Bangkok ...

Anyone who has been through Asia will be familiar with this saying ... no such thing as different sizes everything is same, same.

We loved Bangkok! Bangkok has been a great way to start our return home. Our son Mike said that he and Chris had a great time just hanging out in Bangkok, going to movies and visiting the malls. So we thought we would do the same. We have been desperate for some new clothes. So we did heaps of shopping and soaked up the up market ambience of the city. We enjoyed the malls and hanging out in the city so much we didn't even bother with the usual tourist attractions, probably a sign that we have been travelling too long.

The last time we were in Bangkok was around 1990. That was my first trip abroad. We were on our way to the UK for 6 weeks and had a stopover here. We stayed in a very nice hotel that had an amazing smorgasbord breakfast, which we filled ourselves on and then spent the day walking around the streets. It was quite the culture shock for us ... there were so many people and the traffic was crazy. It did not seem like that this time. Yes it is busy here, but it has been busy everywhere we have been.  Overall it seemed very civilised and organised. 

Our hotel had this display by the front door, teddy bears and love messages. There are a lot of these sorts of things all the way through SE Asia. Also lots of young women carrying large stuffed animal toys and backpacks with animal pictures on them (mainly cats). They seem a little strange to us. We had a choice of a pink or blue room and we were given a pink room.

I was amused by the statue of a horse as a lamp in the foyer of the movie theatre we went to. We went to two movies here, Cinderella, (we would give that a B-) and Insurgent, which we saw in 4D. We have never been to a 4D movie before and I had no idea what to expect. I did not know that the seats move and the floor vibrates and every time there is a gunshot there is a kind of swishing noise that goes past your ear. I was in a state of high anxiety throughout most of the movie, not knowing when the next movement or gunshot was going to happen. The movie itself was a C-. I am not sure we will do 4D again. Too stressful!

Pete liked this skyscraper ... he said it looked like it was growing out of the buildings around it.

The tuk tuks here are very cool. They go fast and are lit up like this one, at night. They whip in and out of traffic and we had a couple of near misses in one. We had fun haggling with the drivers over the price ... the cheapest we paid was $B140 and the most we paid was $B180. They always started by asking for $B300. 

Siam shopping centre has 3 malls ... Siam Centre, Siam Discovery and Siam Paragon. Paragon is the biggest of the three. This mall complex is so huge I think you could get lost and die in here and only be discovered when your body starts to decay. There are some very expensive shops here. I don't like mall shopping ... I grew up going into town to shop and it was a treat. I find malls boring and very much same, same, but these are something else. I don't think there would be a more impressive collection of malls anywhere.

These water works were in the entrance way of Siam Paragon. There was an X-ray machine that we had to walk through when entering.

Siam Paragon was the most impressive of the malls. It had a top floor devoted to upmarket car sales. BMW's as above, (the bike is also BMW) along with Jaguars, Lamborghinis, Maseratis, McLarens, Porsches and Aston Martins. We were a little perplexed as to how they got in there. 

There is a Harrods restaurant and pastry cafe on the ground floor of the Paragon. We had a hot chocolate here. The prices were high but the service was incredible. Pete was a little resistant at first, but I won him round.

 I am a lover of hot chocolates as you know. I had a dark hot chocolate with cream on the side and Pete had an Oreo hot chocolate. They were divine. Pete was very glad that he decided to join me. A complimentary piece of shortbread came with our drinks. Yummy! We both love shortbread.

Some of the pastries available to eat with your High Tea at Harrods ... I think you would have liked this lucy.

There is a huge food court in Siam Paragon and this is where we discovered Bread Talk. The photo is a 'Raisin Pillow' it became Pete's favourite... he would buy 3 at a time! Western style bakeries have been a rarity on our trip.

A statue outside Siam Paragon. A slightly tacky memorial to mark the year of the Goat. We've noticed that the tacky and the classy frequently stand side by side in SE Asia. 

Over the road from the Siam Centre is the MBK mall ... a  poor cousin. This mall is busy and gets very crowded with shoppers and market stalls. There are stores in this mall that sell i-phones for less than half the normal Apple price along with cheap name brand street and running shoes. We suspect these items are probably not the real deal!!

The elevators in MBK. We walked through every floor of this mall trying to find a pair of shoes for Pete. I was so impressed with his stamina. Pete has a short attention span for shopping but he really out did himself here, we walked for hours. 

We went to the movie theatre just around the corner from MBK, it was a third of the price of the 4D one.  This sign was on the door. We thought you might get a laugh out of it. We saw Still Alice (A), Julianne Moore's performance was excellent. We also saw Run All Night (B+), a Liam Neeson movie. We both thought it was going to be another Taken, but it was surprisingly good. Pete really enjoyed it. He likes a good action movie. If it has a car chase scene in it all the better.

I love Mango ... in any form. This is a container mango cafe we came across on a side street. It was busy with locals eating there, which is a good sign. So we stopped and had something to eat.

I have discovered 'sticky rice' , it can be eaten with a main or a desert ... I like it. This is mango pudding with sticky rice. 

Night traffic ... our last night in Bangkok. 

As I mentioned we spent hours and I mean hours looking for shoes for Pete. We stumbled across this very cool looking store on a side street and went in for a look. When Pete is buying something he really likes to research the market and is always trying to see if he can find it cheaper somewhere else. Me, I just buy. Pete came out with a very nice pair of brown leather hand made shoes. He was very happy and I was relieved that we did not have to look for another day. While we were in the store a person came in to return or change their shoes ... we could not figure out if they were male or female. There are quite a few androgynous looking people in Bangkok.

Here is the end product of our search. Genuine sports shoes like Nike, Adidas, Asics, etc, are not that cheap but Thailand has a thriving handmade shoe industry that produces very high quality shoes at a great price. They will need some breaking in. 

There are a lot of Vespas on the roads here in Bangkok. I love Vespas ...very classy and a good example of the stylish side of Bangkok. 

Goodbye to my dress and Pete's pants. My dress was coming apart at the seam under the arm and on the side seam and Pete's pants were worn out. Both have served us well but we desperately needed new clothes.  We wore some of them on the plane and felt a little odd not wearing our usual travelling attire. We have done very well with our 3 outfits each over the last few months. I think when we get home we will be overwhelmed by how many clothes we have. When you don't have much you don't need much.