One night in Bangkok

Twelve hours can feel like a world away. Having gone from a Canberra winter morning of just 2oC we arrive in Bangkok at 35oC, feels like 41oC.  It was an un eventful flight, with an uneventful taxi ride to arrive an our unconventional hotel, Inn-a-Day.  The rooms are named after hours of the day, we are in 7am. It is quirky to say the least. French industrial, warehouse inspired, funky fish themed room. The shower is literally in the centre of the room and is a blue glassed fish tank looking feature that separates the space. The bedroom is a loft bed up step stairs, with space to crawl only. We do have our own balcony and if it wasn't airconditioned inside and a living sauna outside, we may have spent more than 2 seconds on it. It does have a view of the Temple of Dawn across the river, sadly it is currently covered in scaffold. Having had a long day of travel, we had an unexceptional dinner and went to bed early.

Our hotel is just across the road from the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, our first destination of the day. I don't know how they came up with this name but it has a giant gold reclining Buddha :-) 

The temple grounds have a amazing array of temples and statues.

Next door is the Grand Palace. We'd strolled down the road around the 20ft high walls in search of the entrance. The signs along the wall advise caution of 'wily' strangers trying to divert you from the entrance to other tourists option that they coincidentally have transport in which to take you. We found one such 'wily' stranger trying to send us in all directions. Not deterred, we found our way to the hordes entering the Palace.

We hadn't really thought it through, so were a little surprised that a Palace tour doesn't include some of the things we'd expected, such as a visit to the Throne Room with a chance for a quick sit & pic, the Royal gym, and so on. Rather, it's a meander around numerous buildings that any self-respecting Palace requires (eg Temple of the Emerald Buddha, golden reliquary, scale model of Angkor Wat, etc). We mixed it with the crowds (it felt like half of China was on vacation there all at once), and saw some pretty neat stuff. A lot of gold stuff.

We'd planned for lunch, somewhat characteristically, miles and miles away at a place called Or Tor Kor market. Naturally, we tried walking first. While not a mistake, per se, after some time of wading through crowds and melting like lit candles we decided it was tuk tuk time. The breeze as we were navigated through the crazy traffic was welcome, but had nothing on the blessed Bangkok sky rail. We rate the air con on the trains as 11 out of 10, and quite seriously contemplated just riding around for a few hours to cool down. We may still be on that train if it wasn't for the pangs of hunger and excitement of an exotic food market.

Having found the market there was a short moment of panic when we found just produce stalls, a concern as not only they were mostly closed but also we don't have a kitchen...though the giant prawns did look delicious. Thankfully at one end of this market was a large array of food stands where they will cook food to order. A crispy pork rice and Pad Thai, both more than acceptable at the lofty price of around $2 each.

Back on the airconditioned train, prolonging our reprieve from the heat, we took the scenic route back to the hotel, involving a short ferry ride on the final leg. Having walked up thirst, Andrew attempted to purchase a cold take-away beer to have back in our room. Bars are hard to come by in Bangkok. Having found a 7-Eleven that sold beer, we were foiled at the cash register when a sign was pointed to advising us that alcoholic beverages could not be puchased between 2 and 5pm. Cue profound cultural bemusement.

Equally bemusing is that cocktails are cheaper than wine.....but more on that later.