Relaxed Buddhas

* Tuesday, Wednesday

We begun our final morning in NZ with a lazy lie in in the Tudor Court Motel.  Our flight was not until 15:20 so there was not a massive rush.  So after watching some NZ morning TV (like GMTV but hilariously un-PC) and Ame having some good quality book time, it was off to the airport.  Our flight from Christchurch to Sydney was 30mins late which seemed like it would be fine for our connecting flight.  The entertainment  was a viewing of  "This is it" which I watched.  I wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and I have to reluctantly admit that it looked like it would have been an excellent show.  They should of shown more MJ diva fits though.

When we landed at Sydney, it was apparent that there wasn't quite as much time as we thought as we had got more delayed. In fact, we (and about half of the plane) had 1 hour to board the flight to Bangkok.  Luckily it all went according to plan and we took off exactly 1 hour from our previous landing.  Good good.

So we settled down to "District 9".  I had heard good things about this film and I did like it.  However, it was not what I expected and I have to admit I don't see quite what all the fuss was about.  After a 4 hour snooze, we landed into Bangkok at 23:00.  We breezed through customs, breezed into a taxi, the taxi super-breezed into town at about 110km/h, and by 00:00 we were on the Khaosan Road (the tourism heart of Bangkok).  We walked down the frenetic, loud, lively street towards our hotel; a bit dazed but a little amazed by it all.  Finally we got into our hotel.  Finally, a big long sleep.

The next day we woke around 07:00 (a little jet lagged) and got about reading about the town.  We of course had the bloooooooooming camera job to sort.  So eventually found the tourism office (after Rough Guide map had put a landmark on the wrong side of the road and consequently sent us the wrong way but we recovered quite gracefully from the loss of direction).  After Ame persisting and persuading the tourist office to make a quick phone call to Thailand Panasonic we found an authorised service centre in the city.  So we set off towards that.  This was one of the best bits of the day.  The walk through the non-tourist real streets of the city with people living their lives, and totally not interested in us, settled us into the city.  Finally we found the centre and popped the camera in under warranty.  In pigeon English, he said come back tomorrow at 16:00.  God knows if it will be fixed.  At least its somewhere.  I think we're seen one too many panasonic service centre for my liking this trip!

So with that, we jumped into a taxi and to the Wat Po temple complex.  I'm glad we did.  It reminded us exactly why we are in South East Asia.  The buddist temple was built around 13th century.  The architecture was excellent, huge, complex and felt so foreign. 

They had all these little random gardens along route with brilliant stone statues.

On the doors of the complex these big stone guards.  I liked these the best.

The temple's main boast is the biggest reclining Buddha in world.  It was immense.  I don't know how you begin making something that size.

After a quick and cheap taxi  back to Khaosan Road, we whipped into a nice looking cafe for lunch.  We had two chicken pad thai and a couple of beers.  This came to 400B (£8) .  It's soooo cheap here and if that's tourists prices, then I don't care.  After spanking so much money in Oz and NZ, it's time for some of these prices.

For late afternoon we went to our hotel pool; on the ROOF!  Again, we are paying £15 a night and the hotel is on the main road, it's somehow sound proof so quiet and it's got a fricking pool on the roof.

So now after an hours rest we are off out to the food markets and some drinks on Khaosan Road.