Breaking the traffic laws- are there any?

Bangkok is a bustling city- the traffic here is horrendous. But at least they have tried to do something about the worst of it - travelling in from the airport was reasonably painless on the overhead motorways that have been built since my last visit here twenty years ago. But once you leave them, and go on the city streets for the latter end of your journey- it is a nightmare! Tuk Tuks, a three wheeled motorbike with two passengers in the back, are everywhere, as are taxis. But that is only part of the problem, lorries, overloaded pick-up trucks, motorbikes- millions of them.

Anyway- we're here, and on arrival we discovered that we are some 40 minutes (on a good day!) from the Convention site, even though it is mostly on toll motorways. So we decided not to go to register until the Sunday morning.

I will say little about the convention in this report, as I intend to do a fuller report for Norwest which I will include in another page of the blog.

The hotel we are in, the Twin Towers, is in Chinatown, a quite rundown area in the inner city, with no major  shopping close by, but a lot of the streets are lined with stalls, many selling food, but some selling clothing and the like.

 The Hotel itself is quite good, with a good swimming pool on the 5th floor, and four restaurants, Thai, Japanese, Suki and International. So they can cater for all tastes.

However we will be eating out mostly, and the first evening we joined the British for Supper at the Sheraton, a few blocks away, to which we travelled in a minibus and a taxi from the hotel. What we had not realised is that taxis and TukTuks are about a tenth of the price, but we are quick learners!

It was great catching up with a few people from RIBI that I hadn't seen for years, and although the food was mainly Thai, that I just can't take, we had a great time.

Sunday was mostly taken up with the Convention, the House of Friendship as always is very good, but we had to leave the opening session, which was only moderately good, early to get back to go on a dinner cruise with the guys. They had been allocated the earlier session, while we had the afternoon one.

Getting back to the hotel was a nightmare. I won't bore you with it- but it took us two hours ten minutes from leaving the session to the hotel, two minutes to change, and then in a tuk-tuk to go to the Shangri La hotel from where the boat was to leave. We had 15 minutes to get there, and would have done it, but for the dreaded Bangkok traffic. Despite driving in the wrong lanes, going the wrong way up one way streets, and breaking traffic laws left right and centre, we arrived just in time to see the boat leaving the jetty.

That's life! But the Maitre'D was very good, letting us have a meal in his hotel restaurant instead, an excellent buffet, while we waited for our friends to return.

Day two over- What will tomorrow bring?