City Residence
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2004
1
37
44
Trip End
Dec 22, 2004
Bangkok,
Thailand
Tuesday, December 7, 2004
When we arrived back at our hotel from Cambodia, we spied Chantal and Nico sitting waiting on us (with beers) at our hotel (City Residence, hence the title), 3 hours late due to the journey from Cambodia. How brilliant was that! Chantal, a proud Dutchie, and Jillian met in Germany when Jillian was working there 2 years ago, and the two of them hit it off straight away, having many a drunken night, deep chats, giggles, sing-songs (Thooosand Miles being the favourite) and so much in common. Nico (who Andy describes as "as mad as me") is Chantal's German boyfriend who we first met when the 2 of them drove the whole way from Germany to come and visit us in France, again for drunken nights! Chantal and 2 others visited us at home last September and we also went to Germany for Chantal's birthday last April, so you can imagine how exciting it was for us to meet up again - and half way across the world too! And, I'm sure you can imagine that it was another pretty drunken night outside the City Residence Hotel. They were in Thailand for a 3 week holiday and so how perfect to all meet up in Bangkok before we both go our separate ways again. This has been a really great couple of days all being together again and laughing non-stop :-) Of course, they also knew the infamous "Mass-aaaaage" words, and Nico even added to the humour with words from a cookery course "You put the lice in the steee-maaaaaaaaa, yeeeees".
4 Loopies Squished in a Tuk Tuk
Cheers, you two, it was great to see you! After sadly waving goodbye to our friends and sorting a few things out - picking up our tailor-made clothes (Jillian wasn't 100% percent with hers unforunately), chasing up money from scamsters (we got 1,400 Baht back from the travel agency for ripping us off on our trip to Cambodia) and finally getting our clothes washed, we had time to do some proper Bangkok sight-seeing.
Trying out yet another of Bangkok's transport, we took the river boat to the Democracy Monument, which like most things in Thailand is adorned with a gigantic picture of the King in a gold frame - they love their king here, he's actually done a lot of wonderful things for the country, and personally oversees projects which he comes up with himself for the benefit of the poor etc. We visited a few Wats (Buddhist temples), took photos of the tallest Buddha in the world (since the Taliban blew up the world's tallest Buddha in Afghanistan, Thailand lay claim to this record), saw The Grand Palace, and grand it is, deliberately went with scheming tuk-tuk drivers to tailors and jewellery shops so that he got petrol coupons for bringing us there - it's a Bangkok thing, just have to do it, though we weren't prepared for him driving off after saying he'd wait while we saw a temple! Walked way up to the top of a hill to see another temple, which had great views of the city, even if it did look a little hazy due to the desperate stinking smog, then decided we'd finally had enough of Bangkok.
Buddha Buddha Buddha
Templed out and with sore throats, stingy eyes, dirty skin and feeling exhausted from the disgusting smog and pollution of the city, we opted for the cinema (Alexander), which was really good. We are loving travelling, no doubt, but sometimes it can get tiring, and believe it or not, doing something "normal" is a welcome relief!So, finished with Thailand, with a hell of a lot more life experiences under our belts, to say the least, we're off to pack our bags (filled with pressies :-)) and get ready for the final chapter of our dream... India. And what a way to finish it all off - with the great Taj Mahal, Rajs and Palaces of great slendour, our favourite food, exotic wildlife and beaches, and PROFESSIONAL scamsters who'll make Thailand seem like a breeze, but we're prepared and looking forward to eat, sleep and breathe India, in all its glory. Yep, it'll be another jam-packed couple of weeks, but that's the way we do it! Actually, we're thinking of going to Goa for a whole week to totally chill out before we go home and reflect on the best thing we've ever done in our whole lives... on the beach.
Almost, but not quite the end...
A&J x
