A Grand Palace day out.

When I got downstairs I was greeted by my guide for the day. Her name was Nancy a middle aged Chinese woman. She asked me if I was Mr Walker. I said yes and she showed me to my car. I also had a driver all of my own for the day. This isn't bad for a freebie I thought. They treat you well when you book into somewhere nice.

As we drove through Bangkok Nancy answered all my questions about the city. For example did you know that Thai people have a lucky colour for each day of the week. On Mondays it is Yellow. Anyway, I was sure her name wasn't Nancy so when she asked what my first name was I said the first thing that came into my head. "Spok" I replied. It seemed like the logical thing to do. I'm quite used to the Thai people calling me Mr Garry. I find it quite endearing. When she started calling me Mr Spok I almost pissed myself with laughter. She wasn't too sure what was so funny and I composed myself as we made our way down to the canals.

We hired a boat and I was taken around the floating markets. Mondays aren't a good day for floating markets apparently. I bought myself a bottle of coke and a loaf of bread to feed the catfish and that was it. The catfish all congregate around the riverside temples as fishing is forbidden there. Smart fish eh? Some are up to a metre long. The river is a nasty green colour and smells bad, sounds like one of my fish tanks.

When that was finished and I had returned to dry land I made my way to the grand palace. Its a series of temples and palaces used throughout the ages by the Thai monarchy. It was all very pretty but once you've seen one temple you've seen them all. For 2 hours Nancy told me about kings I had never heard of and wars that I didn't know had ever happened. The one highlight was the scale model of Angkor Wat (apparently Cambodia was a part of Thailand till the French stole it). I'd been very intent on seeing Cambodia but circumstances dictated otherwise. Eventually very hot and bothered I asked Nancy to take me somewhere cooler. We ended up in a jewellery shop - argh! She said it was a good place to look. I said only because you get paid for it. She confessed that she did and asked if I would visit one more before we continued. Fair enough I thought. Its not like I have anything better to do. Three jewellery shops later I was getting bored and I asked Nancy if she would take me to buy a suit for work. We tried three places and I eventually managed to beat an Indian man named Raj down to 50 pounds per tailored cashmere wool suit - that's Matalan prices! I took two. The cloth said it was made in Italy. I suspect that isn't true but it felt great anyway. They have retained my measurements and say they can FedEx new ones to me for 20 pounds in the future. Happy days - I must remember not to get any fatter. I've been measured up and have to return tomorrow for fitting. I also decided to have 5 shirts tailor made at a cost of 10 pounds each. Apparently they are made from Egyptian cotton - which I'm told is good - again it felt nice. I think I'm going to have to throw away a pair of shoes to stay under the weight limit. Although on my return I will try and put all the heavy stuff in my hand luggage.

From there it was off to the MBK centre to buy a cracked PSP. Its a games machine and games normally cost 30 pounds each. I have got over 200 games for it and now have the technology to crack PSP's a business which were it not illegal in the UK I'm would be very very profitable. Not that I'd ever do anything like that :-)

Tomorrow I'm off to the infamous River Kwai by train and then to the tiger temple in the afternoon before coming back for my fitting. Fun fun fun.