Khao Lak, Bangkok

Stayed in Phuket for a couple of days. Phuket is crap. Full of fat families and Burger joints. From there we moved to Khao Lak a few hours up the coast. This place was a lot better. We stayed in the only cheap place, surrounded by big plush resorts, run by a giant weird Dutch guy. He was really helpful though. So far as the plush resorts go, our time would come in Bangkok anyway, so we were happy enough slumming it for a couple of nights more. Didn't do much whilst in Khao Lak other than lie on the beach. We did hire a moped so that we could get to beaches further afield which was good fun. The roads are mental in Thailand though. It's as though there's an unwritten rule that scooters aren't allowed to actually drive on the road, because everyone drives on the hard shoulder. Was pretty exciting stuff. Especially when Jenny decided she wanted a shot. That went fine. Then a shot with me on the back. That ended with us heading for a bush and Jenny gashing her toe quite badly. All good fun though. Refuelling the scooter was pretty unusual as there weren't any petrol stations, rather we found an old woman selling bottles of gasoline at the side of the road. 20baht (30p) for a litre, which she poured direct into the tank.

We also treated ourselves to a massage on the beach whilst we were staying here. This started off well, but it all got a bit violent and sore for me, especially on the legs. Left feeling a bit sore and with a slight limp. Not sure I'll be rushing to have another one anytime soon. When we left to get the bus to Bangkok, we got a lift up to the main road from our Dutch host who told us a bit about the Tsunami which raized his, and all of the other properties around his, to the ground. He said that he and his family had to clamber onto the roof of their place to survive, and that half of his residents didn't survive. His car had been washed 3 km inland, along with a police boat, which he pointed out, standing in a bit of waste land 3km inland at the mainroad. All very sobering.

We endured a 12 hour bus North to Bangkok, arriving there at 4.30am. We sat about for a few hours before heading to the Oriental hotel where we would be living it up for the next week, with the folks. The Oriental is mental. Fanciest hotel either of us have ever stayed at. We were greeted with somebody helping us with our bags and handing us a garnet of jasmine.

For the whole week we were treated like royalty. Was amazing. They have something ridiculous like 2 staff member for every guest, so everything is taken care of for you, almost as far as wiping your arse after using the toilet. They even had a guy whose sole job was to press the button to call the lift. Very oppulent. The rooms were unbelievable as well. Just having a room with running hot water and pillows that weren't made of wood was a bonus for us, but they provide you with fresh fruit every day, little posh snacks at night, and everytime you leave the room they sneak in and fold your clothes and tidy everything up. Superb. I ordered room service for the first time ever, turkey sandwich, which was brought in on a trolley and seved on a silver salver which was pretty cool.

Was good to meet up with the parents as well, and not to have to stress about anything for a whole week. We did quite a lot of different activities whilst we were in Bangkok.

Our first outing - me, mum and dad - wasn't quite as successful as it could have been. We attempted to go and see the grand palace, which is a series of temples and the previous royal residence, in the centre of Bangkok. We had been warned about people telling us that the place was closed, and not to listen to them. Unfortunately we couldn't find the entrance to the palace and wandered round the outside of it for a while eventually having to ask a few people where the entrance was. We were told 3 times that it was closed by different people. The last of whom was at what looked like an entrance, and was wearing what looked like a uniform. We were told it was closed til 1pm and gave us a map with a couple of other tourist attractions marked on it. Then from nowhere a tuk tuk driver appeared and told us he would take us around the sites for 30 baht (50p). This seemed to good to be true and was. Although he did take uas to the places that we wanted to go to, he also took us to a gem shop and a suit shop. After these two excursons we got fed up, and so did he, so he took us to some crappy temple that was like a building site and dumped us. We did eventually get to the grand palace after a lesson learned. The temples at the palace were pretty amazing. Really ornate and dripping in shiny things and gold. Unfortunately the Jade buddah - the most sacred Buddah in Thailand - was involved in a ceremony when we got there so we didn't get to see it.

I managed to get the three of us booted out of a taxi on our way back to the oriental from our meal on the second night. Taxi driver didn't put on his meter and I pointed this out and told him to put it on. He threw a figure at me, and I again ordered him to put the meter on. He pulled over and told us to get out. All a bit embarrassing, but we got a free fare near enough as the taxi that we flagged down literally took us round the corner and we were at the hotel.

All six of us went to the bridge on the Kwai, which was quite interesting, although we were only allowed 5 minutes there, due to tight time restrictions. Was quite impressive despite what I'd been lead to believe about it. It's not massive but it's some structure to have been built given the circumstances.

We took a walk across it which was pretty hairy, given that it's only really wide enough for single file and we met plenty of people coming the other way. There are several large gaps to the side of the railway that had to be carefully negotiated to let anyone past. There was a bit of a panic when we were heading back across when a train appeared, but it stopped to pickup tourists before getting onto the bridge so we survived.

Next stop on this combo tour was a trip to the tiger temple. This is a tiger sanctuary run by monks. Was pretty amazing to be able to interact with the tigers in the way that we did.

We all got a shot of touching their backs whilst they wnadered down to the canyon where there were more photo opportunities. Jenny got well involved (obviously) going for the head shot and pulling their tails etc.

It became apparent pretty early on that the tigers had been given some sort of sedative to calm them down enought to have sweaty tourists poke and prod them, as the first big one to appear was zigzagging its way down to the canyon as if it had had one too many. It was all good though, and at the same time amazing to be able to get so close to them. There was one very annoying greasy twat who wouldn't listen to any of the warnings that were being issued by the guide (eg keep away from the tiger's mouth) and kept straying off towards the tigers trying to get the perfect shot. I think I can speak for everyone else in that we all would have clubbed together to made a hefty donation to the monks if they'd fed him to the tigers. He was so annoying.

We went and had a scope about chinatown on another day which was interesting. Lots of weird things being sold on the streets. Lots of gold shops to catch my eye. These pailed into insignificance when we (eventually) got to the Golden Buddah which is a 13 foot high solid gold buddah.

Very shiny and impressive. We almost didn't make it to this site, as again we were helpfully told that it was closed that day by a taxi driver who was more interested in taking us on a canal tour. After the grand palace experience we'd wised up to this line though and did eventually find it.

We ended up on a canal tour a couple of days later which was interesting. Not least for the fact that the smaller tributary canals seemed to be teaming with massive water dragons. Wouldn't have wanted to have fallen in. We cruised along lookingat all the ramshackle houses built right over the edge of the Chao Phraya, the river running through Bangkok. We stopped briefly to feed the fish which was good fun.

The fish were massive (presumably the reason there were dnosaur sized water lizards in there too) and we were encouraged to throw whole rolls in for them which they gobbled up no problem. We stopped off at a "snake farm'' next. This turned out to be a very run down and pretty depressing zoo.

The star attractions were the snakes which took part in a show hosted by a creepy guy on a microphone, and involved various snakes being tormented for 10-15 minutes, culminating in them milking one of them. All quite entertaining, but not very educational or fair on the snakes it seemed. The other animals were all pretty unhappy looking in their tiny cages. Jenny and Wendy were particularly taken by a cute baby gibbon that was out and about. Just a shame that it'll ended up in one of the tiny cages that the others were kept in.

Whilst we were staying in Bangkok we went to some very smart restaurants. For Roddy's birthday we went to the Banyan Tree, which is a restaurant on the 61st floor of a skyscraper on the top and open to the elements. Was an amazing view and food.

Was pretty windy though. After that and as a treat for him we went to Patpong - the red light district. We had a couple of drinks in a dodgy little bar and spotted ladyboys going past and watched all the seedy old men with their thai prizes. Was interesting. Not quite as in-your-face as I'd thought it might be, although Roddy was given an impromptu, unwanted neck massage whilst he was in the toilet which is pretty in-your-face I suppose. We didn't go to see a ''ping-pong show" which all the bars were advertising as I don't think either me or Jenny could cope with the embarrassment of seeing something like that with mother/father respectively in tow.

We also ventured across the Chao Phraya on one of the complimentary Oriental boats to have a traditional Thai meal sitting on the floor at lowered tables. They put on some traditional Thai entertainment whilst we ate. They had traditional dance which was interesting.

Especially the girls' fingers which were all hyper extended which looked pretty uncomfortable. That was followed by quite an odd mini-play with people wearing masks, and then a mock fight.

We took a trip to the famous chatuchak market. The biggest market in the world. It was massive. Sold nearly everything you could imagine. We spent a good half day wandering about here looking at all the weird and wonderful things on sale. We probably spent half of that time in the pet section as Wnedy and Jenny got all doey eyed about the puppies on sale there. The market wasn't quite what I was expecting, and I was a little disappointed that it wasn't a bit more in your face, ramshackle. In actual fact it was very civilised, neat and clean! It was interesting all the same though.

In between all of our sightseeing we all did a bit of relaxing by the pool, and eating and drinking well. Was a really amazing setting with the hotel right on the edge of the Chao Phraya so you could watch the cargo boats and tourist boats chugging up and down all day. All in all we had a great time relaxing for the week. Was good to re-charge the batteries, fatten up on good food, before heading off to Cambodia. We were very grateful to our parents for putting us up in a hotel round the corner from the Oriental the night that they left, to ease us back into traveller mode. We said goodbye to them on Sunday night and got up early on Monday morning to catcha bus to Cambodia........