Grand China Princess Hotel Bangkok

... and I thought that was Los Angeles! Well here we are in the first city of our trip! And it's pouring with rain.This is the last month of the rainy season. Never mind, the flight here with Thai Air was fantastic - the food was truly non-airline food and glorious and the drinks flowed copiously (too bad we don't drink much on flights). We arrived at the new airport (don't ask me to spell it!) which has only been open for a week. Luckily, we escaped the fate of many and our luggage arrived w...

After an eleven hour flight we landed in Bangkok just before 4pm. We decided to join the locals and get a train to Hua Lamphong Station in the centre of the city which looked quite close to our hotel on the map. Whilst waiting for the train I undid my rucksack only to hear a big thud as a 2kg weight fell out onto the platform (thanks Grant for that!). Unfortunatley once Dan had deposited our respective 2kg gifts in the bin (much to the confusion of a couple of nearby locals) our rucksacks did...

Leah says: My thoughts so far of Thailand is that Bangkok has been reminiscent of India and yet the people are friendlier and not as pushy. The hustle and bustle and busyness is pretty much the same as any large 3rd world city. The weather has been very hot and humid and it makes me wonder how on earth I coped last time in India for 6 weeks? Our arrival into Thailand was somewhat unexpected with airport hiccups seemingly a recurring theme of this trip so far. We left Kelly and Anthony“s house...

Poor Jay! He works all the time and I get to have all the fun. We get put up in this killer hotel for a couple nights. It's smack in Chinatown called the Grand China Princess. The first floor is its own community of coffee shops, restaurants, and merchandise. The pillows are soft, each crowned with a mint and a fresh orchid. The room comes complete with coffee, a hairdryer, souvenirs to buy, and complimentary vouchers for a meal in the coffee shop upstairs. An entire channel is devoted to lis...

Wow, long trip but arrived at the airport around 11pm Bankok time (2am aussie time) when we finally found our pick up person after Andrew got us lost (lol) walking up and down the airport (which is the size of Ulverstone I'm sure) it then took us another 1hour of travelling till we got to our hotel with a few catnaps in between. We climbed into bed at 12.30pm Bankok time (3.30 Aussie time - had been up since 5am that morning) long long day, but worth every minute of it - so exciting.

Massive breakfast, Jayne is rather partial to pastries and choc chip muffins for breakfast :)
First trip outside, I don't think this heat is natural, 9am and sitting on a hot 32 degrees.

A quick walk around the block through Chinatown, well almost an hour, very hectic pace, narrow alleys, shops, stalls, food everywhere and people every where, cars driving down the alleys struggling to fit past. Crazy!!!

Jaynes First trip in the Tuk Tuk, noisy and crazy zooming through the tra...

Another early start, leaving the hotel at 7 but still enough time for breakfast, Jayne is becoming way too fond of her newly found love, tiny coffee scrolls and danish's.

Long drive through new and old areas, from massive new highrise buildings to houses made of little more than roofing iron, rice fields, rubber tree plantations, fish farms, coconut trees and more.
About 2 hours took us to our first stop, Bang Pa-In Palace, one of the kings 50 or so palaces, he may visit this one on...

Ok now this was an early start 5am in the hotel foyer grrr. No breakfast this morning. 2hr drive to the villiage Kanchanaburi where we brought breakfast for the monks. Back into the car 20min to Tiger Temple, sampled some food off the side of street again getting very game - some potatoe ball things and fried banana yum. When we arrived at the Tiger Temple we sat behind some tables, which had big plates of food on them - that was what we were to give to the monks as they past by for thier bre...

We made it!! After what seemed to be an incredibly long flight, we arrived at the new Bangkok airport. Very flash! We breezed through customs and were taken to our hotel around 9.30pm. Although it was 2.30am or so NZ time we had to go for a quick explore through Chinatown, where we were staying. There were lots of food carts all over the street and open air restaurants serving tiger prawns and huge crabs, along with a few indescribable and unrecognisable things. We decide to be brave and sat ...

Bangkok is an amazing city. Arriving through all the pollution and humidity, we wove our way by taxi through the crowded street to our hotel the Grand China Princess in Chinatown. For the price we paid it was a really good hotel. The first couple of days we looked around Chinatown and went to the Pat Pong Markets which is an eye opener. The Tuk Tuk became annoying after a while because they never drive you where you wanted to go, they keep stopping at all the shops on the way. We opted to bar...