And finally - Monday 13 June

With hindsight, it may have been fortunate that we arrived in Melbourne before the volcanic ash cloud, even though from what I can glean from the internet, it doesn’t appear to have affected Thai’s flights.

On past trips we have sometimes hired a car, but there was no need this time, and I’m very glad we didn’t (traffic, parking etc).   Trains and buses worked well for us, but we stayed in cities and towns.   My impression is that if you hire a villa in Tuscany, you would need a car as these the villas are generally in rural areas.   Of course, it would have been nice if our bags had have been lighter (especially on the trains, the buses are less of an issue because the bags are stored underneath).  But it’s hard to manage with less, when you’re away for nearly 4 weeks!

I was pleased with the 28 Degrees Mastercard.  It provides very competitive exchange rates and no fees on transactions, including none on cash withdrawals (at least when used at Westpac Global Alliance ATMs).

The el-cheapo netbook that I used on the trip, while not perfect, was adequate.

Jetlag is still troubling me, 2 days after arriving home, even though we broke our return trip with 2 nights in Bangkok.  But hopefully I'm over the worst of it now.

Back in Melbourne - Saturday 11 June

Well, it's nice to travel, but it's also nice to arrive back home - to be able to unpack knowing that you don't have to pack it all in the suitcase in a couple of days time, to change into something different instead of the same old clothes, and just to switch off completely without having to worry about going out or otherwise organising the next meal!
The flight back was uneventful, and touched down a few minutes early, and we were out of the airport in about 20 minutes.    Angela very kindly picked us up (once again, thanks, Ang!).
I hope to be able to post a few reflections on  what we did and how we did it, but it may not be for a day or so, so stay in touch!

Getting ready to depart from Bangkok – Friday 10 June

I read in today's Bangkok Post that there has been an unseasonably early onset of heavy rain this year, hence last night's rain. It also influenced our movements today. We couldn't arrange for a late checkout today, so we had to check out by noon. When we told the baggage guy at the hotel that we would be back to collect them at 6 pm, as we were leaving our bags with him, he mentioned that journey times to the airport at that time on a wet Friday night could be horrendous - there had been cases of it being as long as 3 hours, assuming that you could even get a taxi. So we occupied ourselves for a while on Sukhumvit Road (including some attention to Sue's nails!), but at about 4 pm, the sky wasn't looking good and there were drops of rain. Hence, we decided that rather than spend more time and money sipping coffee in town, we'd cut and run for the airport (even though we had plenty of time). A taxi was readily obtained, an acceptable fare was negotiated (not strictly necessary, but probably meant the driver didn't have to split the metered fare with the cab owner?), then after nearly 45 minutes while the taxi negotiated less than 3 km to get on to the expressway (mostly sitting in stationary traffic) and a further 30 minutes or so on a congested (but moving) expressly, we were at the airport. We can well believe the horror stories about much longer travel times at worse times. Out of interest, I noticed that the cab driver immediately picked up a fare at the drop off zone at the airport (thus avoiding, I suppose, the 50 baht fee charged by the airport and, I assume, a long wait). So hopefully it was a good day for him, and made up for the many hours that cabs seem to sit outside the hotel. Check in at Thai business class took about 2 minutes, and from checkin, you go straight to a dedicated “fast track” immigration and security chanel, and then straight down the escalator to the lounge. Thus within a few minutes of arriving at the airport we were in the lounge, asking about the absence of wine. Everything else is available (except, strangely, peanuts), but the wine only appears at 6 pm (it now being after that time, I can report that the red is an acceptable Lindemans). This is an improvement on the satellite lounge that we ended up in on the way over, where wine didn't turn up at all. The upshot is that we have several hours to wait for our flight, but it beats spending the time stuck in traffic and we are being fed and watered. And, of course, Sue has some important duty free shopping to do, and isn't being rushed!

People watching in Soi 8 – Thursday 9 June

Shortly after posting the above post, the rain indeed started. There wasn't much of a storm, only a little lightning, but the rain was solid. It is now easing off, about 4 hours later, but in the meantime we wanted to eat. For the sake of an easy (dry?) life, we stayed close to our accommodation, on the patio of a pub-type of establishment (a New Zealander seemed to be in charge). We were able to observe the comings and goings in the street, ranging from the Westerners (EDIT - male, that is) who made up a significant proportion of the restaurant's clientele, and their drinking/dining companions – frequently Thai! - through to the street vendors continued to operate, notwithstanding the rain (using umbrellas etc). The motor cycle boys who generally provide local transport up and down the street were largely replaced by a couple of tuk tuks who passed and re-passed and the massage parlour over the road had a variety of customers (and would-be customers) – including Sue, after dinner, for a back massage (she was happy with it). I explored the local area, which has a great variety of accommodation, ranging from a number of cheap to mid-range hotels (as well as ours), plus some high rise apartments further down the street. I wondered if these are to some extent inhabited by Westerners, given that we saw a number of big 4 wheel drives in the street (quite different from most other vehicles that you see).

We leave tomorrow night for home. I asked about a late checkout, but was told the place is fully-booked, so we will check out by noon and occupy ourselves before returning for our baggage and heading to the airport.

Bangkok Thursday 9 June

We both had a bit of jet lag last night. I know that jet lag hits hardest when you fly from the west towards the east, but why is it that its effect is that you want to go to sleep earlier and you wake up earlier? This seems to be the opposite to what you'd expect, but it resulted us both being wide awake at 4 am. However, we eventually got back to sleep and then only woke up just in time to check out the comprehensive buffet breakfast!

Added - Grand Temple

That done, we made for the Grand Temple and associated temples. It took a while for the taxi to battle through the late morning traffic (but at least the traffic moved, compared with later in the afternoon when we were in the skytrain and it was completely gridlocked). The first main temple you see is the Royal Monastery of the Emerald Buddha, and its associated terraces and other halls, galleries and structures. These are all extremely lavish and the handout you receive explains their significance and history. You then see (from the outside) the Borum Phiman mansion (used in the past occasionally as a royal residence and now used as a state guest house), followed by the Chakri Maha Prasat Hall (which contains a throne room and now used for purposes such as the reception of foreign ambassadors). You can then enter the Dusit Maha Prasat Throne Hall, used as lying-in-state place for royalty. Finally, there's an interesting museum. All in all, it's pretty impressive, and there's lots to see, although (perhaps understandably) you can't enter a number of the buildings.

Following this,  we thought we deserved some airconditioning, so we headed for the multi-storied MBK shopping complex. I spent a few minutes on one of the external pedestrian bridges. But then everyone was cleared off the main bridge and looking down, the street below was also completely clear – an amazing sight for Bangkok. The reason became clear when a convoy of official cars came along – apparently the Queen was going somewhere.

Back in the hotel, there seem to be some dark clouds brewing. It's coming to the end of the hot season and the wet season is due to start sometime soon. Perhaps we're in for a storm.!

Arrival in Bangkok Wednesday 8 June

The flight from Zurich was long but uneventful, with arrival in Bangkok delayed a few minutes because of a thunderstorm in the area. I had read up on the taxi arrangements in Bangkok, whereby the dispatch desk is supposed to allocate you to a cab and tell the driver where you want to go (since most drivers have little or no English). All very well, but just outside the airport, the driver stopped and wanted clarification as to where we were going! Not his fault, but just as well I had printed the hotel's instructions (in Thai) from the internet. But I was prepared for his question as to whether to use the toll road, and I knew that I had to give him the money to pay the toll. So all worked out well, and we were drinking the welcome tea at the hotel within 90 minutes of landing, notwithstanding an afternoon traffic jam on Sukhumvit Road. The room has cooking facilities, but since breakfast is included in the rate, perhaps we don't need these after all. We're staying in Soi 8, near the top of Sukhumvit Road. This isn't an area that I was previously familiar with but I thought the fact that the Westin and Sheraton Grand (amongst others) are nearby was a positive. There is Robinsons department store but otherwise the area has many, many street stalls, restaurants (of all descriptions), made-to-measure suit shops etc, and so is certainly vibrant and full of activity, but it doesn't have a lot of mid to up market shopping arcades etc. However, the Skytrain runs down the street, so it will be easy to get around.

After a short look around, we had dinner at an Indian restaurant. After we had ordered, we were a little apprehensive but all doubts were dispelled when the food arrived – it was great. Sue showed them her card in Thai requesting no MSG, and the waiter readily understood and said that they didn't use it. We even had sweets, which were also terrific.

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Zurich in transit 7 June

We checked out of our accommodation this morning and headed to Potsdam. One of the nearby S-bahn routes went directly to Potsdam, taking about 45 minutes. Although Potsdam has a great deal of hisotry, it was not as I imagined it. Certainly it's a historic garrison town, but the sights are spread over quite an area. There were a couple of hop-on/hop-off tours, so we elected to use one of these. If I'd known at the time, we could have used our Berlin ABC zone ticket, but on reflection, that would have required a greater knowledge of the local Potsdam bus and tram routes than I had. Anyway, the tour bus showed us a number of the main sights, including several former garrison buildings that now have different uses (some are apartments, some are schools, some are government institutions). The main schloss that we would have liked to visit was the Neues Palace, but apparently it's partly used by the university and the bit that is a museum is closed on Tuesdays! However, we were able to tour the Orangeriescholss, which was the most recent major chateau to be built (1860s). There was a sweeping view from the tower, and the rooms open for inspection (as designed by Frederick IV) were most ornate. Pity he died before it was completed. There were only 4 of us on the tour. The guide explained that the tour was usually in German, and English speakers had a card to refer to. However, she also spoke very good English, and as the other couple were Italian (which she didn't speak), we had the tour in English! We had a bit of a look at the Sans Soucci park, which is very large and is a mixture of some formal gardens and quite a lot of unkempt areas.  We also saw (from the outside) the Schloss Sanssoucci, the historic mill etc.

 

 

The tour bus finished its round in town, and as we would have had to wait for it to continue back to the station, we decided to walk. Potsdam iitself is actually quite a cute town, with a pedestrian mall. Thence by S-bahn to pick up our bags, and taxi to the Tegel airport through quite heavy late afternoon traffic. I know, we could have caught the direct bus to the airport (the stop was only a couple of hundred metres from our accommodation), but we decided that we're “over” wheeling our baggage around the streets for the time being (although plenty of people do that wherever we go, especially in Berlin). Tegel is quite a cramped airport, but we survived in the Lufthansa lounge, and now we're waiting in the lounge at Zurich for the Bangkok flight.