So another adventure begins!
It started well enough with my mum kindly dropping me at Culoz train station, about an hour from Geneva. Then I walked into the small waiting room to see that the train was delayed, by the suspiciously round figure of 30 minutes. I sat down for a bit, but no further information was forthcoming, so I fired up the SNCF app and my train details, only to find that it was in fact cancelled and there was a replacement bus due at some point. The bus duly arrived, but wasn’t going all the way to Geneva and nor did the driver know when he would be leaving!
Luckily my mum had only partially driven back home and turned around to come back to the train station and save the day, by driving me to Geneva airport. I may well have missed my flight otherwise.
Potential disaster averted, I breezed through checkin and security in less than 20 minutes and after hanging around for a couple of hours for the flight departure time, I was off to Bangkok. Not however before a 5 hour stop over in Riyadh. I flew with Air Saudia, because their prices are significantly lower than their nearest rivals. I discovered that this is because their government actually subsidises every plane ticket to the tune of around 20%. They are also a highly rated airline so it was an easy choice. Thank you very much!
It is, however a dry airline. Not a beer or glass of wine in sight. This was more than made up for by the absolutely excellent chicken biryani and superb chocolate fondant, they served on the flight. Before long I was on the plane to Bangkok, sadly surrounded by 7 children, two of whom were crying, Yikes!
Luckily they soon fell asleep and the hours passed quickly enough. Thai immigration was easy and my friend was there to meet me at the airport. No return ticket was required and nor was there any form to fill out. They just checked my passport and took fingerprints and waved me on with a smile.
I can’t see much change so far even though it has been 15 years since I was last here. I booked a nice hotel near the Khao San road, but not on it. This proved to be a wise choice as something that has changed is the volume of the music. It used to be noisy, but now it is incredibly loud, with several bars competing with each other at night. No, it’s not encroaching old age either, it is genuinely astonishingly loud.
I’m proud of the fact that I remember my way around so well and had no problem finding my way to the klongs (canals) for the river boat to the famous MBK centre, where I picked up an iPad mini 5, plus apple pen, case, and fast charger for about £200. A great deal ! The river is a bit smelly at times, but it is a fast and cheap way to whizz between different parts of Bangkok.
Unfortunately my memory didn’t stretch to remembering about the massages. I blithely went for the Thai massage having completely forgotten that it is about 70% torture and not in the slightest bit relaxing. Memory now firmly jogged, I am back on the oil massages from now on. By the way an hour long massage is about £6 to £8.
Fruit is great in the morning, a big pot of watermelon or pineapple, oranges etc will set you back about 40 baht. There are 42 baht to the £GBP (37 to the Euro). When I was last here it was about 70 baht to the £ GBP, so it’s quite a fall in value, together with 15 years of inflation, I was expecting it to be more expensive, but it is still cheap.
We’ve been clocking up the miles, walking a lot and seeing a few sites, I went back to some old haunts, taking the BTS skytrain to Nana station. I changed hotels this morning and found that the new one was half the price and nicer.. Grrrr!!
The dastardly Chang beer has met its maker and is now a respectable 4.8 in strength. It used to be 6.5, back at that time, but around 2005 they introduced Chang light and in the interim between my visits the original is no more.
Lots of street food, which is still dirt cheap and I’ve tried some different things although I’ve no idea what they are called. I have been learning Thai though, with my good teacher and I have picked up a lot of words and I can even count in Thai now and tell the time as well as knowing how to authentically brush off the many touts
I think we’re off to Hua Hin tomorrow and then maybe Koh Tao for some diving. I’ll keep you posted.
I’m struggling to get the text to word wrap around the photos and indeed get them copied across and edited, so I’m just posting up the blog to give you something to read. I’ll try and re upload it tomorrow with the photos nicely set and more added.
Not to mention me having nearly an empty tank, but I didn’t run out in Geneva. Oof!
Have a great time/xx
Sounds great 🙂 7 children around on the flight yikes!