We all had a good sleep. Tom slept right through and we had trouble waking him up. Matt and I did ok - we woke through the night but managed to get back to sleep reasonably quickly each time.
Today we had a plan for the day: to go to Wat Pho to see the reclining Buddha and then see how we felt.
First thought - breakfast. Always look forward to a hotel breakfast. It was a good one...so there seem to be 4 main 'flavours' of holiday maker here: Europeans, Indians, Japanese & Chinese which means you get a great selection of breakfast items:
+ Full English type cooked food (bacon, sausages, eggs, omelette, beans, eggy bread, pancakes, eggs cooked to your liking etc etc)
+ Continental: pastries, ham, cheese, boiled eggs, waffles, yoghurts, breakfast cereals etc
+ Japanese: rice, fish, sushi, raw eggs, teriyaki chicken etc
+ Indian - vegetarian curry, rice, paranthas etc
+ Chinese / Thai - noodles cooked to your liking, that horrible rice porridge stuff, strange looking fruit.
We indulged. We were all starving, so we had about 4 courses each and were very happy.
We then headed out to try to find the MRT - the Bangkok underground train system. As always happens in a place you are unfamiliar with, we went the long way round in the heat to find it, but we got there ok and it was air conditioned - lovely. Both Matt and I had read that you could get a 3 day pass for the underground so we tried to get one - apparently no, they don't exist?! So we have to pay as we go. It is 36 Bhat for each trip (80p)! Tom is an adult because he is (just a little!) over 120cm!
We found the train to Sanam Chai and worked our way back to the surface to get hit by the heat all over again - Tom really wasn't finding it much fun! We walked the short distance to Wat Pho and headed in.
The architecture was amazing. Although both Matt and I had been there before, we were still wowed by it and although Tom was suffering in the heat, he said he was enjoying the experience. I didn't remember the buildings literally glittering in gold, but they were, you could only be amazed by it all. We took our time there slowly, sitting a lot, drinking a lot, loosing ourselves in the buildings.
We went to see the giant reclining buddha - which was as impressive as before. So nice to be able to take plenty of photos now rather than 1 or 2 per venue in the bad old days of film cameras! It really is huge and it really is very gold.
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| White and Red Roses...hummmm! |
Once done we walked back to the station, stopping at a small van to buy some elephant trousers (for me) and elephant shirt (for Matt). I had read about a big shopping centre, Terminal 21, close to our hotel - on top of the MRT station we were using (Asok / Sukhumvit). We decided to go there for a look round - it was an interesting place as each level was designed for a different city/country. There was Jamaica, Rome, Paris, Tokyo, Istanbul, London and San Fransico. We got very excited when we found a Daiso and a Mini Sou in Jamaica. Both Japanese stores, so we had a good look and added to our holiday shopping.
Up in London, Matt managed to find a holiday T-shirt (elephant themed), Tom a new rubics cube. But mainly it was air conditioned and interesting to look around. We found an ice-cream place that did sundaes so stopped there to rest our feet and indulge. It was good.
We then went back to the hotel, Tom and I had a dip in the pool to cool down, whilst Matt processed photos. We then decided to get the sky train up to Mo Chit to a shopping mall from which we picked up our train tickets for Wednesday. We were going to stay there for tea, but there wasn't much choice, plus Matt had found an Co Co Ichiban - a Japanese curry restaurant chain at Terminal 21 and was keen to visit. We got the MRT back and popped straight into the shopping centre - we have worked out the lay of the streets in the neighbourhood now. Walk round the corner to Exchange Tower, then go up the steps to the sky walkway and walk all the way to the MRT / Terminal 21. Saves having to wait an age for traffic lights to change and it is shorter anyway! So, we all had Japanese curry for tea: with cheese and some prawns for Matt (eurgh!), with calamari for Tom and with veggies and a boiled egg for me.
We then saw another escalator to 'Pier 21' and thought we would investigate - oh my word. It was food stall heaven. I have never seen such a huge food court like it. There were restaurants around the sides and then a huge seating area with dozens of food stands inside it. We looked around - every type of facet of (mainly) Thai cuisine was there - loads of noodles and rice dishes it was mega busy and an assault on the senses. We think we know where we are having tea tomorrow!
We headed back to the hotel via MaxValu - a Japanese supermarket I saw signposted in a nearby tower block. It was ok, but a bit small, so lacking a decent selection of your regular Japanese treats. Then back to the hotel, a game of cribbage in the lobby bar, and to the room and bed. A hot, steamy but good day.
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