Bangkok

Ramada Plaza Bangkok Menam Riverside

When I was planning my trip to Bangkok, a friend of mine helpfully told me that I could get a blow job for 800 baht (or £20)...!

Fortunately, everyone was more interested in the floating markets and the palaces and temples. Gerlinde had only been once before – and that was when she was eight! – so she didn’t book any excursions in advance. Instead, she arranged a trip to the floating markets of Damnoen Saduak and then a sightseeing tour of the city.

Floating markets

The floating market was not quite what I thought it would be. I was expecting the ‘stalls’ to be boats on the water, constantly moving between customers. Instead, it was the other way round. It was up to us to take a boat to visit each of the stalls on the banks of the canals, plus a factory making sugar from coconuts and a Buddhist temple.

However, it was very entertaining as Gerlinde pitted her finely tuned negotiating skills against the local shopkeepers, who often resorted to pleading, begging and in one case giving Bernie a massage to close the deal!

We could’ve had a 60-minute or 90-minute tour, but it had taken nearly two hours to get there, so we decided to take the two-hour option.

After a few delicious free samples at the sugar factory, where Gerlinde bought a couple of photo albums, we moved on to the market.

Almost the first stall we came to had a couple of guys offering to sell photo opportunities with a snake and a 'lemur'. In fact, it was a slow loris, and it was so cute and cuddly that Bernie paid to hold it while everyone else took pictures. It was only later that she found out it was the only deadly, venomous primate in the world...!

The speed boat was fun, and our driver even started rocking the boat deliberately, but the women were there to shop, and that’s just what they did! I was too busy taking pictures to keep track of everything that was bought and for how much, but Gerlinde and Bernie ended up getting a bag of goodies each, including some delicately patterned teacups and saucers and a bag of banana chips.

On the way back to Bangkok, we stopped at a Buddhist temple, where we fed the fish and took a few pictures, and then we drove to Chang Puak Camp, where Gerlinde and Kevin went on an elephant ride.

The publicity photos of elephants with howdahs wading through the river in the jungle looked great, so I asked if I could take pictures.  That turned out to be a mistake because I wasn't actually allowed to go down to the river with the elephants. Too bad...

Palaces and temples

The following day, Gerlinde booked a driver to take us to the Grand Palace, the Temple of Dawn and the Khao Mo. We started off at the Grand Palace, which is an eclectic collection of buildings put up over hundreds of years and still not complete.

The palace was originally commissioned by the King of Siam to lift the spirits of the Siamese population after they’d lost a major war against Burma.

It now covers an enormous area and includes dozens of buildings, the most famous of which is the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (or Phra Si Rattana), which houses an 80cm carving of the Buddha made out of a single piece of jade.

The Siamese liked their bling, and almost every building was either covered in gold or decorated with gold leaf. The artistic style was the opposite of minimalist, and almost every statue or building was decorated with some kind of motif or abstract pattern.

The Temple of Dawn (or Wat Arun) was much smaller, although it spanned both sides of the road, and didn’t take us long to visit. The plan was to climb up the steps to the viewing platform at the top of the central tower, but it was closed when we got there.

Instead, we quickly moved on to the Khao Mo Prayurawongsawas Temple, which was one of a series of ‘follies’ commissioned by the king to increase the ‘peace and harmony’ of the kingdom.

I’m not sure how successful the project was, but it was very quiet with hardly any tourists, so it was nice to be away from the crowds.

The temple had a rocky outcrop surrounded by a moat, and we almost had the place to ourselves.

Gerlinde’s nickname is ‘turtle’, so it was fun to see all the baby turtles in the water, and there was even a fully grown adult on the path for us to photograph.

Shopping

After our temple tour was over, we had time for a quick dash into town using the river shuttle.

I was looking for some new tennis shoes, but we didn’t find any decent shoe shops, so we went back to the hotel and then walked down to the Asiatique Riverfront for that superb meal at Baan Khanitha, where I had the best hot and sour soup I've ever tasted and a beef massaman curry.

Afterwards, we went up on the big wheel in the rain and then walked back. I was flying home in the morning, so I turned down Kevin’s request to sing a song for everyone in the hotel bar and went to bed.

The following day, it was all a bit subdued at breakfast. The birthday celebrations had come to an end, and it was time to say goodbye. In the lobby, I got a firm handshake from Kevin and a hug (and tears) from Gerlinde. I miss them, but it’s a good thing to be missed myself.

Happy birthday again, Kevin, and I hope I’ll see you one day soon in Brisbane…

If you’d like to order a framed print of one of my wildlife photographs, please visit the Prints page.

If you’d like to book a lesson or order an online photography course, please visit my Lessons and Courses pages.