June 12. River Kwai to Bangkok
Following last night's exertions, nothing much happened until lunchtime. Even breakfast was missed. I did take the opportunity to take some more photographs of the endless corridors & steps which characterize the hotel and also of the amazing carved furniture which was on display and available for sale. It was quite reasonably priced but the cost of having it shipped back to New Zealand didn’t bare thinking about.
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I actually managed a chilli in my minced pork and the Maitre 'd was a bit concerned about it. It is a shame that they are so convinced that us foreigners can't handle spices.
We took a few more photos of the hotel, particularly of its wildlife. Cory gave a lot of attention to the row of talking mynah and related cage birds. One of them used to put on a tremendous display of inflated feathers etc whenever he poked his cam corder at it. Unfortunately, the lighting around the cages completely confused my camera so I gave up and took photos of the fish, instead. We then waited for the bus to take us back to civilization.
We had been travelling a few minutes when it became very wet and we passed large puddles by the side of the road. This was the first serious rain we had seen since the evening of our arrival. Within five minutes, however, it had stopped and there was no more for the remainder of the journey.
This took nearly four and a half hours on a mixture of 1 and 5 lane roads, normally in quite heavy traffic. We passed a number of police checkpoints, some with armed guards, which I felt it prudent not to photograph. I did attempt photographs of street scenes through the bus window but most of them failed to come out properly. Unfortunately, I will have very few images of the street scenes which I enjoy so much and which can be so informative about the local society.
After checking in to the Indra Regent again, we asked the hotel taxi people about travelling to a restaurant of which Valerie had been told. They happily assured us that it would take about an hour to get there in the horrific traffic and that there was somewhere much better just round the corner. We agreed and the hotel limousine ran us there in a few minutes for a minimal fee. It was a fish restaurant, obviously a bit of a tourist trap and definitely not cheap. We had the fun of watching our dinners escape from their nets whilst being fished out of the tanks and trying to make a run for it across the floor.
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Lobster dinner |
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We all had a massage from one of the waiters and they brought us lots of nice beers which were stored in an ice bucket. All very civilized. Less civilized was the fact that immediately next door was the main railway line and a major building site, so that trains and heavy trucks rumbled past at regular intervals. Between us we managed two lobsters and two sea bass. |
They were good and, in my case, very spicy. After asking if I liked my food spicy, they heaved lots more of the spice mixture onto the fish as they served it. Just what I had been lacking for several days. We also sank several beers.
We walked home along crowded streets, stopped at a photographic shop to have some camera cards unloaded onto CD and finally reached home still very full.