Today we are off to Bangkok, so our we arranged for our taxi driver from two days ago t pick us up at 7:00am and take us to the airport. Cambodia has been great and we are again increasing the pace as we head to the hustle and bustle of Bangkok – a city we haven’t been in for 20 years. We’re looking forward to seeing what has changed and what has stayed the same in the intervening period.
Cambodia has just implemented a new law making wearing crash helmets compulsory. I read in the paper yesterday morning that they’d had a blitz the previous day and had netted 138 people who weren’t complying with the new law and fined that 3000 Rial, or $US0.73 (73 cents). Given that a helmet costs $US18-20 if you’re of a mind not to wear one, it would take up a lot of fines to make up the cost of a helmet. I decided that 138 offenders was a particularly poor effort on behalf of the law enforcement agencies as I counted over 150 in only 5 minutes on the way to the airport.
In Bangkok, we caught a cab from the airport and as part of the price got a heavily reduced price on a city and temples tour the following day. The last time we went from Bangkok Airport into the city, it took us an hour and a half through overcrowded streets with people on scooters 2, 3 and 4-up and with lots of beggars and shanty towns on the side of the road. In the interim, a new airport has been built on the other side of town, with a 6 lane freeway running all the way into town. The trip took 35 minutes.
We are staying at the Millenium Hilton beside the river and have got an executive level room which is higher up the building and has certain perks included in the price. This was an excellent upgrade as it gives us access to the executive lounge where we get free broadband internet, complimentary morning and afternoon tea, breakfast, 2 items of clothing laundered per person per day and here’s the kicker – happy hour. Well I tell you, this is the ultimate happy hour – 6:00 till 8:30PM, free drinks and hot nibbles provided – dining El Cheapo we call it. By the time we’ve had 4 glasses of wine each and been back to the nibbles bar half a dozen times, we’re well fed and watered. This perk is made even more appealing when you realize that the hotel restaurant downstairs doesn’t have a bottle of wine under $NZ100 and a Sileni Rosé is $NZ135 a bottle. I could just about get a case for that price at home, so the Executive Lounge is providing an alcoholic lifeline to us. “It’s not the drinking, it’s the way we’re drinking”, and there is no better way than free. My God, I sound cheap. (I’m writing this while having the free afternoon tea, which goes from 3:00 till 6:00, when the HH kicks in)
Having checked in, we took the complimentary hotel river shuttle to Saphan Taksin. The terminal for the sky train, which we took to the Siam Paragon Centre – Bangkok’s largest shopping mal, where we spent a couple of hours checking out shoes, handbags, clothes and on the third floor, the car dealers. It was pretty spectacular, but nothing caught our eye, so we caught the sky train to Silom Road and Pattpong to check out the local market. We wandered around it for a while, but it was obvious that the days of shopping in those sorts of markets are behind us, so we caught the Sky Train and the complimentary shuttle back to the Hilton, where we thought we’d check out the happy hour before heading out somewhere for dinner. Once we found out how happy the HH was, our plans for the evening were well and truly put paid to.
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