Lady C's Thailand

[Seagull]

The promised new thread from Seagull starts here!

Not trip reports, but all sorts of bits and pieces and hopefully regular posting of my images past and furure to please our Captain, to whom the thread is naturally dedicated.

For the next few days while we are still surrounded by festive decorations, I'm going to feature those outside Central World shopping mall in Bangkok.

[Sterkoder]

Nice start. Hope it's more than one picture
Happy New Year to you and all the rest here at CVF

[Seagull]

Right now as I type this it is New Year in Thailand!

Next photo tomorrow! (GMT)

[Seagull]

Your Thai Treat #2 and for the next few days - more decorations at Central World...

[Seagull]

[Seagull]

The red-clad, character looking so cosy in his hood in yesterday's post, appealed to me because he reminded me of Sea Troll's pixie ancester! The appeal of today's festive photo needs no such explanation, and somehow I don't think I'll be the only one to like this snowball and playful penguins!

[pakarang]

Great start! Naturally, it may not be anyone's surprise that I know I will love this thread!

The characters in picture of post 4 looks very much like the figures in a game on my phone called Samorost....

[Seagull]

As the time has come to put away festive decorations for another year, today's photo is one last look at the Thai Airways contribution to those decorations at Central World - this view featuring the Northern hemisphere wild life, and a plane!

And so with that airline and Bangkok airport in mind, I invite and encourage you all to return to this thread for something VERY SPECIAL tomorrow!

[Seagull]

It is just before dawn in Bangkok. Thai Airways flight TG955 from Oslo is approaching BKK, Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport. In Departures they'll soon start checking-in for the flight TG916 to London Heathrow - me on my way home. Ah well ...Captain and I had been in touch here on the forum and it was clear we would be 'ships that pass in the night' - or rather planes in the morning!

But, ever aware of Bangkok's traffic jams, I had booked at the airport hotel for my final night. I have stayed there incoming or outgoing or sometimes both on all my independently arranged trips to Thailand; one of my favourite airport hotels anywhere with much more to recommend it than 'airport hotel' might imply - excellent restaurants, pool, spa. They'll pick you up from Arrivals and whisk you and your luggage in their shuttle van to Departures, but there is also an underground connecting walkway...

I woke early ...decided ...and ten minutes after getting out of bed and without as much as a coffee, let alone breakfast, I'm watching as the arrivals board display changes to TG955 LANDED.

There is a continuous stream of people thrust into the increasingly chaotic arrivals hall from the overnight flights from Europe at this time of day, but after what seems like ages I'm aware of a family speaking Norwegian, so now I need to concentrate ...focus ...and then suddenly there he is...

"Captain Storli..."
He turns, startled at hearing his name. I realise I have my hands poised for a wai, all proper Thai and ladylike, but he recognises me (despite my hair having turned completely white in the last few years) and I get such a welcoming hug. What a moment, together in Thailand. And so emotional, after all those years of him believing he could never return.

The next few minutes have surely entered The CaptainsVoyage Book of Records as the shortest ever CV Family Meet-up! Perhaps that thought was what suddenly prompted me to desire to capture the moment in a photo. Actually Captain has described a similar situation, expressing my feelings better than I can find adequate words for. Recounting in a recent blog post the meeting with a Thai singer whose music and talent he so admires, he writes that "the absolutely biggest wish was to just get a second to have a photo together to remember this concert forever" and "I was hoping for a picture together but tried not to be disappointed if it didn't turn out to be possible".

So that experience may have been why Pakarang understood, and agreed to take a selfie of us with my mobile phone. And despite any doubts about the unflattering airport lighting, and me totally forgetting how utterly un-photogenic I usually am, it turned out miraculously, memorably wonderful.

And Captain has even allowed me to share it with you all.

[pakarang]

And here I am, thinking that nobody reads my bLOG or other posts - you truly do!

[Seagull]

Never miss a thing Captain! You just don’t always realise...

[Seagull]

Well, that photo could, ...should be a hard act to follow, but it isn’t, and I think Pakarang can probably guess what else I would have wanted to photograph that morning.

[Seagull]

Departing from Suvarnabhumi airport I always pause (and take a photo - here's one I took earlier!) at the huge sculpture depicting the Hindu legend of The Churning of the Milk Ocean. Devas and demons are depicted pulling on the body of the naga serpent, which is coiled around the world mountain, to produce the nectar of immortality.

[Seagull]

Here is the figure of Vishnu in another photo I took a few years ago.

[pakarang]

Wonderful - and you got the story of the depiction very correct!

[Seagull]

Dusit Thani Hotel, Bangkok

The best travel trips need planning, but also an in-the-moment adaptability and spontaneity. I think that's particularly true of Thailand, and probably why it appeals to me so much.

Initially announced dates of events do often change. One of the desired aims of my most recent visit to Bangkok was to stay for a couple of nights at the Dusit Thani Hotel, famous for its iconic 1970s architecture, while I still could - before its closure and demolition. To start with there was some ambiguity as to whether dates quoted were the hotels's closure or the actual start of demolition work. Mention of March later switched to a more definite sounding 16^th April 2018, which being my birthday might have seemed attractive!
But I had been able to make a booking there that fitted in with available flights last November, and, as things worked out with other changing dates, would be in Bangkok during the period when there was a possibility of visiting the Royal Crematorium following the funeral of the late King.

The Dusit Thani hotel was back in the news a week ago, and it now seems the hotel will remain open until next year on January 5^th2019!:-
https://www.bangkokpost.com/business...hani-postponed

If you didn't see the earlier link to the Bangkok Post newspaper, here it is again - well worth a look with many pictures of a group of amateur artists who spent a day making sketches and paintings of the hotel:-
http://www.khaosodenglish.com/featur...shing-bangkok/

I greatly enjoyed my stay, and am going to post some of my photos here over the next few days. Here to start with is a view from Lumpini park - the Dusit Thani is the building in the middle with the spire.

[pakarang]

I still haven't been staying at this hotel yet, but as I also heard about the later closing of the hotel - I think I still have time.

Imagine the last new year on that hotel - surely fully booked by now!

Dust Thani hotel has always been such a sight that I got used to seeing from early years. It's always been there overlooking the surrounding area and me too.

Bangkok was so different back then: no skytrain, an almost abandoned Central World, the big Robinson still open at the Lumphini intersection.... so many memories.