Thailand

After two days battling the tourist hordes, doing the culture innit, and gasping in the sun, we decided it was time for a day of (at least partial) rest. Also V needed a new t-shirt. So off we went to the Paragon Centre – a massive complex of not one but three vast shopping centres,

Though we’ve spent the day visiting wonderful sites from old Bangkok, I can’t resist heading today with this, Rama VIII bridge, which is just downstream from where we catch the river bus, and which I’ve been admiring since we arrived.  I had a few minutes earlier sent this to the lads, commending its elegance and

In truth, The Grand Palace is a bit overwhelming. It’s just so vast, and so intricate, and so much. One staggering building has another nestling right next to it, and behind them, well, there’s a couple more. Your reel, and reel, and reel again. You get a bit lost. And you get hot and bothered.

In the event, it ended up being not too bad a night on the train. Some long sleepless patches, but I’d expected that, and overall I probably got a good six or seven hours, which is about as much as I could have hoped for. Can’t fault the train, which was fast, smooth, clean and

I never was much good at sleeping in weird environments. And the overnight train to Bangkok definitely qualifies, at least for me. Not that it’s bad; quite the opposite. Even here in second class I have my cosy little cubicle, with a perfectly comfy, albeit narrow, bed – with clean, crisp sheets, I might add

Perhaps telling that the most interesting image I can come up with is of the egg & banana roti I had for lunch. It’s been that kind of day. Really not too much to say about it. We had planned to go to the National Park, flying solo, and see where we got to with

National Park day today – our one day tour, with boat rides, trekking through the jungle, and clambering through a cave. Didn’t start off too well, with a tedious two hours in a minibus as we made a succession of pickups from ridiculously out of the way places, stopped for petrol, and to call the

There’s worse views to have from your balcony. So, we left the hotel and went down to the 7-11, where we’d been told all the tuk-tuks hung out in the morning. Not a tuk-tuk to be seen. Oh. And we had a bus to catch, on t’other side of town. Virle got onto Grab. No