Because we have not had a sea day in between you are going to have to suffer through two stops in one blog. Sunday, we docked at Laem Chabang, which is the big-ship port for Bangkok. We traveled two hours by bus through the countryside. It was extremely hot, over 100 degrees F with high humidity: in fact it was pretty exhausting doing sightseeing. We traveled through the old town and the new town of Bangkok and ended up at the royal palace. We weren't allowed inside but we could walk around the buildings and there was a large number of them to see with amazing architecture. There was tons of gold on the Buddhist shrines. Actually we walked by a gold building and Morag touched it and the surface was barely warm. On the other side the building it was cool to the touch. It amazed us that gold must not be a conductor of heat. After the palace they took us to an air-conditioned mall where we could have lunch and look around. Believe me the air conditioning felt good to us. We spent the next couple of hours inside the mall. We even ate lunch at MacDonalds or Macs Donald as our guide said it and it really tasted good. Speaking of businesses, 7-Eleven and KFC can be found all over Thailand. We didn't much like Bangkok. It was too hot, too busy, too humid, not too clean, and too many Buddhist shrines and temples. Having said that, all the people were kind and very polite to us. In fact, we have never encountered a rude person on the street or shop assistant in the places we have visited.
When we returned to the ship and went for dinner we had new table-mates. Since we have left Hong Kong we've only had one couple at the table with us. They are from New Jersey, near Philadelphia. Shall we say, to put it as nice as we can, we don't communicate on their level so it has been a little different. Last week we picked up a couple from England and he is one of the lecturers on the tour. He is extremely entertaining. In Bangkok we picked up a couple from New York who are business people so the conversation now at the table is very interesting and enthusiastic. In fact last night it was very noisy, with sometimes four conversations going on at once. So that was Bangkok.
Yesterday was spent at Koh Samui, one of the southern islands and a complete contrast from Bangkok. We loved it. It was a laid back, relaxing little island. We hired a car and driver for the day and he took us round the island. It really is a jungle island with nice beaches. Trees have had to be cleared to build the various towns around the shoreline. We saw spectacular coastlines, drove through some wee country towns (Morag's words). We saw some elephants and had an opportunity to ride one but chose not to. We saw water buffalo and some monkeys that were trained to climb palm trees and knock down the coconuts;. Our driver was named Joy and his name suited his personality. He took us entirely around the island and we ended up at Tesco, which we found extremely interesting. So we went into Tesco and bought some sodas and it was extremely nice.
On the way home Morag asked Joy how old he was. He replied, "26. How old are you?" To which Morag said, "71." And he said, "You are good to look." We took that as a compliment.
So, today is a rest day where we have to do some catching up and on to Singapore tomorrow. We will have another blog in a couple of days. So we sail on.
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