Business trips to Taiwan are becoming more frequent as we approach the start date of the project, so much so that I barely seem to be able to fit in the time for other events.
I had a week in Taiwan at the beginning of February and then another trip late February. Flying back to the Philippines was only to go to my accommodation to pick up a case of clean clothes and then back to the airport the following day for a trip to Bangkok for a mates wedding.
I find it hard to look forward to going to Bangkok, principally due to the traffic and nothing seems to work out right for me. It was on a trip to Bangkok back in the early nineties that I ended up with heat-exhaustion, bordering on heatstoke. If you've never suffered from this (I have twice) you'll know how dreadful, not to mention downright dangerous it is. As a consequence, I'm now very careful about exposure to the sun. It's not that I don't go out in the sun but I do recognise the early symptoms and know when to get out of it.
On another occasion I was fined by a traffic cop for not having my seat belt on. Okay, my fault but no ticket/receipt was issued and the money was nothing to do with enforcing the law, only about lining the pocket of the crooked copper. And it's not like it's anything to do with road safety when you can whizz around at high speed in the back of a tuk-tuk with no seat belt.
The last time I went to Bangkok my flight out was cancelled and I ended up having to pay for another flight but going to the other traffic hell-hole of Manila and I'm still waiting for a refund for the cancelled flight.
This time I was supposed to be travelling with a friend but they didn't get their passport back from the British Embassy in time (more about that in another post) so I ended up going by myself. Don't get me wrong, I very much like my own company but I'd rather have been somewhere else other than Bangkok on my Jack Jones. Oh, and to rub salt into my wounds, there was an election going on and the sale and consumption of alcohol was banned for the whole weekend so I couldn't even drown my sorrows.
The principle reason I was in Bangkok was for a wedding party of a mate of mine. I did manage to have a few beers with him and his two mates (male militant trolly dollies for British Airways, believe it or not - it reminded me why I never travel with BA) before the prohibition order kicked in.
The wedding party was on a boat on a river. Great buffet food. Although no beer was supposed to be served, I did managed one Singha.
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| The Happy Couple |
The rest of my time was spent doing more touristy stuff and walking around but once you've done the Grand Palace, the temples, the fleshpots and the canals there isn't that much else to see or do so I was struggling.
I also went to the camera market on the top end of China Town but even this failed to inspire.
On a good point, the food was fabulous and I really like the small portions so that you could eat even more of everything.
However, I can't see me going back for quite some time now.
