Brief notes from Bangkok
 

We arrived in Bangkok about midnight. Because we arrived at night we couldn't see the full extenet of the flooding. Evidence of the flooding readily visible included cars parked all along the raised expressways, as those flooded out have tried to protect their vehicles.

Our driver, who lives in Ayutthaya, told us the waters there were 3 meters deep. This was one of the areas where they had a period of time with no access to food or clean water. He, like many others, slept at one of the local wats.

It appears that no shuttle boats or water taxis are running yet on the river.

Weather today is beautiful and we are looking forward to spening the day in Bangkok before heading to Burma tomorrow morning.

Welcome back Kathie and Cheryl!

nice to know you arrived safe and sound.

Thanks. We were out shopping today - Cheryl ordered glasses as her favorite place in Siam Paragon. While that area is dry, sandbags are piled high - just in case.

We are at our "home" in Bangkok - the Sheraton Royal Orchid. It is good to see old friends. We will toast to Gpanda tonight in the Towers Lounge - the place where we first met Andy.

I have never seen so litle river traffic! I hope things will be back closer to normal by the time we return here in December.

is there any river overflow into the ROS property??

have fun today... looking forward to following you in burma.

aloha kathie and cheryl, happy to hear you are in bangkok safe and sound, and not wet. lol.

have a good time. btw, hoist one for me for andy.

Kathie ...the big ficus tree where the spirit house is one the river edge (near where you usually get the boat) is where we put some of Andy's ashes, if you really want to feel close to him.
Have fun in Burma

Happy you were able to return to your home-away-from-home despite the flooding, Kathie. Thanks for the on-the-ground report.

I can't imagine how eerie it would feel with no river traffic. Hopefully Cheryl can take some photos?

We are now in the airport headed to Burma. Craig, Cheryl took one photo of the no river traffic. It was eerie.

The ROS did not have any incursion of flood waters. When they remodeled, they raise the level of the terraces so they could withstand much higher river levels. They did, however, close the Garden pool which is technically on land owned by the Portuguese Embassy. I did not go and look at the pool to see if there was flooding in the area.

Have a lovely time in Burma! Did you notice any high water on the river? What about fast current? I know that these were problems when I was in BKK back in October.

I'm leaving for Zurich tomorrow and will be travelling in Europe for about 3 weeks. I'll have my laptop so can keep in touch with everyone here.... and no, I won't do a trip report on the Europe boards!

Carol

I'm at the ROS right now and the garden pool is now open. I didn't see any parked cars on the highway on my way from the airport. There are more people at the hotel than when I came three weeks ago. The river taxis are also now running. However the shuttle boat isn't running unlike during my last stay. There's a shuttle bus to the sky train station.

We'll be back in Bangkok in a few days. I hope the flood waters have receeded and people will be putting their lives back together. I'm glad to hear that the water taxis are running again.

Craig, Cheryl posted a photo of the empty river on our blog site, www.travelindependently.com

I'll report more on Bangkok once we are back there.

We are back in Bangkok. The air seems so clean after Yangon!

Things are more back to normal. Our driver, who is from Ayutthaya, said things are ok there now. That seems hard to believe given how hard hit it was.

Water taxis are running, but there is less river traffic than usual.

Welcome back Kathie! Looking forward to our gtg on Monday. Perhaps you should check with your hotel and see if there are any fireworks this year on the 5th.

And we are looking forward to our gtg, too, Hanuman!

I assumed there would be fireworks, as there were fireworks in past years on the King's Birthday, but I will ask.

We were out and about yesterday and today stimulaitng the Thai economy. There are still lots of sandbags out - getting to the skytrain station from the river requires climbing over sandbags. No sandbags at our hotel, though, unlike our last stay here before Burma. More river traffic today. The Sheraton shuttle boat is running again, as are the water taxis.

We made the trek out to the JT outlet on Soi 93. There is a skytrain stop nearby(Bang Chak), and we walked from the Skytrain to the store. Unfortunately, we didn't find much today. I know the big Jim Thompson sale is soon - next week? - so they are probably saving all the good stuff for that.

Kuranosuke, if you are following this thread, we ate at Lemongrass today. Very yummy.

aloha kathie, glad to hear you and cheryl are having a great trip.

i hope you had the eggplant, one of my favorites.

Sounds like a nice time, Kathie. Wish you would still be in the city in a couple of weeks, as I'll be arriving there on the 19th (late, from HKG). Enjoy your BKK time.

Kuranosuke, of course we had the eggplant!

Carol, one of these days our Bangkok times will overlap again.

Kathie...give our best to Pook. Our visit to BKK was when his house was starting to flood, and he had obvious priorities other than a GTG. We hope the clean up is progressing. We are thinking of him and all the Thai people and the monumental clean up ahead.

Have some good Thai food for us, or maybe a Shingha. When do you start home?