At last she disturbs, gets out of bed and gets on with the day and I wonder why I just laid there in wait! However, there's no rush today, we've got no plans except to be checked out by noon and then be back at the Hotel by 9 p.m. tonight to get the taxi back to the Airport. I suggest that I go down to the Lobby to try and check-in for the flight later and get some coffee and juice from McDonalds to start the day and she's quite happy to let me do that, so I throw on some clothes and quickly check the mirror before going downstairs - boy have my standards slipped in the last month - I would never have gone out without the obligatory makeup, eyeliner and lippy - now I just check my hair is not too sticky up and my face is still in roughly the right place!
When I get down to the Lobby and try to get the Internet up, it just doesn't want to know, but it is only 7 a.m. and the morning is just getting started in the Hotel, so I think I'll go for the coffees and juice and come back and try again. When I get back and try again, it all starts up and I can check-in online for the flight later and when I check the seats it says 53H and 53J, so I check to see where they are on the airplane to see if they can be changed. They are the very last row - we're practically in the tail, so I check the map of the plane to see if I can change them and the only seats not taken are all single and, tempting as it is to take two separate seats, I leave it at the final row thinking at least if there's a plane crash, the tail will probably be the last thing to drop out of the sky and we could well survive! On the downside, we're right by the toilets - always good (not).
That done, I return to the bedroom with the coffees and orange juices to get on with the packing, and by the time I get back Becky has packed most of her stuff up and, as I had put a lot of my stuff away last night, we haven't got too much to do. We have no plans for today, except that we had talked about getting a Thai Massage before we go, but we've got all day. Pretty much everything is packed into the cases, there's just a few items to go in at the last minute, as the cases have to go in the Hotel's luggage room for the day, once we check out at midday. I think we're organised so decide to go out for a look around and as we walk through the Lobby area, our attention is drawn to the man at a desk, who always greets us as we walk by, and here on our last day we realise he is the Tour Manager with a book of available Tours and this book is open at the Floating Markets page - funny we haven't noticed this before! We enquire about the Floating Markets and the man tells us that we can have a private car with driver to take us there, wait while we look around, and also take us to see the Elephants for a ride if we want to, and the driver will bring us back when we're ready and this costs just 2500 Baht! At this point, we tell him that we'll go and think about it and continue with our walk and, whilst out, we discuss the possibility of doing the trip, as we have nothing else arranged for today and a whole day to waste until 9 p.m. this evening in fact!
Walking around, Becky finds the postcards she's been looking for since our arrival in Bangkok as she has managed to send a card from every stop so far to her work colleagues back home. It's about ten o'clock in the morning and the traffic is queuing way back, you would have thought by this time, the rush hour would be over but apparently not! As you can see in the photo, those cables, presumably telephone and electricity, are there again draped across the road ready to drop onto cars below - it reminds me of the Transformers ride that we did at Universal Studios with everything blowing up! As we walk back, it seems most of the shops and Malls don't open until 10.30 a.m. so we're a bit early today.
By the time we get back to the Hotel, we have discussed the trip and decided that we will go for it, I think the Elephant ride swung it for Becky as she had mentioned doing this if she could, even before we had left home, so we go back to the desk where a young woman (hippy type!) is going through the book of Tours and the man is waiting to see if she'll ever make a decision. As she doesn't seem to be deciding, we jump in and ask if we can do the Floating Market trip when she pipes up with "ooh, I went there but you need to go first thing and I went at 6 o'clock in the morning when I arrived off the plane and ... blah blah" - we're starting to lose the will to live! The man asks if we want to go tomorrow morning and we tell him that we're going home tonight so if possible would like to do it today but if it's only on first thing in the morning, then we'll have to give it a miss. He says he'll check to see if the driver is available so we suggest going for a coffee in the Lobby area as we're not in any hurry and he can let us know.
Having then sat down and ordered two coffees, the man quickly comes back to tell us that his driver is available and ready when we are and could I pay up. One of the reasons I decided to do it was that I had 2500 Baht left in my purse and thought it was probably the best way to use up what was left, so I pay up and tell him we will be ready in about 15 minutes and suddenly it's a bit of a panic as we've just ordered coffees and need to drink them, one of us needs to go back to the room and get the bags packed up and ready to go and one of us needs to go and check out and pay the bill - guess who gets which! All without leaving the coffees until finished, Becky goes up to the room and puts everything left into bags and makes sure that we haven't forgotten anything. I am just trying to finish my hot coffee when the driver comes over to let me know he is ready when we are and I tell him we'll be there as soon as we've checked out. As I'm waiting to pay at the Reception Desk, a porter comes to take the key to go and collect our bags and when I've paid up and Becky and the bags are here and the bags go into their Luggage Room, I think we're ready to go at last!
Our driver takes us to the Hotel car park and we get into the nice air conditioned car, phew, that was all a bit of a rush but we got there in the end! As we drive along the road from the Hotel, stopped in traffic as usual, our driver says "madam, my name I'm Lodger, in Thai cjdbdueifnf" funny name I thought to myself and then I clicked "oh, ok Roger, thanks". Obviously, it takes a good while to get out of the busy roads and that strange hippy woman had told us it wasn't far so we happily enjoy the fact that we haven't got to drive ourselves, get a train/bus/tuk-tuk/bike or any other form of their crazy transport system. The traffic eases as we head out of the city and I'm completely lost, as I have no idea what direction we're heading and where we are going - I had imagined it to be on the river where we had previously had the boat trip but we seem to be heading away from the city and after over half an hour of relatively fast driving we still don't seem to be near anything and of course my mind starts to work and I start taking mental note of buildings, temples, landmarks just in case we've been abducted. We pass some interesting sights, including some of those temples and landmarks, and also we pass salt flats for quite a large area, reminding us of the ones we passed in New Zealand, except they don't look quite so clean!
It is well over an hour when we finally pull up in a deserted car park, our doors are whipped open and we are greeted by the girls who guide us to a make-do desk where we are asked for 4000 Baht to see the Floating Markets, and I thought we would just walk along a bit of river and watch some boats with stuff to sell on them, looks like I got that wrong! Seems like the Floating Markets are a bit more than I had thought, and I gave my last Bahts when I paid for the car so what do we do now? Well, we both looked at each other and told them we haven't got any money, so the calculator comes out, which is standard kit out here so you can tell them how much you want to pay and they come back with another figure, and she shows us 3500 which is a start but we still haven't got any money! We're wondering what to do, whether to just get back in the car and go back or just go for a walk, although there's nothing to see except muddy water in the river alongside the car park. With that, Lodger jumps in with the offer of a loan which I'm sure wasn't in his brief but nevertheless is very sweet of him and now we're stuck as he gives them the money, ok we get away with only 3500 instead of 4000 but now I'm starting to wonder how low they would have gone! So bear in mind if you ever visit the Floating Markets, you can barter on that too!
Becky and I get into one of the boats and are handed a coconut and straw each which we are told is free (just as well) and the same lady that took our money, is putting us in the boat and handing out coconuts then she takes a photo of us which we just know is going to cost money later. Apparently these boats are sometimes called Gondolas but there the similarity ends with the famous Venetian boats and I certainly don't think our boat driver will be serenading us on this trip. He drives us through the canals and there are some beautiful shrines - each residence seems to have one and some are more ornate than others, along with their washing, mangy dogs and other rubbish - obviously some places are in a poor way, others well maintained.
There's a stop to see how they make coconut sugar which it seems is just a case of boiling the liquid down for a couple of hours then when it cools its divided into small rounds which are left on a table to dry out which we witnessed, and the flies walking over all of them was more than a little off-putting, but this then makes the coconut sugar - yum?! We continue through the canals, meeting a few boats coming the other way, and as we approach the area where stalls are set up along the waters edge, the boat driver pulls us into the stall holders to try and persuade us to buy something. It's unfortunate but a, we have no money and 2, it's our last day and we've got pretty much all we need to take home. Having said that, Becky sees one stall has trousers that she had admired yesterday at the MBK Mall but couldn't get the colour she wanted and when she looked at others she couldnt get them for the price she wanted either so had gone without. The lady stall holder tells her they are 1200 Baht and she has them in black which is what she wanted, but she says "no" and the calculator comes across with "how much you pay". Becky says 300 because she really has only got 300 Baht, and the lady says 900 to which Becky says she can't pay that and the lady pretends to cry to make her feel guilty, but eventually the poor woman realises she's not going to get a sale unless she takes the 300 Baht and so, in the end, she gets a sale and Becky gets her trousers - everyone's happy (even though the woman is still crying).
The further we go the closer we get to the main area of the Market and in the central area there is a seated cafe area and this is presumably where all the excitement happens earlier in the day, and there are many boats here with little old toothless ladies rowing their boats up and down and trying to sell different types of fruit to anyone passing by on the water. It is fascinating seeing it all going on but I sense it is a different kind of market nowadays to how it used to be, or maybe it was just like that this morning and we just missed it by a couple of hours. We get to a junction and make a left turn and the driver accelerates to a much greater speed before slowing to allow us to get out for a walk around the temple here but we both feel that we've seen enough temples so turn down the offer and are taken back along a different route back to the starting point. There are palm trees everywhere you look and they have varying numbers of coconuts at the top, I guess they harvest them as they drop so giving them away free is not really costing them anything although it must be one of the main crops for income in this area. When we get out of the boat, there is a cold water waiting for us and our friend Lodger has got a cool towel for each of us, lovely and as suspected, there is the photo taken as we left put onto a small plate BUT it is a surprisingly good photo of us both and we decide we might as well have it, thanks again to Lodger for stepping in with his money again so that we have something to remember our trip by. We only get one as I tell Becky she can have it when I die - should work well!
When we're ready to move on, Lodger takes us to the nearest outbreak of commerce where we find a cash machine so that I can pay him back his money. Heaving thought I had done well not spending so much and using the last bit of Thai cash for the trip, now I've got to get more money out but I guess it's worth it as we've seen the Floating Markets and if I get some money out and pay Lodger back, we might get to see the elephants too. The cash machine works and I get some cash out except that my card doesn't come out at the end and the screen is covered in pictures and Thai writing, so Lodger comes to my aid and pushes the right button which ejects my card and we're good to go, phew! Lodger then takes us to the nearby Elephant Camp where Becky can have an elephant ride for 600 Baht which we pay up and she manages to get on before the large group of tourists that arrived just before us. Before I know it, she's up on the elephant and off into the jungle and I did wonder if that might be the last I saw of her but Lodger told me she should be going around the area on a large path and reappear at the other side of the car park in about 20 minutes, which she did and here's the picture showing how she was allowed by the elephant driver to slip down off the seat and ride on the elephants back for the last part of the ride. Taking the pictures as she returned, I was surprised to see how hairy the elephant was, made me feel better about my hairy bits!
Time to get back to Bangkok and Lodger gets us back in about an hour and a half and drops us back at the Hotel, wishing us a safe journey home - what a nice man he was, can't help wondering why he didn't call himself Tony though! Having got back safely, which I must admit I doubted on our way out there, we use the facilities and then go for something to eat at McDonalds in the way of their Thai style Ham and Egg Pie each with a portion of chips between us and a nice cup of coffee each.
After this, we're ready to hit the shops again and try a couple of the places we had seen earlier for a Thai Massage which are 300 Baht each so we head to one that we had seen in the morning when we were out walking which was 250 Baht each, and having paid up we are both sent upstairs for, hopefully, our proper Thai massage! When we get up there, it's very dark and Becky is whisked away to a cubicle and I'm shown into another, still trying to get my eyes adapted to the dark, and am given two items of clothing which, judging by the gestures, I have to take all my clothes off and put these on. I really hope I've guessed right as it could be very embarrassing if I get it wrong. The girl (I think it's a girl) goes away while I change and comes back after a few minutes by which time I have managed to change into the cotton type shortish trousers and top. When she comes back in, and pulls the curtains around us, she makes a noise and points to the table for me to lie on and we try to work out if she wants me up or down and decide that palm up must mean face up so that's what I go for. She rubs my feet one at a time, but it really is quite painful, and then she gets one toe at a time and twists and pulls each one until it cracks. I've never had noisy joints but she manages to get each toe and finger to crack and if it doesn't crack first time, she does it again until it does!
So she works on the foot and the calf of both legs and then suddenly she's up on the bed with me and I'm thinking 'hello, that's not what I was after' but she continues with the very painful pressure, up the thigh and then she's pushing my leg and hip and I'm doing moves I didn't know I could do! Then she does the arms, cracking all the fingers first and then it's a roll over for a bit of back treatment before sitting me up and doing my shoulders and head. There were times when it was really hard not to cry out in pain, but you can hear others having their massages and being good and keeping quiet so the pressure is on, literally! I was a bit confused by wearing the clothes but actually it worked well and no smelly oils to try and get out of my clothes after. It's strange as it was all really painful and I felt well and truly pummelled afterwards and expected bruises to come up all over, but it was surprisingly good and no bruises (that I could see).
We both left, thanking them very much for beating us up, and then we tried to find the Post Office that we had been pointed in the direction of a couple of times earlier, so that we could post Becky's cards back home. We walked back up the road towards where we had bought the cards earlier and asked a security guard who pointed us back down the road the way we had come where we retraced our steps and eventually found the Post Office, right next door to the Massage Parlour we had just come out of. Anyway, Becky was able to get her cards posted home and still we had time to spare.
The last thing we do before leaving is go for a walk around the block where we find some food stalls and get a couple of pork skewers and corn cobs for our tea and whilst it's not the easiest thing to eat whilst walking around the streets of Bangkok, it goes down well and after our final walk around, we head back to the Hotel and claim our bags and make sure we've got all we need in the right bags. It's still hot outside and we won't be spending a lot of time in un-air conditioning but we decide to change into winter-wear at the airport. Sitting in the Hotel Lobby, we wonder if maybe we should get changed now, and we also wonder if the car booked to take us back to the airport is actually going to turn up and what we'll do if it doesn't. It's getting close to 9 p.m. which is when the taxi is booked for and I'm starting to get ready to panic, but it turns up and the porter takes our luggage out for us, it's all as if it was planned.
Our driver takes us to the airport but once again it takes ages and many queues of traffic to get out of the city centre but once we're out of the city, it's a good journey albeit a quiet one as the driver doesn't speak at all, in fact this is the quietest taxi journey of our round the world trip! It's not long before we arrive at the airport and get ourselves in and check our bags in nice and quickly - this on-line check-in is wonderful, we've done it all the way round and it has saved a lot of queuing. After we've got rid of the big bags, we go to the wc and get changed out of the flimsy cool clothes and into jeans, jumpers and cardigans, ready for our air conditioned flight and then arrival in the cold UK. Passage through security is relatively quick and once again neither of us has a problem so that's all flights which we have gone through without any problems - not bad going!
We have a bit of Thai change to use up and, as it's the last flight, we make some duty free purchases to take home and then slowly make our way through to the Gate ready for the flight. We always have to buy a bottle of water for Becky once we've gone through security so that she can take her painkillers for her ears, and we have just enough change to buy one. Hopefully we'll get fed on the plane and then get some sleep before arriving back in good old Blighty after about 13 hours flying.
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