Thailand - it's a riot
Trip Start
Sep 23, 2008
1
16
40
Trip End
Oct 31, 2008
Bangkok,
Thailand
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Some reflections on our time in the Peoples Republic of China (excluding Hong Kong):
It has a lot of people - really a lot of people.
All those people take holidays at the same time.
They find employment for all those people - i.e. many shops appear overstaffed.
The people are fine individually and in small groups, but in vast quantities it is a different story.
The infrastructure (especially the roads and subway) can barely cope with the number of people).
Sarah is a curiosity to many of the people here.
They like to take photos of themselves.
There was more information in English than we had expected (especially in the more rural Xi'an) and many people spoke some degree of English.
They have quite a lot of quite impressive history.
We arrived after the Olympics so many of the facilities had been improved. The toilets were OK, although it remains true that to find a public toilet in Beijing you don't need a map just your nose.
I have to say that we had no problems in China - the food was good, neither of us got sick and at no time did we feel threatened.
You will all be pleased to know that Sarah has managed to keep up to date with what's been happening to Aldershot Town FC and has been able to watch chunks of Strictly Come Dancing - there's me wanting to discuss Legalism and how it influenced the First Emperor and Machiavellian thinking and all she wants to talk about is how rubbish some minor "celebrity" was at the jive.
And so we arrive in a war zone - second article on BBC World news is anti-government riots in Bangkok and that troops have been deployed onto the streets. But the hotel is nice and dinner was good.
