For my last day in Bangkok I left Ella sunning herself by the hotel pool and made off on my own to the amulet market which I'm really glad I went to. It was probably the most Thai experience in Bangkok so far, very very few tourists there but lots of monks buying, well, their amulets! After that I made my way into one of the shopping areas and was in a busy shopping centre when loads of young Thai teenagers started screaming and running down the escalators (I was on the top floor). I thought maybe they'd seen some Thai pop star so myself and a few other farang were left standing around wondering who we were missing, when the shops started to close very quickly and then more and more people started to leg it out of the shopping centre. At this point I went into 'ah, it's a bomb scare' mode (as you do if you've lived in London for any length of time) and got the hell out of there as quickly as I could in the scrum.
Wasn't a bomb scare. Was an earth tremor which apparently had made the roof unstable. I didn't feel a thing or see a thing or have a clue what was going on, but made for the skytrain quite quickly whilst it was still running in case they stopped that (had visions of me being stuck not able to get back to our hotel to get Ella and get to the airport - I haven't posted yet about Bangkok traffic and probably won't bother now but just be known that it's traffic like you have never experienced before. Not just slow - static. For absolutely ages. Apparently there are several hundred new cars registered in Bangkok PER DAY and their roads simply can't cope. Cabs are a no-no unless you are very lucky with the timing of them, ie forget it if it rains, the traffic stands still. The traffic at its best, is a snail's pace. Cabs are very cheap, mind you!).
Anyway. Was all quite a dramatic end to a holiday that's already seen a typhoon and a shark attack (okay, not that).
When I say dramatic end to the holiday, I've obviously yet to get home in one piece!
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