy one. It started with a visit to the Royal Palace, which was certainly very impressive, and to the Temple of Wat Pho. There were many, many fantastic wall friezes and statues, including over 1000 images of Buddha. This included an amazing statue of the reclining Buddha which is over 150 feet long and covered entirely in gold leaf, and also a life-size Emerald statue of Buddah which was eventually found to be not really a giant emerald, but actually Jade. The statue's robe is changed 4 times a year to celebrate the 4 seasons, by the King who is the only person allowed to touch them. I wasn't allowed to take photos of this statue inside its temple, but many of the photos that I did take at the Palace are included on the 'collections' page.
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The Royal Palace |
Beautiful wall friezes |
Wonderful statues |
The 150 ft long statue of the Reclining Buddah |
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We spent our final afternoon lazing beside - and in - the wonderful hotel swimming pool, before packing our suitcases and getting ready for the last evening of our holiday, which was to include a night cruise with an excellent dinner on a river boat through Bangkok. It was a highly enjoyable way to finish our stay here.
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Our river-boat trip; our table was out on the bow deck |
At dinner, traditional characters attended to us |
Wonderful night-time views of the bridges across the river ... |
... and of Wat Arun ... |
... and our hotel (the Peninsula) |
The journey home went smoothly the next day, with no flight diversions or delays on our way back to England. It had been a wonderful holiday, totally mind-blowing in so many ways including the following reasons:
- The different cultures of the 3 countries were each very different to ours in so many ways that it was almost too much to take it all in at once (especially with all the motor-bikes!)
- The languages (and the music) were both totally incomprehensible
- The temperatures, in the mid 30s but feeling like the low 40s because of the humidity, were so hot that at times it was hard to concentrate on anything. The contrast to the cool air-conditioned hotels was uncomfortable (and gave me a very dry throat whenever I was indoors)
- I found the time-zone difference of 7 hours extremely disorientating; when thinking in line with a 12-hour clock I could never work out whether to add or subtract 5 or 7 hours
- The currency exchange rates were very confusing. Cambodians like to use US dollars which is simple enough, and knowing that a Thai Baht is worth just over 2p is fairly straightforward, but in Vietnam there are over 30,000 Dong to the Pound and it was a real challenge to get the right number of zeroes on the end of a quick mental conversion
We were extremely sorry to reach the end of our amazing holiday, but at the same time we were very happy to see our home and to eat English food again (with chips instead of noodles), and it was wonderful to be reunited with our faithful Jessop (who had apparently also had a wonderful holiday, at the kennels). It took us some a little while to readjust to being home (which is one reason why it has taken me a few weeks to write these pages), but now we can't wait to set off on our travels again!
| FlickR album of these photos | A page of Temple photos | |||
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All pictures on this site are © Allan Jones unless otherwise stated.
Pictures captioned with ^ are © our Viking program director Chung Nguyen
