Just an update with planned trips...

Barcelona (Spain) for a quick 2 dayer tomorrow
Bochum (Germany) for 3 days next week
Wellington (New Zealand) for a week a week or so after that

Will do my best to update this blog accordingly hoping for some interesting trips to write about. although most of it will be... on a plane again...

Bangkok - Day 6 - Boats and pictures

So this was saturday.  I woke up at about 10.45 so missed breakfast, I woke up determined to do some more of the tourist type stuff and went downstairs to speak to guest services to see what they recommended. I mentioned I'd quite like to see bangkok from a boat and they told me about the company just at the end of the road the hotel was on that did the boat tours. It turns out there are many of these companies doing the same or similar tour up the river, around the canal systems and back down the river.

I walked down the road to the pier where I got harassed by tuk tuk drivers shouting '20 baht 20 baht' 'anywhere 20 baht' - which is about 40 pence. I swear some of them seemed so desperate for business they'd drive me back to Guildford for 20 baht.

You had a choice between speed boat or slow boat (same route)

Speed boat

Slow boat

Now being a petrol head and the fact that the speed boats were powered by what looked like big turbo charged V8's you'd think it would be an easy choice. But just as I was going to say speed boat I realised I didn't stand a cat in hells chance of getting any good pictures being thrown around in one of them. So I opted for the slow boat hoping i'd be able to get some piccies.

So here are a few pics from when we were heading up the river, note (covering my arse a bit) Ive not had a chance to crop or edit any of these so hopefully they look ok...

So some amazing sites and varied types and looks of buildings.  We then peeled off to into the back waters where the sites got even more interesting! 

About half way around the backwaters we pulled up into a bit of a floating market where dudes and dudettes in boats full of tat, i mean quality goods, tried to barter with you and sell you stuff. Now I have a collection of hats so I wasn't going to miss out on a thai hat, so I bought one off this dude and he gave me a free beer.

Then we continued around the back waters for a bit before joining back onto the main river...

This is not the greatest picture but it was an Alligator! didn't even know they were here!

So got back to the hotel after the boat trip confident I'd seen at least some of the real thailand, had to try the hat on!

That afternoon I just chilled out by the pool and read a book.

That evening I went to the top class Thai restaurant on our complex called Salathip. They had an 8 course Thai set menu...couldnt resist! The food was amazing, by far the best asian food I have ever eaten, made even better by the surroundings over the river and the traditional thai entertainment!

At one point I wondered why everyone was staring at me, then i realised they were doing this stuff right behind my head!!!

Then I had a quick drink at the bar and headed back to bed