Bangkok

Sunday 10th July finally arrived, and it was time for this big adventure to start... 2.10 departure from Melbourne to Bangkok. As is usual for me, the rest of the family often complaining, we arrived nice and early to enable us to enjoy the First class QANTAS lounge; delicious food, friendly hosts, and of course, decadent and free massage in the spa of the lounge. As it happened we had a looooonnnngggg time to enjoy the lounge. Not long after our arrival in the lounge, the flight had been delayed from a 2.10 departure to a 4.00 departure. Oh well, an extra 2 hours to
enjoy the free service. Then someone noticed it was now a 6.00 departure. Not happy!!!!
The flight finally took off at 7.00 pm arriving into Bangkok at about 1.45 am. Really not happy by now. Arriving at the hotel at 2.45 am. It was hot, 29C, late and we were all pretty exhausted.
I'd not been to Bangkok before, so was keen to get out and take in as much as I could. Going through those hotel doors on Monday morning was like walking into a sauna; the hot humid air hits hard!! The boys had their lists of shops /markets they wanted to go to, so off we set. We learnt very early that you need to pace yourself in regards to walking in the humidity. Walk too fast and you exhaust yourself just in the mere act of walking.
Shopping in Bangkok requires one to have their wits about them. We saw lots of counterfeit goods in shops that look legitimate, but clearly weren't as we saw many items that haven't been released yet, one notable item was an iPhone 5. There were various "Beats" headphones in designs that are not listed on the website, so obviously an entrepreneurial marketing strategy had been employed to make one believe that these were limited editions. The real items had similar prices to home, the counterfeit ones were about a fifth of the price.
Shopping in the markets was fun; Harry always knew how much he was prepared to pay; he was pretty good at haggling. The boys and I had a little comp going; see how many he/she's we could pick out of a crowd. The night markets at Patpong were a good place to go looking, lots of them there.
We thought that we should partake in some cultural Bangkok on Tuesday morning, so took the Skytrain down to the river where we caught a local express boat that would take us to the Grand Palace, the once home of the royal family. They don't live there now, but it's a glorious place to visit...... So they say. We didn't actually go in, as men are not allowed to enter if their legs are visible. At 10.00 am it was already 35C with humidity at about 90%, so there was no way Anthony or the boys were going to wear long pants. So after a quick look at the gardens we retraced our steps back down to the river and caught the boat back to the Skytrain. Sorry Thailand, we tried to partake of your culture, but it was just way too hard.
So we went back to the shopping centers, had a delicious lunch of dumplings, and then returned to the hotel for relaxation and swimming.
Wednesday morning was an early start as we were headed for a cooking class in Thai food. The boys were not super keen, and as much as they wouldn't admit to having a great time, didn't suffer too badly. We learnt to make "Golden money bags", chicken soup with Galangal, and Coconut milk, followed by duck in Red Curry. We learnt to make curry paste from scratch; great fun, but the Thai's don't quite understand what very mild means. My own hand made curry was way too hot for me, smelled delicious, but Vezuvius in heat!!!!











We had a late checkout, then a very scary taxi ride to the airport, 140km most of the way, no indicators, dodging and weaving all the way. We managed to arrive safely at the airport, to take the next leg of our journey, to Venice via London Heathrow.
Till next time
Clare
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