So here we are again in Bangkok, a city we have visited several times on previous holidays. Almost a home from home!
We arrived from Laos both nursing dodgy tummies which isn't very surprising consider how poor the country is. Fortunately, Bangkok has lots of branches of Boots the Chemist (identical to the ones in England) and as you don't need a prescription for anything, that was the first place we headed to in Bangkok!
Bangkok really is quite an amazing city. Every time we come, there are new skyscrapers and there is lots of evidence of construction for the new extensions to the wonderful Skytrain. Yet despite all this very stylish ultra-modernity, Bangkok is still very much an ancient city with the Thai Court and Chinese Trade at its heart.
Everywhere you go, there are shrines (no skyscraper would be built without consecrating a shrine first and then maintaining for the full life of the building) and you are never far away from the heady scents of incense and flower gardlands.
Rather poignant for our trip is this intricately carved model of Angkor Wat in the Grand Palace (Wat Phra Kaew). As a model, its enormous and is at least 7m x 7m and about 3m high. So having been to the real thing - how well does it match up? Well it is very big even as a model and strangely enough, you do feel that the model dwarfs you which is another similarity with the real thing. But, if the model of Angkor were to truly convey the size of the real thing, including Angkor Thom and the other temples such as Ta Prohm and so on, the model would have to be expanded to cover the entire city centre of Bangkok!
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