Bangkok by Dave

Hi, welcome again to the next enthralling instalment on the Alice and Dave trip extravaganza!! This sees us leaving Heathrow (where the last instalment finished up) and heading to Bangkok. The flight was long, tiring, boring, etc etc, but there were a few good movies on, which helped pass the time. When we got breakfast, we figured that we weren’t far off landing in Bangkok with a full day ahead of us to acclimatise. Unfortunately, they told us that we were landing at about 2pm, so obviously breakfast is a lunchtime food according to British Airways!!

We landed, got out of the plane, and headed to immigration, along the way we got a new memory card for Alices big camera, and then realised that there must have been a mass landing of planes, because the line ups were massive, and they didn’t seem to worry about it too much. There were a lot of immigration counters that didn’t have people there, and the ones that were manned, seemed to change people every 5 minutes, with a 4 minute transition period, bit of a pain, but eventually we got through and picked up our bags. We then thought we’d get a taxi to the hotel, along the way we avoided getting ripped off and pressured into booking “really cheap” tours then and there!! We got chatting to the blokes driving us, and learnt that out of the $30 or so for the hour drive to the hotel (the new Bangkok airport is 30km or so out of the city), he was getting about $2, and then was expected to drive the car back to the airport, get it cleaned, fill it up, then catch a bus back home, all the while with a shocking cold, we were his third trip for the day, not a huge income for a 12 hour day!! It made us very aware of the massive living standard differences between Australia and Asia.

We eventually got to our (5 star!) hotel, awesome place, well worth it, had a shower, with no shower screen, bit strange, made for wet floors!! We were so knackered that we couldn’t be bothered heading out, so we just had dinner in our room, then an early night.

Next day we woke up and headed down for breakfast, this was an awesome spread, anything you could think of was there, fruit, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc, etc. Very nice to be able to sit outside in shorts and a T-shirt and have a leisurely breakfast, with nowhere to be urgently, this was a bit of a novelty for me, especially with the weather!! We finished up eating, headed back upstairs to get ready for the day. We had seen a tour that we wanted to do badly, but the tour company that our hotel was affiliated with only ran it Tuesdays (today) and Thursday (the day we were heading home), so we had to hunt around for another one, this was pretty easy, not through tour companies, but at another hotel, so we booked that, and were all set. We then headed to the local shopping centre, very ritzy, all the designer stuff, at prices equivalent to home, I had to invest in some thongs, needed to free my feet from being in shoes and socks all day every day!! Got them, all sorted, then headed back to the hotel, before deciding that were hungry and needed lunch (it was 2 o’clock by now). We walked down the local street with all the food places and bars, got something, then Al made a fatal mistake. We were walking past a kind of sports bar, she commented “Oh look, they’ve got the cricket on!!” Australia was playing England in the 20-20 game, consequently, I suddenly felt hot, and had to go inside somewhere to get out of the heat, conveniently, this pub was cool!! We went in, but it was nearing the end of the innings (Al got lucky), so we were only there for 5 minutes or so before heading off.

All this walking around wasn’t doing us any good (we needed an excuse) so we went to the pool. We pretty much had it all to ourself, with half price beer, and cocktails, so we were happy, Al had her magazines, I had a swim, life was good. We soon finished up there, and headed out for a bit of a look-see at the markets. Caught the skytrain to the nearest “night-time” markets, that were all closing up by the time we got there, pretty average “night-time” markets!! We did still manage to find a few things, I practiced my bartering skills, before being accosted by people wanting us to eat in their restaurants. We eventually chose one on a canal, which we were later to learn was right near one of the sites of the New Years bombing, you couldn’t tell at all, they’d done a very good job of cleaning stuff up. The food was awesome, we guessed that coz there were Thai people eating there, too much for us to eat, along with drinks (big beer for me!!), for less than 20 bucks, bargain no matter what way you look at it!!
After this we’d had enough, so back to the hotel for us, and tuck ourselves up in bed ready for a big day tomorrow.

Day 3 in Thailand was a very early start. Alice had a friend who had done a tour to the Tiger Temple about 2 hours out of Bangkok. That was one of the main reasons why we wanted to go to Bangkok originally, and one of the reasons why we still wanted to go there after the New Years bombs. We were being picked up at 6:30 or so, so we were up early to have breakfast. The bus got there, with two other people on it, a young couple from Denmark. We’d just been to Denmark (good work for those of you who have been following this from the kick-off), so after a while got chatting with them while we were in the bus.

The first stop was the war cemetery (official name of Kanchanaburi Allied War Cemetery, I’m going with war cemetery, from now on). It was an awesome place, so humbling being there, with rows and rows of headstones, so many of the men were my age, or much younger, the thought of being there at age 20-21 away from loved ones and going through what they went through, was just amazing. There were heaps of graves, not sure exactly how many, but lots from Australia, New Zealand and surprisingly heaps from the Netherlands. We were there for about 20 minutes, before piling on the bus again to head to the next stop. This was the JEATH museum, the acronym represents the fated meeting of Japan, England, Australia/America, Thailand and Holland at Kanchanaburi during World War 2. The museum operates in the grounds of a local temple and has reconstructions of the bamboo huts that were used by the POW’s for shelter. The heaps of photos, drawings and paintings by the POW’s, weapons, maps and other memorabilia really show the atrocities that these guys had to go through and shows how they suffered. There were heaps of people around here, some Japanese as well (who were the guys running the camps), they seemed to go through a bit quicker than what we did.

We then jumped on a boat, driven by a car engine, ripped out of the car and chucked on the back of a boat, with a propeller on the end of a 3 metre shaft!! We were hooking along pretty well, at one stage we went through the joining of two rivers, one was the River Kwai (some of you know where this is going don’t you??) and the other was the River Khlong (we think). We came around a corner and ended up under the Bridge over the River Kwai, this was built by the soldiers living in the conditions we’d just seen, working crazy hours (up to 24 hour shifts). The original wooden bridge is no longer there, only the steel bridge is still standing. It was actually bombed during the war, leading to a couple of spans being replaced, the round ones are the originals, and the square spans have been replaced by steel from Thailand (rather than somewhere else). Heaps of people here again, great photo opportunity, if you could only get rid of all the in the way!!

We jumped in the bus again, and then found out that the tigers weren’t actually open until 1 or 2pm, it was still about 11am now, so they offered us an elephant ride, for extra cost of course. We headed there, and got to go on an elephant for a 20 minute ride. There were a few elephants with calves, really young and chained to their mothers, it seemed kind of mean, but they did give them a rest every now and then. When we got on the elephant (with no calf), we headed off towards the river, our elephant jockey took us out in the water, luckily it didn’t pick up water in it’s trunk and spray us, but then on the way back to the camp, he jumped off and left us to ourselves on the elephant. The rider kept yelling at the elephant, although it seemed to have a mind of its own, heading off by itself (with us still on board and with no idea how to control the damn thing), until the rider picked up a stick, yelled loud enough then threatened to throw the stick at it!! Even then it only followed until he dropped the stick!!

Then it was time for lunch, all included in the tour price, I nearly had an “incident” with Chicken and Cashew Nut lunch, but we got through it, without throwing up that is!! A quick stop after lunch at a viewing spot for a train heading into the Hellfire Pass, or Death Railway, was just the precursor to the main attraction, a visit to the Tiger Temple, run by monks, along with an Aussie dude volunteering there for a few weeks, weird hearing an Aussie accent with all the monks and tigers and stuff.

There were probably 10 tigers at the end of this canyon type area, with at least 20 or 25 “attendants” who were there to take us from behind the rope and take us to the tigers. Unfortunately for a place run by monks, there was only one in this area, bit of a poor turnout, maybe they were off doing monk type stuff!! When the attendants came and got us, another attendant took our digital camera and snapped away when we were lead to the tigers and got to pat them. Consequently, we’ve got heaps of photos of us crouching next to these massive tigers, after we got through the minor issues with my memory card, and before the battery died on me!! It really was pretty cool being that close to an animal that could quite easily kill you, although they were so sleepy that they hardly moved, apparently they only bring them out just after they’ve just been fed, reassuring to know, believe me!!

There was an opportunity to pay a bit of extra money and get even closer, and have a tiger rest it’s head on your lap. Alice did this, and we managed to get some good shots, although she said that they were really only on your lap for a second or two. After that was done, we hung around near the rope, and they moved one of the more lively tigers up towards the front so we could see it a bit. He was a young one, and we got some really good shots with him yawning, massive fangs all on show!

The next stop was where they keep the cubs, we managed to see 2 little ones, although there were so many pushy people there that it was pretty hard to get a good look. Especially when one of the monks (there were a couple here) brought one of the cubs right up to the front of the cage, and one of the attendants (who get to see them a lot more than us) stepped right in front of us and blocked our view, not happy!! We also saw a cheetah here, just pacing around the cage. They’re in the process of planning a new tiger enclosure, so within 12 months or so there will be a lot better viewing spot to see the tigers, we both definitely recommend this to anyone who is travelling to Thailand.

We then piled back into the bus, for the 2 ½ to 3 hour trip back to the hotel. Chatting to the Danes with us was good, but I think we’d both had enough of making small talk, so we were also ready to kick back and wait for the hotel. When we got there, we crashed a bit, it had been a long day, so we had a shower and headed out to get some dinner. A quick walk around the local markets was also good, we found a few DVD’s that we wanted, and stupidly thought we’ll get some money out in the morning and get them before we left. Unfortunately, we didn’t count on that particular stall not actually being open by the time we had to leave. Another lesson in buying stuff when you first see it!! We did manage to get a few DVD’s, and some other things, nothing too important, but another chance to work on those bartering skills!!

We pretty quickly came to the time when we had to head out to the airport, I had to visit the little boys room, and left Al in charge of getting a cab. I got back, and she’d been offered the trip in the hotel limousine, a Mercedes Benz E-class, for something like $10 more than what a cab would cost. We figured it was worth it, riding in style is better than in a stinky cab, and would probably get us there a bit quicker. Little were we to know, but this guy must have been a racing car driver on his days off, I think his target must have been to double the speed limit all the way, 80kph zones quickly became 160kph, getting us to the airport rather quickly!! We even gave a Porsche 928 a decent run along the way, he was a madman, but we got there safely, albeit a bit shaken!!

Once we got there, it was just a case of checking in (due to not being able to use on-line check-in the night before), and getting crap seats, although we were getting used to that. Then going through the usual stuff, getting ripped off by having to pay 500 baht airport tax to go through security at the airport, and the usual security checks, immigration and all that, we were so sick of it all, and then waiting for the plane. Luckily we had Qantas Club membership, although seeing that the airport was new, Qantas hadn’t actually finished their lounge, so were stuck in some dodgy lounge that didn’t actually have toilets in it, we had to go out to go, still not a huge issue, but we’d had enough, and were used to the good stuff by then!!

Eventually we boarded the flight, and got our seats and got settled in. We had a bit of drama as we took off, it seems that one of the flight attendants forgot to latch a toilet door, so as the nose of the plane lifted up for us to take off, there was a massive bang. Now Al is NOT the best flier at the best of times, let alone when theres a big bang just as we’re taking off. Consequently I had my fingers (only two, I’ve learnt from experience) squeezed so tight I’m sure the blood stopped pumping in them. I then had to explain what happened and that it was nothing to worry about. She calmed down after a while, and it seemed to be all OK, little were we to know. As soon as we took off the guy and his mother (so we thought) in front of us put their seats as far back as possible. For those of you who have been on BA flights, they seem to go back a lot further than normal, so we had basically no room. When we were moving around, we “accidentally” kept kicking and hitting their seats so eventually they put their seats up a bit, I learnt that when theres no-one in them, you can just push on the seats and they go up, handy to know when people go for toilet breaks!! Now, back to the guy and his mother, she was old, and he was young, so we thought it was a perfectly logical assumption, until they started cuddling and kissing, bit of a shock, unless he was just really close to his mum!! I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but only because I really don’t want to think about the other option!!

When we landed, it was basically a mad rush through immigration, (after duty free of course), then picked up our bags, went through customs, got pulled aside because of stuff I had for work, then had to transfer to the domestic terminal. We asked for emergency exit aisle seats, but were told that they were all booked, bloody lying Qantas, there were a grand total of 4 people in the 12 emergency exit aisle seats, spewing, but we were so tired that we didn’t really care! We read the paper, a proper Aussie paper, and tried napping until we landed in Adelaide to our families who had come to meet us. It was great to see everyone, and kind of surreal at the same time to think that our travel was over, and we were back to realism of normal lives. I quite enjoyed not having work, and seeing all this new stuff, oh well, thats life I guess.
That’s about it for the trip, hope you’ve enjoyed reading along, we’ve certainly enjoyed our part of it!!

London for a Day by Dave

We arrived by Eurostarin the evening and headed to our hotel, only to find that we didn’t actually have a booking! They had somewhere between us booking and them writing it down mislaid it, we did talk our way around, the guy that we spoke to said that he could give us a room, with breakfast supplied (we’d booked without brekky) but we had to pay cash in the morning. Not sure if he was pulling a dodgy on us, but we got our room, and breakfast, so we weren’t complaining too much.

We headed out for dinner, found a little pub not too far away, on Kings Road in Chelsea, nice beer, nice hamburgers, all good. There was a young Aussie guy working behind the bar there, of course, so we had a bit of a chat to him, he was planning on buying a pub there himself, seemed as though he had all the visas and stuff sorted out. He even had a back up plan of “marrying” a mate who had permanent residency over there, since gay marriages are legal in the UK, keen, but you wouldn’t want anyone back here finding out about it!!

The next day, our last day in the UK, was spent walking up and down Kings Road again, looking at stuff and trying to find some things that we had seen before we left before Chrissie. (Note from Alice: i wanted to shop but Dave had found a pair of diesels which he wanted, but of course didnt buy when he had the opportunity in Bristol. Subsequently, we spent the whole day racing around London trying to find them, to no avail. Hopefully this helped to teach Dave the important lesson of when you want something, just get it or else you will regret it and destroy your girlfriends last shopping day in London. So as Dave may say it was a nice relaxing day, it actually wasnt, and would hve been much nicer if i had been able to acually do some shopping!)Not much to report here either, nice relaxing day, before we headed out to Heathrow, to go through the usual stuff again.

We’d actually left a couple of bags that we didn’t want to cart around Europe at the hotel we stayed in before we flew out. Trouble is, there’s two hotels with this name there, so of course when we got a cab to pick up the bags, we went to the wrong one!! The cabbie wasn’t too happy, but eventually we got to the correct hotel, and got our bags, didn’t even charge us any extra for running around!! A quick re-pack at Heathrow and we were all good to check in. We managed to check-in, but for some reason our bookings weren’t linked, so were sitting a fair way apart. We asked if anything could be done, but they reckoned there was nothing, until the flight actually closed, we got in, and asked the Qantas club if we could actually change, and luckily they sorted it out for us just before we took off, bit of a pain, but we were getting used to little pains like that. Unfortunately, while we were packing, we didn’t really pay enough attention to the signs that said only 1 carry-on bag allowed, so another repack was required, and then we had to put a backpack through as check-in. Bit of a pain, but we did get ushered through security a bit quicker than usual, skipped some of the massive lines. We basically spent the rest of the time in the Qantas Club lounge, before getting some magazines to read before getting on the flight.

Paris Part 3 by Dave

That night, we went on a cruise for dinner. It was the final part of my birthday present to Alice, Capitaine Fracasse was the name of the company. We started just near the Eiffel Tower, although our plan of getting there nice and early to get a good seat kind of back-fired. We were standing there for an hour or so before the boat actually got to the dock, and even though we got there first, a couple of women pushed in front of us (blatant push-in might I add) and got the best table. We weren’t happy, but they were French I guess!! We were told to get there at 7:45 to leave at 8:30, but people obviously took that to mean they could rock up at 8:30, or after and still get on, bit annoying for the rest of us, but not a lot we could do about it.

After leaving the dock, we were asked what we wanted to eat, for mains, there wasn’t a choice of entrée or dessert, so we only had to choose once which was good, and ordered some drinks. We then headed up the river, past the Eiffel Tower, all lit up, and a heap of the other sights along the river such as the Louvre, you could just see the tip of the Notre Dame over other buildings in the way, but the views were great. The food was also fantastic, although we had to wait a while. We tried taking photos, but it was pretty hard at night through windows. We eventually got down to the end of the trip, then turned around and headed back down the other side of the river. Good to get a different view, in between eating of course.

We finished up the cruise, then headed to the Eiffel Tower, the aim was to climb it, nice and romantic at night, although it was about 10:30 by this time, so we could only get up to the 2nd level, we wandered around, then headed across the road to the “View of the Centuries”, or something like that, just across the road and river from the tower to have a look and get some photos. Al was getting good with her camera by now, so took some really good shots of various statues and stuff like that, with the tower in the background of course.That pretty much finished the night for us, so we headed back to the hotel.

The next day we got up early (well for a holiday) and went to the tower, Al was feeling a bit crook, so the 30 minute wait in the line was a bit of a pain, then the 45 minute wait for the lift from the second level to the top level was also a pain. This was after trying to find out the correct line to get into to get up to the top level, not very well marked!! When we got up the top, we headed outside, massively windy, and Al still wasn’t too good. She wasn’t really a fan when I leant out as far as I could to get a photo looking down, from 276m up you get a good view, the weather wasn’t the best, so we didn’t have a great view, not very considerate of the Frenchies!! We walked around the top, then went back into the covered section, they’ve got the distances and directions to heaps of different cities of the world, so we were on a mission to find Adelaide, alas, little old Adelaide wasn’t there!! We did find Sydney, so thought that would have to do, so we had to have a happy snap in front of that. We also found Canberra, and I think I kind of insulted another Aussie who was there, by pointing them towards Sydney, and saying no-one cares about Canberra, oops, maybe they were from Canberra!! Oh well, what can you do, it kind of is true!!

Eventually we headed back down, and really only had enough time to do the bolt back to the hotel, collect our bags and get to the train station to catch the Eurostar back to London. This was a welcome change to flying, it was good to be able to get there a bit later, and not have all the waiting of planes. Pretty uneventful trip back to London, nothing really to say about that, but worth it, at least you get dropped right in the middle of London.