5th December 2007: - Today is our last day in Chinag Mai & we have to check out of our room @ 10.00am with our packs in tow as well. SK House do not offer a said store room for items. Hey ho are train is @ 16.30 so we head off to waste some time having brunch in what would be our local the Art Cafe (they have a fab breakfast menu, not as good as your though Pat) & hang out in an internet cafe. Our train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok was comfortable, I think that was because we booked ourselves into 1st class. Porters were very attentive & we even had a cabin to ourselves, which was nice. On previous trains we have always had at least one other person with us. Journey was uneventful with us eating dinner & then shortly after going to bed. Oh & Drew tried to teach me how to play crib. I think this is going to be a long process as I am not good at card games.
6th December 2007: - Arrived in Bangkok @ about 7.00am & immediatly got a taxi to Star Dome Inn. Already keeping our eyes open for the scam artists that Lonely Planet warn you about! My first impression of Bangkok, is it is slightly dirty & very busy, although it has loads of chracter. We were out of the hotel b about 10.00 & headed to Wat Phra Kaew & the Grand Palce. As we were taking our little stroll to our sights we got caught up in a traffic jam twice & we found out that this was the result of King Rama. It turned out he was also heading to the Palce to have a bit of a do for his 80th B day. Now I have never seen the Queen in my life & as it turns out we get to see the King of Thailand 2 times. Yes we saw him once more when we were exiting the grounds o the Palace. I managed to get a fantastic picture of his hand! Drew says "it is the bast picture of the kings hand he has ever seen'. Whilst sitting in the grounds with many Thai people in their yellow commemorative shirts the atmosphere was amazing. I had a little old lady sitting next to me smiling constantly @ what was to play out in front of us. It was great to be amongst a very patriotic crowd, you really get swept away with the celebrations. Kate, how is that for a bit of celeb spotting? We were unable to see any parts of the palace so we moved onto the Siam Centre, a massive shopping mall. To get here we took a long boat along the canal & then the sky train, whcich were means of transports we really would reccommend. Once inside the mall we gave in to Burger King, Drew had a tripple whopper, it was huge (I have a pic as evidence) & finished it all.
7th December 2007: - Ok well this is likely to be my last entry for a couple of weeks, as tom we are off to our island hide away for a little chill time. Do not worry I will updat the blog when we reach Kuala Lumpar on 19th December 2007. Well today we headed to Khao San Road to do a little bit of shopping but to no aval, unlike yesterday when Drew got some really good Oaklys (not). We then headed back to Siam Centre to have an all you can eat Sizzler Salad. I tell you what it was out of this world. You miss salad when you can not have it, many plates were had (kind of pizza hut salad but better). We then watched the 2nd anniversary celebrations for Paragon shopping centre, which included some fancy ice sculpting. We were not able to get into the VIP area though. A well deserved night cap was calling us back at Khao San Road, of which we could not refuse.
