Bangkok - Day 2-4

Bangkok seemed much easier once Mike joined us on Thursday night.  He had more success with the hotel staff on the phone too ;)

Our "first" day got off to a slowish start, but we eventually made it to the aquarium at Siam Paragon.  YIKES it was an expensive morning, but worth it for us as both the kids had a ball there and it kept them happy for a couple of hours.  We even found chicken rice at the food court upstairs for lunch afterwards.  Needless to say, Callum was "so exciting!"

We had a quieter afternoon - a movie and a swim back at the hotel and then a picnic dinner on the coffee table in our room.  With the space and the peace compared to the noise and chaos outside, it was very easy to just hide away in our hotel when we needed too.

The next day was spent seeing a few other sights - the Golden Palace (and the emerald buddha temple), Kho San Rd (jeepers I felt OLD) and a trip on Chao Praya river.  Callum particularly loved the boat ride, we just jumped on an express boat and watched the world go by until the kids had had enough (which was conveniently right by a train station).  Took the train home again, with a brief pitstop to buy matchbox cars for the boys (the day's bribe) and then it was another afternoon of swimming and playing cars and chicken on sticks for tea.

Our final day in Bangkok was Sunday which also happened to be the Queens birthday.  A lot of places were closed or nOt serving alcohol due to the public holiday and it seemed pretty quiet walking round.  James and Holly came and met us at the hotel after an early flight down from Chiang Mai. Unfortunately our visit to Terminal 21 was cut short by the boys being particularly grumpy and Callum suffering from a serious case of cloth ears.  We walked towards Sukhumvit and spent an hour at a fantastic playground/park where the boys were able to burn off some energy (and Callum earned two lollies for having his photo taken with a girl and her family who were taking graduation photos).

We had an amazing lunch at Lemongrass, a restaurant recommended by James and Holly after their previous stop in Bangkok.  Then it was back to the hotel for - you guessed it!- swimming and a quiet afternoon :) Our swim was cut short by the weather this time.  We watched some very dark and scary looking clouds gather and roll towards us in the space of about 30 minutes.  As we were getting the kids out of the pool the clock blew off the wall and smashed, so it was pretty windy.  The kids, including Mike and James, had fun watching the rain arrive once we got back to our room too.

We said goodbye to James and Holly who are now in Hua Hin and making their way south to enjoy some time on the beach to finish off their trip around South East Asia.  It's been great catching up with them and sharing part of our holiday with them and the kids are already looking forward to seeing Uncle James and Aunty Holly when we get back to Christchurch.