SATURDAY & SUNDAY, MAR 20TH & 21ST--BANGKOK, THAILAND

We arrived back to the ship at about 4:30pm today, Sunday, after spending yesterday and today in Bangkok, Thailand. Lots to tell you so let me begin with our arrival Saturday morning, on schedule, at 7am in the port of Laem Chabang, which is a 2 hour drive south of downtown Bangkok and is the closest port for a ship this size. All but about 80 of the 450 passengers that are the ship now chose to leave the ship for a night’s stay in the Shangri La Hotel in downtown Bangkok. We took our over night bags with us to the bus and went on the 5 hour “Grand Palace and Emerald Buddha” tour which would end up at the hotel at 1pm. Our drive took us past rice fields, tapioca fields, pineapple fields, shrimp & fish farms, and industrial areas. I did not recognize anything from 38 years ago when I rode to Bangkok from Utapao AFB (probably misspelled it) which is further south from here. Back then I remember a two lane road through mostly countryside with only shanties (their poor houses) along the road. Now there is 4 lane but most of the way is 12 lanes of highway. I would estimate that 95% is new since then. Same way in downtown. We arrived at the Grand Palace which is a huge complex dating back to the late 1700’s. Also there is a beautiful temple which houses the Emerald Buddha. I took over 260 pictures the past couple of days so will try to get them uploaded tomorrow. I took several pictures here at the palace and temple for you. It was VERY hot and humid for our visit here. Temp was already in upper 90’s so everyone was dripping with sweat after our 90 minute walk around the grounds. As in most cities the “hawkers”, people selling souvenirs were all over us. We were happy to get back on our air conditioned bus for a ride through the city with our great guide pointing out landmarks. Next stop was a market (actually one big store) where we could buy Thai silk scarves and clothing, as well as, all kinds of precious stone jewelry. We finally arrived at the Shangri La at 1pm and went into a special room for check-in. Regent and the hotel had everything well planned and this only took about 2 minutes. This is a 5 star hotel and they had colorfully dressed young women greeting us at the front door and directing us everywhere. There was even one at the elevator to press the up button for us. Our room was on the 24th floor which was one of the 3 Horizon Club floors. Category D and lower full world cruise guests were on one of these 3 floors. Category C and up were in a separate wing that had a balcony and butler service. Allan and Carolyn had one of these and we saw it. Actually I preferred our room as it was on a much higher floor and was beautiful. We had an incredible view of the Chao Phraya River that runs through Bangkok and right next to the hotel. Too hot for a balcony anyway! After unpacking we headed down to one of three hotel restaurants that we could eat lunch in. We chose the one with an International buffet. Then we walked some streets around the hotel with Allan and Carolyn to do some shopping. It was hot and we were tired so no buying. We returned to the hotel, showered, dressed, and went to the Horizon club lounge which was serving complimentary hors douvers and drinks from 5:30 to 7:30pm. We only had one drink as had to be downstairs for a 2 hour sunset cruise on the river. This was with canapés and open bar and for only the full world cruise passengers. You should have seen the “canapés”! It was more like a dinner buffet. There were two boats and we chose the second one which was good as it did not have nearly as many people on it. The inside was air conditioned and had nice tables with chairs to sit at. It had an upper deck in the open air also where I went for photo taking. Surprisingly it was not that hot in the evening after such a torturously hot day. We cruised up the river and back. Kind of like Hong Kong, the lights were very nice at night. When we arrived back at the hotel two hours later but before we got off the boat, Regent had arranged for one of the most spectacular fireworks displays over the river that we had ever seen. It was literally right over our heads. Then, as if we needed to eat more, we went into the hotel ballrooms for a very nice dinner buffet. Then back up to our room for a great night view of the lights along the river and bed time. The next morning we dressed and packed our bags before going down for breakfast. It was one of the biggest buffets I think I have ever seen. No biscuits and gravy though! The bus back to the ship was scheduled for 3pm so we had until then to shop. We checked out of the hotel and checked our bags with the concierge before striking out on our own. Regent had a couple of local people at a desk to answer shopping, touring, and dining questions. I ask her where we could get some knock off designer purses. She personally led us across the street from the hotel into what appeared to be a small souvenir shop. Then she took us up through some doors to the 3rd floor to a room with all kinds of knock off Channel, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, and Fendi purses, scarves, sunglasses, & wallets. In addition they had fake Rolex watches. There are different degrees of these fake designer bags and watches and this was high quality stuff. Rebecca got two Louis Vuitton, a Prada, and a Channel purses. As an example, she paid $75 for the Channel purse and it would cost around $2000 if you bought the real one in the States. You can’t tell the difference either. We both bought matching Rolex watches also. Then we hired a “tuk-tuk”, 3 wheel open, small taxi, to drive us around the streets for an hour. You will see photos of them. We darted in and out of traffic on this sometimes hair-raising ride. The day before we had seen some of the “red shirts” demonstrators driving very fast through the streets but they were on the way to a protest and did not bother us. We headed back to the hotel but stopped at some street food vendors right in front of the hotel and sat for a soda with them. We were on the first bus that left the hotel for the 2 hour ride back to the ship. Again I was amazed at how everything had changed since 1972. Well, I guess I had changed some too! Once again Regent had a very nice surprise waiting for the buses as we all arrived back at the ship. The band was playing on the Promenade deck, the stewardesses were lined up next to them holding signs spelling out “welcome back home”, about 100 of the ship’s officers and crew were lined up and were cheering us as we walked to the gangway. More of the crew carried our luggage from the buses to our suites. I have some photos of this too. We had a great time in Bangkok but it was so nice to see the crew’s smiling faces and the ship again. The two days in Bangkok, including bus transfers, hotel room, and all food & drinks, was included in our cruise price. We would like to return to Bangkok and spend a week or two there some day as there is so much to do and see here. I’m sure I have left out some things about our short visit to Bangkok but maybe my pictures will tell a better, visual story. Before dinner last night we attended a 45 minute church service. Then we had a cocktail up in the Observation Lounge before dinner in Prime 7, the steakhouse. This morning I am finishing writing this and will start editing all the pictures. Depending on the ship’s internet I hope to get them uploaded today also.