Saturday 10th December - Greg (and Gill) take us to Bham Airport, which is like a - deserted airport! I have never seen it so empty. quite possibly it is because they were going to be on strike today, and people have changed their plans. Anyway, check in and get told that for the amsterdam - bkk leg they can't seat us together, but maybe we can change it at amsterdam. Go and get a pint in the also deserted bar. Except for a large gang of blokes in kilts presumably also headed for amsterdam. flight on time, arrive c.5pm, cold and misty. so misty that we circled round for a bit before landing - to arrive amongst chaos and delayed flights. Amsterdam is as busy as Birmingham was quiet. After queing for about 20 mins to see if we could get our seats changed, we gave up and headed for the bar. Our flight was delayed about an hour. On board the plane, we ask all four blokes who were all travelling alone if they would swap seats with us - none of them would. Mark got his own back in various ways - tipping water on one bloke whilst he was asleep, sending another's breakfast back whilst he was similarly indisposed and generally making a nuisance of himself. Flight went very quickly but would have been more enjoyable had we been sat together. Oh well.
Sunday, 11th December - arrive BKK c. 13.15 - blimey it's hot, even in the air conditioned airport. Painless journey through passport control/baggage reclaim and soon we are in a taxi. First change since last we were here - expressway finished and for 60B cut journey by 75%. Also - it doesn't seem as polluted, and there are definitely less tuktuks than I remember - although it's about 4 years since we were last in thailand, it's probably more like eight since we stayed in BKK. Zenith Sukhumvit quite nice - especially the rooftop pool which has a cracking view of this part of the city. We go and have a sit up there until about 5.00pm, when we both start to feel a bit tired, and go and have a kip.
9.00pm - starving now, go out to find food. we are right in the middle of the arab quarter of BKK so if it's middle eastern food you want - you're laughing. But it isn't - so we walk up to sukhumvit road (we are on soi 4, Nana Nua) and find a nice Thai place. Mark has green curry, I have rice noodles with pork and prawns and papaya salad. Very nice. Walk back to near our hotel and have a couple of gintonics watching everton draw with Man U. Now I feel relaxed!