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Imaginative Traveller Bangkok to Singapore
Entry 15 of 25 | show all | print this entry |
Well i manage to make myway down to Bangkok and arrive into the hotel at 8.00pm. As i check-in i see a notice to all Imaginative Travellers - There will be an introduction meeting held in the lobby at 6.30pm followed by dinner at a local restaurant! Whoops, looks like i'm too late for the introduction meeting (which according to the tour iterinery should be happening tomorrow morning!) so i drop off my bags and decide to wonder around the local area and see if i can see them.
I wonder down a few of the local streets and see a different part of Bangkok, small streets with lots of local stores and restaurants. I don't see the others, but i do find a cheap internet cafe, so i log on for an hour.
I head back to the hotel just after 9 and as i am requesting the room key i met Vaughn. He is our tour leader and he catches me up on what i missed at the meeting. Basically i need to pay him the local payment and we leave at 8am tomorrow morning. I get back to the room and get ready for bed, it is time to catch up on my missed sleep from last night!
Just as i am about to get into bed, Bonnie arrives. Bonnie is my room mate, 30's Canadian who is travelling around the world for a year. She has already been across South America and Australia and is now doing South East Asia, China and then home. She seems nice, but as i am knackered and we have to be up early in the morning, we don't talk much and just head to bed. Ahhhhh Sleep!!
The next day we make it up in time for breakfast and then all pile into a mini-bus to head to the floating markets and the Bridge over the River Kwai.
I met the others on the tour, they are:
Deborah, 21 from London. Jewish and Kosha.
Kobi, 25 from Belguim. At first i thought she was Australian, her english is so good, you wouldn't know it was her 2nd language.
Sara, 26 from Aberdeen
and Margret, 30's from Aberdeen. Sara and Mags are doing this tour before heading to Perth and travelling around Australia for a year!! Yeppie more people i know in Perth.
It is an all female group apart from the tour leader Vaughn, 29 from the Philippines. His english is extremely good and his sense of human hillarous!!
The Damnoen Saduak Floating Market, is about 110 kms west of Bangkok, and so we are in the mini-bus for about 2 hours before we get there, which is just enough time to get some more sleep!
The market is already busy when we get there and i soon get caught up in the excitement of the place. There is a static market on the banks of the canal and then the floating stalls on the canal. We are told about the market from our guide for the day. She then leads us to a canal boat and we all pile in for our 30min trip up and down the canal. The boat is just like a long rowing boat and the driver punts it down the river with a long stick! We slowly make our way up the river stopping at some of the stalls, but all the stalls are selling souvenirs and mostly all the same ones. It gets a bit boring, expecially as i would like to have bought some of the items for my house, but as i am not heading back home for 9 months, i had to refain! There are other boats on the canal, ones selling fruit and food, bigger tourist boats with outboard motors and transport long boats. We end up in a traffic jam and sit there listening to the drivers all shouting at each other in Thai, enjoying the atmosphere!
After the canal, we are back in the mini-bus heading to the Bridge over the River Kwai and the Death Railway. We stop for lunch on the way and sit on a jetty overlooking the River Kwai eating a Thai set meal, which ends up being very nice. The views from this location are amazing, blue water, green trees and very green hills, i could sit here all day. But alas we are on the move again to the Bridge. This is not the original bridge that the film is based on because the original bridge was bombed by the alies towards the end of the war, but is now a steel bridge over which a train still runs.
After the bridge we go to a museum about the Death Railway and the poor POW's that were forced to work to death building the railway for the Japanese. There is a cemetary next to the museum and after a walk around we all pile back on to the mini-bus feeling alot more sober.
Next stop is a small town of Nakhon Pathom where we are catching the overnight train down to Surat Thani. At Nakhon we walk to see the "Phra Pathom Chedi", which is the first religious landmark to signified the influx of Buddhism into Thailand. It is a huge circular building with loads of gold and emerald budda's inside.
We stop off at the 7-11 to pick up some snacks and drink for the train journey and then clamber onto our carriage. We have difficulty fitting all our backpacks on board, but soon Vaughn has found us the space and we are all seated in our little bunks ready for the 10 hour journey.
Where I stayed:
The New World Inn
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| 15. | Imaginative Traveller Bangkok to Singapore - Bangkok, Thailand May 08, 2008 |
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