Day 201 - Bangkok.

(continued; if you have not already read the start of this day, go to the the blog below)

So there we were; Julie and Julian in one taxi and Sammy and I in another, both heading for the Baioke Sky Hotel in Bangkok.

It was our taxi driver who really didn't know what he was doing. I fugured from my short aquaintance with downtown Bangkok that things were not right. The taxi started heading down streets that were completely covered in people. In fact at one point he was driving through a market. You've seen the images on movies when a crowd completely mobs a car so that the driver can no longer see the road or where to go. We were going at 2 mph. Sammy started to panick. He absolutely hates crowds and gets very claustrophobic

Eventually the car went down a side alley between 2 stalls, turned another corner and came to a dead end. It was a dead end no wider than the car. There were now people all over the car and the driver was shouting for someone to give him directions. At least that is what I thought he was doing. When the car came to a stop in this obviously impossible dead end Sammy burst into tears. "We're never going to see Mummy again".

By now I was furiously trying to tell the driver that even I had the idea that our hotel was in the other direction. I don't think he undestood a word but he did know that he could progress no further down this street and that I was not happy. I had the momentary thought that this could be a set up for some kind of robbery. A similar thing had happened to me once in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Then we saw someone in a uniform. I'm not sure if he was a police man, security guard or parking warden but he was also very upset with the driver for getting himself in such a pickle. By now cars had appeared behind us that completely cemented us into the dead end. There was no way out. I kept shouting through the open window "Baioke Sky Hotel" and the driver was repeating "Baiyoke, Baiyoke".

We were stuck here for at least 10 minutes. Sammy was crying full time now. I knew that if Julie had got a taxi driver with any sense, who knew where he was going, she would already have arrived at the hotel and would be beginning to wonder why I had not arrived as we had set off before her. The uniformed person, after watching us for some time finally decided that he should help. He started backing up the cars behind us. After much shuffling and a 12 point turn, my driver managed to extract himself from the dead end and head back into the market.

I now had the window open and was hanging out trying to get a glimpse of the tallest building in Bangkok in an attempt to obtain a baring on our destination. Unfortunately the streets were so narrow that I was aforded no view of anything other than the sky. Then the driver spoke: "Hotel, Hotel, Baiyoke, Baiyoke" and stopped the taxi.

At this point I realised what had happened. We were stopped outside a 10 storey hotel called the Baiyoke Hotel. Not the hotel I had booked us into called the Baiyoke Sky Hotel. I pointed this out to the man and he immediately clicked that he had to go to the other Baiyoke Hotel, the one that was 89 storeys high and after another 10 minutes he finally got us there.

Julie was on the pavement outside with Julian. "Where have you been?" was her greeting. She had been waiting 10 minutes and was starting to think the worst.

We recovered from this ordeal, the travel, the heat and the misery of the day by ending up in an amazing room on the 65th floor of this tower hotel. Everything about it was perfect. We ordered room service, as by now we were famished, ate our supper, showered and fell asleep. What a day!