Bangkok, Thailand - October 3-7 2008

I would love to say that my trip to Bangkok starts off in the normal way, in the lounge but alas no. This trip I decided to try out Emirates airlines which means no lounge. Instead I start off my trip in the Caviar House and Prunier having a glass of chardonnay eating shrimp cocktail and crab salad. A hard life....

For this flight I managed to actually board when I'm supposed to, a nice change to me usually running from the lounge to the plane.

First impressions of Emirates are good, time will tell how the flight goes.

I'm trying to have a sleep when I hear raised voices, for some crazy reason a man refuses to put his seat forward so the lady behind him can have a meal. I have never seen such a rude person on the plane before - after getting the supervisor he sill refuses and calls the air stewart a b@#(*........I'm shocked. How anyone could be so selfish on a plane is beyond me. I'm praying he's not on my return trip. The lady and her husband moved seats so they can enjoy a meal. I'm wondering how I can complain about him as I'm 99.9% certain he'll complain about his trip and get something for it.

On collection of the blanket he refused to give it back, the air stewart didn't he bother to say anything to him. Unbelievable.

Emirates has 2 cameras on the plane which you can watch (like watching a movie), I found it very fascinating when we were coming into land. It was like I was up in the cockpit, just without all the controls and responsibility.

On arrival we were off pretty quickly, cleared customs which was nice and easy and super quick. Waiting for my bag, which finally came then I was out in the world of Bangkok! Located ATM then taxi line, which was huge!!! Thankfully it moved rather quickly, it needed to though was it was hot and humid outside. We lined up to get a ticket, and in a separate line the taxi drivers lined up to collect us. There cars were everywhere.

My poor driver tried to communicate with me but there was no point, I had absolutely no idea what he was saying. I'm hoping and praying I get to the hotel. I decided to call the hotel to ask them how much it will be (roughly) and how long it will take. At least this way I'll know if we go off course, although I won't be able to do anything about it. There are signs in the taxi selling chewing gum as well as hiring the taxi for different trips, a new site for me. Its nice and clean to which is good. 5 minutes after leaving he says highway highway - that's great, I'm aware of that I think. He then said 70 baht, how on earth do I know if he is playing with me. So I said sure....he wanted me to pay for the toll however that was all too hard given I only had a $1000 note.

I cannot believe I'm in a foreign country where I know not one Thai word - usually I learn something before I come.....its going to be an interesting few days.

Wow I'm at the hotel already, obviously taking the highway is quicker :) working out the bill was a little bit of a challenge. Once we had finally worked out the total figure he tried to short change me......I think not!!!

Checking in was nice and easy then I was straight up to my room as it was around 1.30am which is 2.30am HK time. Got an upgrade to a grand deluxe room which is nice.

Saturday morning was super relaxing, after sleeping in went to the gym for a short work out. For some reason my hip is playing up so I had to stop, here's hoping it will be aok to sight see.

Came back to the room to have 2 maintenance men in my room, was not pleased as I had my do not disturb sign on. I actually freaked out a bit as my stuff was all over place. So rang reception and the manager came to see me.

Was preparing for the day when just after midday the thunder began followed shortly by rain and lightening. I'm hoping its just a short rain shower, otherwise I'll be having another shower and one I don't want. Thankfully I packed my umbrella.

Had lunch at the bakery attached to the hotel then started to wait for a taxi. Certainly wasn't quick! The hotel ended up calling the spa place I was going to to get the exact directions. The lady didn't have record of me having a booking......great, I'm off to a good start. Finally a taxi came and directions were given to him. Traffic was at a standstill, my driver took a different route which I'm hoping will work out as I'm running late for my appointment. After going the wrong way (the fault of the hotel man giving wrong directions) we were back in traffic again. Over an hour later we made it to the spa where I had a body scrub, massage then manicure and pedicure. Pure bliss, and at a third (if not more) of the cost as it would have been in HK.

I decided to take the sky train back to the hotel as sitting in a taxi for 1 hour didn't interest me too much. Walking from the spa to the station was great, saw so many different sites from hotels, restaurants/bars, spa's (both unisex and men only.....), motorbikes lining up to 'taxi' people around, food carts and trinket stalls. Managed to find my way back to the hotel from the sky train station, as it was dark the name of the hotel on the building was nice and bright. I came across the Erawan Shine which is located on the corner of a major road and across from a hotel. There are small wooden elephants and flowers.

I decided to have a drink before going out again. Well wishful thinking that was, as its the elections here there is no alcohol being served in Bangkok from 6pm Saturday to 10pm Sunday - I definitely chose the wrong time to visit this city! On the slightly plus side it will save me some money :) So I settled for a hot ginger tea. My server told me I can buy alcohol in my room, she clearly thinks I have a problem......

Back to the room to change for dinner and noticed I had a gift, how nice! The manager from this morning had left me a card and some sweets and chocolates. Definitely didn't expect them.

I ate at the Thai restaurant in the hotel and thankfully they were serving wine. I was given a small dish compliments of the chef that blue me away (not in heat) - the flavour was just amazing! I'm excited for this meal and frustrated at myself that its my first Thai meal since being here, tomorrow will be all Thai.

For my appetiser I ordered what I'll call a coconut wrap dish, all the ingredients came in there own small bamboo leaf dish. The 'wrap' was some sort of leaf and in it I put coconut, dried shrimps, Peanuts, shallots, young ginger, red and green chillies and limes with some kind of sauce. Very delicious.  Out came my main, green prawn curry and four gorgeous bowls of rice. My waiter decided instead of choosing which one I wanted she would give me all four (brown, panda leaf, saffron, jasmine dry). I am in heaven - its fantastic! I am really looking forward to making green curry on Monday (at the cooking school I'm going to.) The food was absolutely fantastic - so fresh and flavourful.

Sunday I decided I should be up early given Saturday night was earlier than I'd expected.....no alcohol was the cause of that. I left the hotel by 10am and took a taxi to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha and the Grand Palace, thankfully the traffic was a million times better than yesterday. As soon as I was getting out of the taxi I was pounced on.......a man told me I needed to cover my legs to enter, which I knew, and to do that I needed to walk down to the other entrance to hire something. He asked where I was from (as I was expecting as they all do that), and he replied with Auckland or Wellington. As if! I was doing my best to get away from him as I didn't want to trust him. In the end I decided to walk in the entrance where I'd been dropped off and go from there. Of course I was told to cover up, which I did. I was given a lovely blue silk sarong to wear. In a normal day it would have been great to wear however today was over 100 hundred degrees plus humidity so having the extra material wasn't fun.

First stop was the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (Wat Phra Kaew), which is Thailand's most sacred site (hence the silk sarong covering me). This place was like nothing else I had seen - bright colours everywhere. The buildings were great (architecturally), and all so different. The Emerald Buddha is super small, 66cm tall, and sits tall on a gilded shrine (its so bright I nearly needed my sun glasses). I was suffering with the silk sarong so was extremely grateful to be able to walk in the shade wherever possible. From here walked to the adjoining Grand Palace which use to be a former royal residence and now just used for special occasions. There was some kind of event on so the majority of the grounds were closed to the general public which was a shame. The things that will stand out for me are the funny shaped trees and the guides with their guns.

After losing the extra layer of clothing I walked to Wat Po. On the way I saw lots of stalls selling food and goodies catering for both the local and tourist. There were tuk tuks everywhere. Touts tried to make eye contact with me, some tried to talk to me however I just walked on pretending I didn't speak English. It worked :)

Entered Wat Po and was glad to be free of the streets for a short time. Wat Po holds the large gold reclining Buddha, and what a site it is! Know my photos won't do it justice. The feet alone are 3 metres high, which yes is twice my height. The grounds surrounding the reclining Buddha were great, bright colours, different architecture. If it wasn't so hot I could have spent hours just wondering around the buildings.

I met Nina here and spent the rest of the day with her. She is travelling in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and India for 3 months and I'm SO jealous! We stopped for lunch on the water then took a ferry across to the other side, I felt like I was back in Venice although the boat was a boat not a gondola. Here we visited Wat Arun (the Temple of the Dawn). Again very bright colours and by far the smallest of the Wat's I've visited today. We climbed to the top and at times I felt ill - it was SO steep! And coming down was not fun. Some of the stairs came up to my knee, now I realise for me this is high however for every one of you reading this email it will be high as well! The view from the top was great, and even better that there was a small breeze.

Took the boat back to the other side and waiting for another ferry. I felt like it was seen one Wat seen them all - 3 in 1 day is too much, although the heat and humidity certainly didn't help either.

We took the local ferry to Central Pier. Was nice to be on the water, although it was absolutely disgusting!!! The ferry boy kept me amused with his constant whistle blowing. This was to give directions to the driver. Next time I take the ferry I won't stand so close to the back of the boat where he is. From here we got the sky train. The a/c was just fantastic!!!! If it wasn't so hot outside I'd say it was cold, but alas no it was bloody hot outside so it was great to be able to cool down.

I had a 4pm spa appointment and Nina decided to come along to see if she could get an appointment. I had scheduled a 1 hour facial but after reading the brochure added a 1 hour foot massage and spa. The lady giving me my foot massage informed me I have small feet, as if I didn't know :) I've just finished the foot and leg massage and am oh so pleased I added that! Now onto the facial. It was great to end the day doing something so relaxing. I left after the facial feeling very sleepy but very relaxed.

Back to the hotel for a shower before venturing out to meet Nina for drinks at a bar that had been recommended to me.

We met on the platform at a sky train stop, seemed the easiest place to meet and thankfully it worked. I was sitting waiting for Nina as it had been a much quicker trip than I expected when a girl came up to me asking if I was waiting for someone. It turned out Nina had met her in the morning and had sent her an email to meet us there. We headed off to State Tower which houses the famous and amazing Sirocco bar and restaurant, located on the 63rd floor. What a view this was!!! It was amazing, you could see for miles and miles and miles. I felt so removed from Bangkok and could have easily been in New York. Once we have finished living like super stars (ok not quite but….) we took a taxi back to the sky train. The funniest thing with our taxi is that it had a full karaoke set in it. Priceless!! I'm sure if you had had a few drinks you could end up driving all around Bangkok.

Monday I was up early to get to my cooking school. Was instructed to take a taxi to a hotel and meet the guide there. I was very pleased that traffic was nowhere near as bad as it was on Saturday.

Once everyone was gathered we headed off to a local market to buy our produce. What a great experience this was, reminded me of my time grocery shopping in Venice. Buying things from different stalls. We were each given a small basket and as the shopping went on our baskets were filled. I was given the task of carrying the chicken, shallots, mint and some ginger. The 12 of us were spilt into two rooms to clean all the produce. Once this was completed it was the fun part, making the food. We all had our own cute board, knife (which really could have been sharper!) and plate. Before starting on out first dish we needed to "make" coconut milk. To do this we have water added to the shredded coconut and we had to squeeze handfuls at a time. After the third handful me hand was a tad sore. After we had done our pile of coconut more milk was added and we repeated the process. Our teacher told us we can do this 4 times. Thankfully we only had to do it twice! Our first dish on the list was Spicy Shrimp Soup (Tom- Yum- Gung), we first collected the ingredients we needed then cut or ripped as instructed. Once we were all completed with our cutting and ripping we were straight into our individual woks to prepare the soup, then of course eating the soup. And if I must say so myself it was very good!! Next on the list was pad Thai and this was just fantastic, million times better than what I've eaten previously. The teacher then made a yummy chicken salad, I think he was aware we were rather slow (well some of the group anyway). More tasting then we moved onto making green curry pasta and green curry chicken. This was just delicious! I'm a huge fan of green (and red) curries and had chosen to do the course today based on the menu, it didn't let me know! I certainly won't be needing to eat for another hour or five. We eaten the course with rubies in coconut milk, this is chestnuts but in small nail sized pieces which have soaked in raspberry flavouring then cooked in hot water for a few minutes then added to coconut milk. Thankfully we were given a recipe book as there was no time at all to write down everything as we went.

The cooking school was good fun and something very different. It was a tad budget though, as it was held in a private house there was no air conditioning. Not good when it’s the height of summer in Bangkok.

Took the sky train to Jim Thompson's house. I had been recommended to visit here and don't think I'd recommend it to people to visit. Although I was super hot from the morning cooking so maybe wasn't in the right frame of mind to be there.

A little history, cause I have nothing else really to say about this. Jim Thompson was perhaps 'the best known foreigner in Bangkok, and possibly in Southeast Asia'. He is a self-made American entrepreneur who was the founder of the world renowned Jim Thompson Thai Silk Company. The actual house consists of a complex of six traditional Thai-style houses, teak structures that were purchased from several owners and brought to the present location from various parts of Thailand. Construction of the Thai house was completed in 1959.

Back to the hotel and about 5 minutes before getting to the hotel is started to rain, slow little rain drops to begin with then large heavy drops. Ending with thunder and lightening and constant rain. Was glad to be inside. Chilled out for awhile then Nina came over. We went swimming and made good use of the pool bar 2 for 1 drinks :) Made our way to the Suan Lum Night Bazaar, certainly a bit of a mission. Sure hope its worth it! Eventually found somewhere to eat that was Thai and I choose pad Thai. It was no where near as good as what I'd eaten this morning, although I did make that myself so perhaps am a tad bias :) By this stage we were had it so had a super quick wander around the market. As most of you know I don't enjoy shopping at the best of times so trying to shop when you are tired, hot and sweaty is not fun. We left fairly quickly with no purchases. Found a subway right at the entrance so took that rather than the 15-20 minute walk to the one we had previously got off it. Its a trick for young players.

Tuesday morning I woke early, I wanted to get some pool time in before having to leave for the airport. Unfortunately it was too early for the sun to be in full force so I'll be returning to HK with no colour. Left the hotel just before 11am as I wasn't sure what traffic would be like. I didn't want to be arriving at the airport late.......I am of course my fathers daughter and arrived well before the normal 2 hour check in. Great.

Finally got on the plane after a bit of a mere boarding......sorry no story to say other than it was just painful. Certainly hasn't left a good taste in my mouth to fly Emirates again.

The lady sitting on the same row remembered me from Friday night when we were on the same row - how funny, I certainly I didn't remember her.

No sooner how we landed back into Hong Kong people were out of their seats, going to the bathroom and getting their bags from above their seats. Absolutely unbelievable! I've never seen anything like it before......welcome back to HK.

I hope this finds everyone well and happy. Next trip….to be confirmed but I'm thinking Cambodia to visit friends then Vietnam with Mum and Dad. I'm sure I'll find time to have another trip somewhere before then.

PS Sorry its taken me 1 week to send this, as I have nothing and I repeat NOTHING to do its very hard to do the things that I have to do.