Part 2 River Cruise

The following morning we were up bright and early for our cruise down the river on the Manohra Song. The instructions from our tour operator had said that we should make our way to the Marriott hotel for a 10am departure, but when the local rep met us upon our arrival in Bangkok, she said that they normally pick up Peninsula guests from the hotel's own pier and she would phone them and let them know we would be there. This suited us just fine, because it meant an extra hour in bed and not having to transport our luggage from one hotel to the other.

So at 10 o'clock, we were sitting in the shade alongside the Peninsula pier. We'd told the pier master which boat we were waiting for and he said he'd let us know when he saw it coming. After a wait of about half an hour, he finally came over to tell us it was just coming down the river, so we grabbed our case and stood there watching it approach.

As it sailed past, the pier master started waving and blowing his whistle, but to our dismay, the crew simply waved back and carried on going! Panic stations started to set in as we watched it sail off into the distance and thoughts of having to catch a longtail boat to try to catch up with it started to fill my head! The pier master was almost as alarmed as we were and was running around trying to find the phone number for the cruise company to tell them to come back for us, when he suddenly noticed an identical boat approaching.

Panic over - the first boat had been Manohra Song's twin sister, the Manohra Dream and as the Song pulled up to the pier, I managed to get my heart rate back to something approaching normal and visions of Roger Moore tearing round the Bangkok canals in The Man with the Golden Gun slowly faded. The steward showed us to our cabin to dump our bag and then we went back on deck to meet our fellow cruisers, another British couple with 3 young daughters, and enjoy a cool drink as we made our way to our first stop, Wat Arun (Wat is Thai for temple).
Wat Arun is a complete contrast to the lavish gold-adorned temples at the Grand Palace. From a distance, the towers look quite dull and grey, but close up you start to notice the countless pottery shards that make up their decoration. Our guide told us that these were all rescued from wrecked ships that had been transporting pottery from China, but which had run aground off the coast of Thailand.

Next stop was the Royal Barge Museum, where we saw the beautifully decorated boats that the Thai Royal family use for ceremonial occasions. Personally, I don't think I would have made a special trip there if it hadn't been part of our tour, but I suppose if you're particularly interested in boats or the Thai Royals it would be a real highlight.

After lunch, the rest of the afternoon was spent cruising up the river, with a brief stop along the way to feed the fish. I was amazed by the contrasting scenery along the river bank, from traditional Thai stilt houses and temples, to lavish modern villas and industrial areas, including the Singha Beer brewery, where I had to take a photo of the gigantic beer can that adorns its entrance as we sailed past. We eventually moored up for the night at the side of Wat Bang Na and watched the sun setting over the river before dinner.

The next morning we visited Wat Bang Na and made merit with the monks by presenting them with gifts of food and household goods, before continuing on our way to Ayutthaya, Thailand's ancient capital which dates back to the 14th century. We had a guided tour of the preserved ruins, temples and local market, followed by a ride on an elephant. This was a new and rather bizarre experience for me, since the ride took us along the modern city streets and it felt really strange to be sitting on an elephant waiting for a gap in the traffic to cross the road!

We then re-joined our boat and moored up for the night alongside Wat Nivat - yes another temple! There was a kind of marquee affair set up on the other side of the river, with music and the sound of much merry-making coming from it. We wondered if it was a Thai wedding, but our steward told us that they were celebrating the forthcoming ordination of novice monks the following morning. The next morning, I was on deck early (no smoking in the cabins, you see!) and watched the monks being transported over the river to the temple, on what looked like a kind of giant ski lift suspended from wires across the river.

After breakfast, we first visited the temple (this one was a bit different, being built in the style of an English Gothic Church, complete with stained glass windows!) and then crossed the river for a tour of the Summer Palace. I thought the Summer Palace was lovely - much more to my taste than the gaudy Grand Palace! It has lots of open spaces, gardens and lakes and I could well imagine it being a wonderful place to escape the heat of the city in summertime.

Our final stop was the Bang Sai craft village. This is the Queen of Thailand's own special project, where people from all over Thailand come to learn traditional crafts - jewellery-making, painting, wood carving, batik, etc. They then take their newly-found skills home to teach others in their villages and can earn a living making souvenirs for the tourist trade. Back on the boat then, and a leisurely afternoon cruise back to the Peninsula.

The cruise was a big highlight of the holiday for us and I'd definitely recommend it for anyone who's thinking of spending a week or so in Bangkok. The boat was lovely and the crew couldn't do enough for us. The food was amazing, in both quality and sheer quantity - breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner were all freshly prepared on board and I think I must have gained about half a stone in 3 days! We had our own personal guide (the other family had their own guide) who accompanied us around all the different places we visited along the way and her knowledge of Thai history and culture really helped to bring each one alive for us. I've never really been keen on guided tours in the past, but her stories, descriptions and the little songs she sang to us made the trip so much more interesting than if we'd just been wandering around alone, wondering what we were looking at!

After all that culture, our final full day in Bangkok was spent on a grand tour of the shopping malls, gathering more souvenirs and presents, along with a couple of "designer" watches and handbags for me!

Part 3 Krabi & Home

On then to Krabi, for 8 days relaxing by the pool at the Central Krabi Bay Resort. The Central Krabi Bay Resort is a relatively new hotel and we'd read a lot reviews on Trip Advisor before finally deciding to stay there. Some of these weren't altogether positive, with a few complaints of teething problems due to inexperienced staff and the service not quite being what you might expect from a 5* hotel, but the photos on the hotel's website convinced us that the location was so amazing that we'd give it a go and not raise our expectations too high (easier said than done after the fantastic service at the Peninsula and on the Manohra Song!) and I'm so glad we did. I've written a full review of the hotel in the hotel section and you'll gather from that that we liked it a lot!

Apart from lazing around the pool, we did manage to make it into Ao Nang a few times and our visits there managed to convince us (if we needed any convincing that is) that we'd made the right choice of hotel. After descending the wooden walkway, we had to run the gauntlet of the 20 or so massage tents set up on the beach, with their owners all trying to convince us to use their services, and then walk along the promenade till we reached the road into town. After the CKBR's uncrowded beach, which was continually swept and raked, the public beach at Ao Nang looked extremely tatty, crammed full of bodies and hawkers and it was good to know that our little piece of paradise was just a 10 minute walk over the headland.

The main street is lined with shops, bars and restaurants and it reminded me a little of some up and coming Greek resorts back in the 70's and 80's when the locals were opening up businesses on every available patch of land to try and get their share of the tourists' spending money. The restaurants offered amazing value for money though compared to the hotel restaurants and the shops were packed full of bargains and I had a great time haggling for yet more designer rip-offs!

Our only official daytrip during our stay in Krabi was a boat trip to the surrounding islands. We moored up in a cove and spent some time snorkelling amongst the amazing brightly coloured fish, then on to a pretty beach on Phi Phi Leh for another swim. We then sailed around the island to Maya Beach where the film The Beach was shot and it was just like being in the film"¦ if you ignored the hundreds of other tourists who had all taken boat trips at the same time so that they could pretend to be Leonardo Di Caprio!

Next stop was Phi Phi Don which is the island that was totally devastated by the tsunami in 2005. It was easy to see why it had been so badly affected. The island is made up of two hilly areas, joined together by a thin flat strip, where the main town is. When the wave hit, it just swept over the town, completely destroying everything in its path. It was very sad to walk around the newly-built town, knowing what had happened and how many people had been lost that day, but it was encouraging to see just how much had been done and how the surviving islanders seemed to be gradually re-building their town and their lives and trying to put the tragedy behind them.

Our journey home from Thailand was something I'd really rather forget about. Because the old Bangkok airport has now been re-opened for domestic flights, on the day we left there was only one flight from Krabi directly to the new international airport and unfortunately, this meant that we had an 8-hour layover in Bangkok airport. To make matters worse, because we'd arrived there on a domestic flight, we were the wrong side of customs and weren't allowed through until our check-in desk opened 3 hours before departure, so we didn't even have the Duty Free shops to browse around whilst we were waiting :-( Five hours spent landside in an airport is not an experience I wish to repeat in a hurry!

Anyway, it eventually passed and after a brief encounter with a security man, who thought my hairbrush was a dangerous weapon when he saw it on the scanner, we were eventually on our 6-hour flight to Doha. Another change of planes there meant another couple of hours wandering aimlessly around a strange airport whilst waiting for our final flight back home to Manchester. The thing about Doha is that it's a big transit hub, so the vast majority of people there are in the middle of a journey to and from somewhere else, rather than actually staying in Qatar (apart from Qatarman of course!). You'd think that they would want to maximise the revenue for their country by encouraging all these people to spend lots of money in their Duty Free Shops and of course I made a beeline for them as soon as we landed. Like everywhere else, all the goods are priced in the local currency. It was then that I realised that I'd no idea what the currency of Qatar is, let alone what it's worth - same as most of the other people in the place! I'm sure they'd sell a lot more if they just put a few notices up showing the exchange rate between Qatar whatsits and everything else, so that people could actually work out how much things were. Yes, I know I could have tried asking, but 16 hours into a 24 hour journey, I just couldn't be bothered! Oh well, I'll remember to do my homework first next time

Present rate of exchange 7.3 QR for 1pound sterling.Not using the Main Terminal is there no money changer in the terminal???.Being a snob and flying Buisness Class it is a seperate terminal.

Thanks Qatarman (have you got some sort of radar to detect when your name's mentioned by the way?)

I didn't notice an exchange place, but then after 16 hours travelling, I wasn't really thinking straight, so maybe I just missed it
Elaine

sounds like a brilliant holiday Elaine- apart from the journey home. Having had to hang around BKK airport on the way back from Koh Samui, we have decided to always have our last day in Bkk. It makes for a shorter journey home
We loved the Summer Palace too. We didn't really have enough time there though as we were on our way to Ayyuthaya. Interesting to hear about the cruise.
We'll get Krabi some day

Yeah great report. We were on the the Manohra Song a few years back, just a day trip I'm afraid taking in the Grand Palace and Wat Arun with lunch on board...the guides gave us a really excellent tour of the Grand Palace...much better than ones I had done before.

The changes to Ao Nang are quite frightening...when I first visited in 99 it was no where near as developed as it is now...last time I went I found it hard work finding a decent thai restaurant...too much change in Krabi...go before it gets spoilt.

Hi Elaine,
Not really just poped onto the site as I am going to Bangkok on buisness in 2weeks 4yrs since I was there.