Exploring Bangkok, avoiding the traffic

Today we had breakfast with Jee and she gave us some tips for how to navigate Bangkok avoiding the roads and terrible traffic. Jee had a meeting to go to, so we took her advice and walked to the canal and got on a canal boat. The boats move pretty fast and as a consequence, the canals actually have waves on them, like the sea. If another boat goes past, the passengers have to pull up plastic sheeting to stop getting wet! The boats were almost all full of locals and it was a great, fun, way to get around and much faster than the roads. We visited Phu Kao Thong (Golden Mountain Temple) - we had to walk up 344 steps in the Bangkok heat to get to the top but there were plenty of animal statues to look at, bells to ring and gongs to bong along the way, so they helped keep Solana (and us) motivated to keep walking. We were rewarded at the top by the sight of the large golden stupa and great views across the city (oh, and a cheeky ice lolly!). Afterwards we went to a big shopping mall and had lunch in the amazing food court there - it has inexpensive stalls with food from all over Thailand and beyond and we were spoilt for choice. We then came back to our hotel via the Skytrain, which runs above the roads around much (nut not all) of the city - again faster and more fun than the roads.

In the afternoon we met up with Jee again and she took us to some cheap places to buy a few things for the New Zealand leg of our trip, including a great "60 Baht" shop (like a pound shop, only B60 is now more like £1.50 with the current rubbish exchange rates!). So hopefully you will see a few different clothes on the next leg of our trip. We also went out for dinner, followed by ice cream. It was lovely to see Jee again and do some catching up and a shame to have to say goodbye to her again so quickly... Tomorrow evening we fly out of Bangkok to Christchurch in New Zealand. It is probably for the best that we are leaving Thailand, as Solana keeps making comments about the King (who is on all the bank notes) looking "a bit like Harry Potter" (which she says about any male in glasses) - given the sensitivities around the recent death of the King and the respectful nature of Thai people, we were starting to get worried she might get us arrested for blasphemy if we stayed much longer! We're not looking forward to the next round of jet lag but we are looking forward to some cooler weather (just hope we have enough clothes to cope with it, after 2 months of the tropics!), different scenery and visiting some friends. Solana is also looking forward to some "home food".Read more