Shopping Spree

Our last day in Bangkok and we are hitting the malls. We have allocated all day as there are an insane amount of malls here, each are several floors and I'm talking 6, 7, 8 floors each! We didn't visit them all (as we only allocated 1 day!) but we did go to Terminal 21, Siam Paragon/Discovery and MBK. Each was completely different to the other - even Daniel liked the shopping and that speaks volumes!

Lets start with MBK - 8 floors of fake goods! No joke. Each floor had different items on it so there was the souvenir floor, clothes, phones and other tech, bags, I could go on. We walked around pretty much every floor and got some bargain souvenirs. The phone/tech floor was a little concerning when you see several booths selling phone numbers - what if you saw your own phone number there! Luckily we didn't but I wouldn't be surprised if some of those numbers were already in use! We were here so long we had to stop for a coffee to refuel before moving on!

Next stop was Siam Paragon, one of the largest malls in Asia apparently. We didn't buy so much here but we did have the most awesome lunch at a Korean Fired Chicken restaurant - BonChon Chicken. Apparently it is coming over to London, I hope it does it was delicious.

Terminal 21 was different again, this was set out like an airport terminal when you walked in and then each floor took you to a different destination. From Rome to Paris, London to Tokyo, Istanbul to the USA with San Francisco and Hollywood. Each floor had over sized iconic landmarks of each location and quirky shops that kind of fit with the destination. It's a great idea, I love it!

Our shopping spree day was tiring but awesome!! 

For our final meal in Thailand we went to Cabbages and Condoms, a restaurant that I have been teaching about for years. The idea behind the restaurant is to promote safe sex to prevent the spread of disease and also try to control the population as it was growing at a fast rate. Each meal they hand out free condoms and the money raised goes into helping different causes. The restaurant is also decorated with condoms in very creative ways. I wanted to go and take photos to show the kids and see if I could pick up some information. It turned out to be great, the food was fab - as it has been everywhere we have eaten whilst being here - I collected lots of information leaflets and photos and they also had a shop and stall with items made from a village initiative so we did our bit and I bought a scarf!

 

On our way home we found an English pub! Since its our last night we stopped in to get back into the British way! The football was on, beers on tap, full of English people and a Sheffield beer trail poster on the wall! Just like home, lol. We've had a great time here, yet there were so many things we didn't have time to do. The people have been great, the food amazing and the sites unbelievable.

I would say Thailand definitely lives up to its name as the Land of Smiles!

Touring the Temples

Early start today - pick up is at 7.30! Definitely no time for breakfast today! Dressed appropriately we headed off for our city and temple tour taking in 3 out of the cities 400 temples. We are barely scratching the surface of the temples in the city but the 3 we are seeing are good ones! Each has a different draw for visitors.

Our first stop is the temple that has a 5.5 ton solid gold Buddha - yes that is right - solid gold - worth £28mil ish! Even though it was quite early the temple itself was reasonably busy. It wasn't very big and on the way up the stairs to see the gold Buddha a guy came out of nowhere and started taking our pictures - like cameras right in our faces, it was totally like we were being papped! Yet another celeb experience of our holiday! I'm walking past with my sunnies on and hand over my face! Turns out he was using the pictures to make badges to sell - if he'd said this he might have found people would pose instead of looking away! We climbed the rest of the way and there it was - the most shiny Buddha you have ever seen. Apparently it was discovered under layers of plaster - what a great find. Apparently it is one of Thailand's most important Buddhas but having said that there are a number of these.

From here we headed to another important site - that of the reclining Buddha. Now we have seen one already in the Monkey Temple cave and we thought that was large but wow this was humongous! Trying to take a photo you can't get it easily in one shot. Its feet were made of mother of pearl - this was definitely a highlight. Around the temple that housed this giant Buddha were statues showing how to massage as apparently there are important links between this site and the traditional Thai massage. There were a number of elaborately decorated pagodas. In the base is where you place the ashes of loved ones and the pagoda forms a kind of memorial, but they have run out of room for pagodas so now the ashes go in boxes in the walls behind the many many statues of Buddha.

 

The final temple on our tour was the marble temple. Not so much a complex of buildings like at the last place but one elaborate and sparkly white temple, made from Italian marble. It was very quiet when we arrived mid morning and when we approached the temple we found a ceremony going on inside. Young apprentice monks were being ordained to be a full on monk. They were all dressed in white, bowed, with their heads shaved. One at a time they would approach an older monk where he would give them their orange robes. They then exited the temple to an area outside where the elders helped them get dressed in their new orange attire. They then had to go and speak individually to an elder monk before collecting their pot to collect offerings from the locals for the monastery. It was fascinating to watch and see them dedicate their life to the religion. You can do this for just a period of time and not your whole life and then return to your regular life after. That was interesting to find out - this is only for boys/men though, not women.

 

 It was definitely interesting visiting these 3 temples - each completely different to the one before. We did drive past the Grand Palace and down what was essentially like our Mall to Buckingham Palace. A fancy street, well decorated mostly for the Queen's birthday on the 12th. They had was looks like St Paul's Cathedral at the end -well a mini version. We then headed back to the hotel for a rest before our river night cruise tonight.

 5.15pm was our pick up - this leaves 2 hours to the ferry - we nearly missed it! I kid you not, the traffic was ridiculous. Now I know it's Friday but we sat at the end of our street for about an hour - no exaggeration! The pick up guy was panicking as we were late for our next pick up and we started discussing what to do instead! Slowly we crept along and eventually the pick up guy jumped out, ran along the road to collect the other person and ran back along the street, whilst we sat in the traffic! We made it by the skin of our teeth. No time to look in the mall attached to the dock, it was straight through - flower pinned on, photo took and to our seat! At least then we could relax. Table 1 didn't make it and we left without them - we hovered around the river then went back and picked them up. At least our food came in courses, theirs came all at once! The food was amazing but there was a lot of it. Spring rolls and crispy baskets filled with chicken and sweetcorn to start, then Tom Yum soup, then a main of rice, fish, green curry and prawn and broccoli - each! Then fruit, mango and sticky rice for pud! The views were good with the Grand Palace, Temple of Dawn and others all lit up and there was also some traditional dancing on our boat too. I'm glad we made it!!

Bangkok Baby!!!

We've made it! Bangkok baby! They offered us an earlier flight but due to the transfer at the other end we'd be waiting either way. Exiting the airport one thing you first notice are the massive, humongous billboards, ours are tiny in comparison. They next thing you notice is the traffic. Complete gridlock in places. As we were approaching our hotel the buildings got taller, building work was going on in many places - though here it wasn't bamboo for scaffolding - they still didn't wear hard hats though.

Bangkok probably as expected reminded me a lot of Shanghai and Beijing and probably other Asian cities too. It's incredibly crowded, congested, hot, polluted and surround by high rises. And out hotel was one of those high rises - again as expected. We walked into reception which was decorated in a very European grandeur way. Our room was on the 9th floor - out of 26 - the top being an Indian restaurant - apparently the best in Bangkok with stunning city views so we are going to go tonight.

Our room was pretty standard and going to check out the view at that moment another torrential downpour. We are doing well at missing the rain when we are out and about!

After chilling a little we headed down to the lobby bar to check out the tours and take advantage of happy hour then made our way up to the 26th floor for a curry. The views here were stunning - now dark lights in the restaurant meant the sky lit up with the lights from the buildings. As we booked we had a seat by the window - boom. The curry was nice - nowhere near the spicy curries we have at home and also not as spicy as the Thai food we have been eating.

The restaurant also had a roof terrace - on the 26th floor! You felt like you could plunge to your death as there was nothing stopping someone from climbing over the edge! I wouldn't advise it! I was rooted to the spot anyhow with legs like lead!

A great intro to this mega city, tomorrow we have our free temple and city tour so we'll suss out a bit more of what Bangkok is like then.